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# Universal light quark mass dependence and heavy-light meson spectroscopy

## I Introduction

One of the most promising and least developed areas of hadron spectroscopy is the excited heavy-light (HL) meson. Although at present only a few states of each flavor have been observed future discoveries at $`B`$ factories, CLEOc, HERA, and hadron colliders will surely change this situation. In addition to the ordinary $`q\overline{Q}`$ states we should observe hybrid and possibly multi-quark confined mesons. It is important therefore to reliably predict where the standard HL mesons lie and to explore the close relationship between the $`D,D_s,B`$ and $`B_s`$ families of HL mesons.

A striking observed fact for HL systems is that hyperfine splittings are independent of light quark flavor. For example ref:PDG

$`D_s^{}D_sD^{}D142\mathrm{MeV},`$ (1)
$`B_s^{}B_sB^{}B46\mathrm{MeV}.`$ (2)
This apparent lack of light quark mass dependence in these differences is certainly not that expected in the popular Breit-Fermi type semi-relativistic interaction which is proportional to the inverse product of the quark masses ($`1/m_Qm`$). In the following we show that this is an example of a larger “universal light quark mass dependence” (UMD) ultimately a consequence of relativistic kinematics. We note in passing that the ratio of the above hyperfine differences does however reflect the inverse ratio of the heavy quark masses.

We start by proposing and supporting the concept that all HL energy eigenstates have the same light quark mass dependence and hence all differences containing the same light flavor are independent of light quark mass. We take this as an organizing principle to analyze the various HL systems. In particular we find a functional relation between strange and non-strange light quark masses, $`m_s`$ and $`m_{u,d}`$, and we predict the spectra for the $`D,D_s,B`$, and $`B_s`$ systems. In Sec. II we establish the UMD principle first from experiment, then from a model calculation. We finally exhibit the UMD within a simple potential model. In Sec. III we use UMD to determine the parameters of the relativistic flux tube, a simple but fundamental model. These parameters are the Coulomb constant and the heavy quark masses $`m_c`$ and $`m_b`$. Another application of UMD is given in Sec. IV where from the measured difference $`B_sB`$, a relationship between the constituent quark masses $`m_s`$ and $`m_{u,d}`$ is established. This relationship is also shown to follow from relativistic kinematics alone. In Sec. V we use our results to predict a range of radially and orbitally excited HL mesons.

## II Universal Light Quark Mass Dependence

The HL meson mass $`M`$, in the heavy quark limit, can be defined in terms of the excitation energy $`E`$ and the heavy quark mass $`m_Q`$ as

$$M=m_Q+E.$$
(3)
As we will demonstrate, the meson mass $`M`$ has universal mass dependence on both the heavy quark mass $`m_Q`$ and the light quark mass $`m`$. Up to $`1/m_Q`$ corrections, we may expand $`E`$ as

$$E_{n,\mathrm{}}=E_{n,\mathrm{}}(0)+\beta m^2+\mathrm{},$$
(4)
where the coefficient $`\beta `$ is independent of both the radial number $`n`$ and the angular quantum number $`\mathrm{}`$. We expect the expansion to have only even powers of $`m`$ since $`m`$ only appears quadratically in our model Hamiltonians. The energy differences between different HL excitations is then

$$E_2E_1=E_2(0)E_1(0)+\beta (m_2^2m_1^2)+\mathrm{}.$$
(5)
The excitation energy differences of HL mesons with the same light flavor are independent of the quark mass. We offer three types of evidence for this (UMD) universality.

### II.1 Experimental Data

We select any convenient $`P`$-wave and $`S`$-wave $`D`$ type meson difference ref:PDG . For example,

$$D_1(2422\pm 2\mathrm{MeV})D(1864\pm 0.5\mathrm{MeV})=558\pm 2\mathrm{MeV}.$$
(6)
We now compare this with the corresponding $`D_s`$ difference,

$$D_{s1}(2535\pm 0.5\mathrm{MeV})D_s(1969\pm 1.4\mathrm{MeV})=566\pm 1.5\text{ MeV}.$$
(7)
If UMD is valid, the two differences should be identical. Experimentally they differ by $`8\pm 3`$ MeV which is an accuracy of better than 2%.

Other differences involving $`D^{}`$ and $`D_2`$ give similar results but with slightly larger errors.

### II.2 A dynamical model: the relativistic flux tube

The Relativistic Flux Tube (RFT) (or QCD string) model with spinless quarks has been solved numerically for about a decade ref:asymmetric . For a rigorous derivation and experimental motivation see ref:Reduction . We will not discuss the details of this model here except to emphasize that it is a very realistic model incorporating many of the features of QCD. In addition to the string confinement (with static tension $`a`$) we add a short range interaction $`U(r)=k/r`$. In the heavy quark limit the heavy quark mass appears additively as in Eq. (3) with no $`1/m_Q`$ corrections. The light quark constituent mass is not well known and we will only assume that it is in the range $`0<m<600`$ MeV. The parameters that appear in the RFT model are the string tension $`a`$, the Coulomb constant $`k`$, and the masses of the heavy quark, $`m_Q`$, and the light quark, $`m`$. Since the quarks are spinless in this model we will always compare our model predictions to the spin-averaged data.

In this sub-section we are exploring the properties of the RFT model and not comparing to experimental data so the exact values of the parameters are not important. We use $`a=0.18\mathrm{GeV}^2`$ and $`k=0.5`$ which are in fact reasonable values, as we discuss in the next section. In Fig. 1 we plot the lowest $`S`$ and $`P`$ wave eigenvalues of the excitation energy $`E`$ as a function of the light quark mass $`m`$. The important thing to notice is that the difference $`1P1S`$ is quite constant. This is exactly what is expected under UMD as in Eqs. (4) or (5).

### II.3 A simple analytic result

We show here that UMD is fundamentally a result of relativistic kinematics. Let us consider a simple time-component vector potential model with relativistic kinematics,

$`H\psi `$ $`=`$ $`E\psi ,`$ (8)
$`H`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{\text{p}^2+m^2}+U(r),`$ (9)
where

$$\text{p}^2=p_r^2+L^2/r^2.$$
(10)
An expression of UMD is

$$^2E/L^2m^2=0.$$
(11)
We can demonstrate this to leading order with the Feynman-Hellmann theorem ref:Feynman

$$E/\lambda =H/\lambda ,$$
(12)
where $`\lambda `$ is a system parameter. The desired quantity (11) is then given by

$$^2E/L^2m^2=^2H/L^2m^2.$$
(13)
Expanding about $`L^2=m^2=0`$ we find from (9) that

$$H=p_r+(L^2/r^2+m^2)/(2p_r)+\mathrm{}$$
(14)
which then yields to leading order

$$^2E/L^2m^2=0.$$
(15)
The above demonstration of light quark universality also holds for mesons with two light quark mesons.

The next term in the expansion (14) is a cross term proportional to $`L^2m^2`$, which yields a non-vanishing second derivative (15) that violates UMD. A similar violation using the RFT model can be seen in Fig. 1 and amounts to about 10 MeV for $`m`$ increasing from 300 MeV to 500 MeV. This accounts for the small observed violation of $`8\pm 3`$ MeV noted in Eqs. (6) and (7).

## III The RFT parameters $`a`$, $`k`$, $`m_c`$, $`m_b`$

As we have noted the parameters entering the RFT model are the string tension $`a`$, the Coulomb constant $`k`$, and the two heavy quark masses $`m_c`$ and $`m_b`$. The predictions for excited states will be nearly independent of the light quark mass value but sensitive to the difference between $`m_s`$ and $`m_{u,d}`$.

### III.1 String tension

The universal Regge slope for both mesons and baryons is ref:Barger ,

$$\alpha ^{}=0.88\mathrm{GeV}^2$$
(16)
For a relativistically rotating QCD string, the Nambu-Goto QCD string ref:Nambu  and the RFT model predict the Regge slope to be

$$\alpha ^{}=1/2\pi a,$$
(17)
which yields the string tension,

$$a=0.18\mathrm{GeV}^2.$$
(18)
This value is quite consistent with that obtained from an analysis of heavy onia data alone ref:Jacobs  and we will assume it in our subsequent work.

### III.2 Coulomb constant

Without any assumptions about the quark masses, we can find the Coulomb constant using UMD as an organizing principle. The idea is to compare the model predictions with an experimental $`1P1S`$ HL mass difference. To do this we must know the masses of a pair of spin averaged states. Fortunately, we now have a complete set of states for the $`D_s`$ mesons due to recent $`B`$ factory measurements ref:CLEO  and older data ref:PDG . We find the spin averaged (weighted by angular momentum multiplicity) states to be

$`D_{s,1S}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}D_s^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}D_s=2076\pm 1\mathrm{MeV},`$ (19)
$`D_{s,1P}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{12}}D_{s,0+}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}(D_{s,1+}^{1/2}+D_{s,1+}^{3/2})+{\displaystyle \frac{5}{12}}D_{s,2+}`$ (20)
$`=`$ $`2515\pm 3\text{MeV}.`$
We need the difference

$`D_{s,1P}D_{s,1S}=439\pm 4\mathrm{MeV}.`$ (21)
In Fig. 2 we show the RFT prediction for this difference as a function of the Coulomb constant $`k`$ and we see that the correct value is,

$$k0.52.$$
(22)
### III.3 Heavy quark masses

The heavy quark masses do depend on the choice of light quark mass. In order to agree with the observed $`1S`$ state we must adjust $`m_Q`$ as $`m`$ is varied. The results for the charm and bottom quarks are shown in Figs. 3 and 4.

## IV Relation between the light quark masses

For a given heavy quark, say the $`b`$, the two ground state mesons $`B_s`$ and $`B`$ are expected to differ in mass as given in Eq. (5) since $`\beta `$ is not zero. Experimentally this difference is ref:PDG

$$B_sB=91\pm 1\mathrm{MeV}.$$
(23)
This observation implies a functional relation between the strange and non-strange quark masses. Using the values for $`a`$ and $`k`$ in Eqs. (18) and (22), we exhibit this relation for the RFT model in Fig. 5. We might note that the corresponding charm difference is about 10 MeV larger and reflects a larger heavy quark kinetic energy (i.e., a $`1/m_Q`$ correction). Finally, we might comment that this relation between quark masses again arises primarily from relativistic kinematics. The relation

$$\sqrt{p_0^2+m_s^2}\sqrt{p_0^2+m_{u,d}^2}=91\mathrm{MeV}$$
(24)
follows from the simple Hamiltonian (9). With the choice $`p_0^2=0.4`$ GeV2 as the average square momentum, the implicit relationship of Eq. (24) parallels that of the more realistic RFT nicely and is depicted on Fig. 5 by the dashed curve. We also include the solutions for the light quark constituent masses obtained from analyses of hyperon magnetic moments. We note that these “hyperon” values of the light quark masses fall close to our curve.

## V Predictions for the heavy-light spectra

Now that the parameters of the RFT model have been fixed, we can make a range of predictions. We note that we have required only the $`S`$-wave spin averaged ground states for the charm and bottom states, and one spin averaged $`P`$-wave multiplet (in our case the $`D_s`$). The predictions are then unique and independent of specific choices of the light quark masses. In Figs. 6 to 9 we present our predictions for the $`D,D_s,B`$, and $`B_s`$ flavor families. In each case we predict up to five radial and five angular states. As we expect from UMD, the predictions are nearly unique. If the light quark mass is varied over a 200 MeV range, the predictions for the excited states vary by less than 10 MeV, which would be difficult to see on the figures. In Table 1 we provide the numerical predictions for the spin-averaged states assuming $`m_{u,d}=300`$ MeV and $`m_s=500`$ MeV.

## VI Conclusions

We have approached the subject of heavy-light meson spectroscopy by introducing a new principle which we call “universal light quark mass dependence” (UMD). The idea is that the energies of all orbitally and radially excited states vary in the same way as the light quark mass is varied. This proposal is supported in Sec. II by experimental evidence, numerical calculations using a realistic theoretical model, and finally by analytic demonstration using a simple but relativistic potential model. This universality observation makes the analysis of heavy-light mesons transparent and considerably simpler. We further note that the measured $`B_sB`$ difference implies a functional relation between the strange and non-strange light quark masses which is consistent with the well known quark model of the hyperon magnetic moments ref:PDG ; ref:Franklin . From only the $`S`$-wave states and one spin-averaged $`P`$-wave state, the $`D_s`$, we can reliably predict the $`D`$, $`D_s`$, $`B`$, and $`B_s`$ excited spectrum. It should be noted that our predictions are for the spin-averaged states and that we assumed that the heavy-light assumption is valid. There are some small discrepancies in the data when thought of in the heavy-light limit. For example $`D_sD`$ is about 10 percent larger (10 MeV) than the corresponding difference $`B_sB`$. This is probably due to $`1/m_Q`$ corrections to heavy quark symmetry. Another topic for future investigation is the breakdown of the heavy-light approximation for highly excited states.

## Acknowledgment

This work was supported in part by the US Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02-95ER40896.


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# 1 Mass spectrum. The supermultiplets (irreps of U(2,2/4)) are labelled by the integer 𝑝. Note that the doubleton (𝑝=1) does not appear in the spectrum. The (𝑎,𝑏,𝑐) representation of 𝑆𝑈(4) has dimension (𝑎+1)(𝑏+1)(𝑐+1)(𝑎+𝑏+2)(𝑏+𝑐+2)(𝑎+𝑏+𝑐+3)/12, and a subscript 𝑐 indicates that the representation is complex. (Spinors are four component Dirac spinors in 𝐴𝑑𝑆₅).

The correspondence between $`𝒩=4`$ Super-Yang-Mills Theory and Type IIB Supergravity/String Theory  has been of considerable importance in shedding light on both theories. Most of the work that has been done to date has focussed on the large-$`N`$ limit of the SYM theory, largely because the calculation of string loops on the AdS background is not well understood. However, many important subleading order effects in the large-$`N`$ expansion correspond to Supergravity loops and can be calculated. An example of this is the Weyl anomaly, which receives contributions at one loop from all of the Kaluza-Klein modes of Supergravity .

Loop effects in supergravity also renormalise the boundary wave-functional, which according to the correspondence is identified with the partition function of the boundary theory. But the finiteness of the boundary theory leads us to expect that such renormalisations should disappear when the full theory is taken into account.

The purpose of this letter is to demonstrate this cancellation of divergences for the contributions of bulk supergravity fields to the renormalisation of the boundary Newton and cosmological constants. When we sum over all the Kaluza-Klein modes of Type IIB Supergravity compactified on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$ the contributions to the renormalisation cancel, so that no renormalisation is needed when all the bulk modes are taken into account.

The way in which this cancellation happens is significant. For Ricci-flat boundaries the bulk metric is unaffected by introducing boundary curvature and the cancellation happens within supermultiplets. For non-Ricci flat boundaries the bulk metric acquires an extra factor (though the bulk metric satisfies the same Einstein equations) and the cancellation requires an analytic regularisation of the infinite sum over Kaluza-Klein modes. The latter case demonstrates that it is insufficient to consider only the consistent truncation to the massless multiplet of Type IIB Supergravity. So, for example, for a non-Ricci flat boundary, the calculation of the anomaly  to the truncated spectrum of  fails to produce the expected subleading correction to the coefficient $`c`$ for the infra-red fixed point of the RG flow driven by adding certain mass terms to the $`𝒩=4`$ Super-Yang-Mills theory to break the supersymmetry down to $`𝒩=1`$. For a Ricci-flat boundary, however, the truncated spectrum gives the correct result .

We expect that other renormalisations due to bulk interactions cancel in a similar way to the cancellations that we describe here.

The bulk $`AdS_5`$ metric giving a general Einstein metric $`\widehat{g}`$ on the boundary is

$$ds^2=G_{\mu \nu }dX^\mu dX^\nu =dr^2+z^2\mathrm{\yen }e^\rho \widehat{g}_{ij}(x)dx^idx^j,e^{\rho /2}=1Cz^2,C=\frac{l^2\widehat{R}}{48}z=\mathrm{exp}(r/l),$$
(1)
and a regularisation is introduced by putting the boundary at $`z=\tau =\mathrm{exp}(r_0/l)`$. Consider a scalar field of mass $`m`$ propagating in this metric; it has the action

$`S_\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle d^5X\sqrt{G}\left(G^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi +m^2\varphi ^2\right)}`$ (2)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d^4xdr}{z^4}\sqrt{\widehat{g}}e^{2\rho }\left(\dot{\varphi }^2+z^2e^\rho \widehat{g}^{ij}_i\varphi _j\varphi +m^2\varphi ^2\right)},`$
with the dot denoting differentiation with respect to $`r`$. The norm on fluctuations of the field from which the functional integral volume element can be constructed is

$$\delta \varphi ^2=d^5X\sqrt{G}\delta \varphi ^2=\frac{d^4xdr}{z^4}\sqrt{\widehat{g}}e^{2\rho }\delta \varphi ^2,$$
(3)
and it is convenient to redefine the field by setting $`\varphi =z^2e^\rho \phi `$ to make the ‘kinetic’ term in the action into the standard form. The action becomes

$$S_\varphi =\frac{1}{2}d^4x𝑑r\sqrt{\widehat{g}}\left(\dot{\phi }^2+z^2e^\rho \phi \left(\mathrm{}+\frac{\widehat{R}}{6}\right)\phi +\left(m^2+\frac{4}{l^2}\right)\phi ^2\right),$$
(4)
where we discarded a boundary term that is eventually sent to zero by wave-function renormalisation . According to the AdS/CFT correspondence the boundary partition function is

$$\mathrm{\Psi }=𝒟\phi e^{S_\phi }|_{\phi (r=r_0)=\widehat{\phi }}e^{W[\widehat{\phi },\widehat{g}]}W[\widehat{\phi }]=F+\frac{1}{2}d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{g}}\widehat{\phi }\mathrm{\Gamma }\widehat{\phi },$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is a differential operator and $`F`$ is the free energy of the scalar field. This satisfies a functional Schrödinger equation that can be read off from the action

$$\frac{}{r_0}\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{g}}\left\{\widehat{g}^1\frac{\delta ^2}{\delta \phi ^2}+\tau ^2e^\rho \phi \left(\mathrm{}+\frac{\widehat{R}}{6}\right)\phi +\left(m^2+\frac{4}{l^2}\right)\phi ^2\right\}\mathrm{\Psi }.$$
(6)
which implies that

$$\frac{}{r_0}\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }^2\tau ^2e^\rho \left(\mathrm{}+\frac{\widehat{R}}{6}\right)\left(m^2+\frac{4}{l^2}\right),\frac{}{r_0}F=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Gamma }.$$
(7)
We can solve for $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ in powers of the differential operator by expanding

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}b_n(r_0)\left(\mathrm{}+\widehat{R}/6\right)^n,$$
(8)
so that

$$b_0=\sqrt{m^2+\frac{4}{l^2}},$$
(9)
(we take the minus sign to give a normalisable wave-functional). The other coefficients in (8) vanish as the cut-off, $`r_0`$ is taken to $`\mathrm{}`$.

The free energy can be regulated with a Seeley-de Witt expansion of the heat-kernel

$$\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{\Gamma }=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}b_n(r_0)\left(\frac{}{s}\right)^n\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{exp}\left(s\left(\mathrm{}+\widehat{R}/6\right)\right)$$
(10)
$$\mathrm{Tr}\mathrm{exp}\left(s\left(\mathrm{}+\widehat{R}/6\right)\right)=d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{g}}\frac{1}{16\pi ^2s^2}\left(a_0+sa_1(x)+s^2a_2(x)+s^3a_3(x)+\mathrm{}\right)$$
(11)
where to remove the regulator we take the proper-time separation $`s`$ to zero, and $`r_0\mathrm{}`$. The only surviving contributions come from $`a_0`$, $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$. The $`a_2`$ contribution is finite and determines the Weyl anomaly , but the $`a_0`$ and $`a_1`$ contributions diverge and renormalise the boundary cosmological and Newton’s constants respectively.

Now we derived the Schrödinger equation for a scalar field, but with a little work, we can find a similar equation for all the fields of Supergravity, with the coefficients appearing in (11) being the appropriate coefficients for a conformal field of the appropriate spin. Details of this will be given in . It makes sense to consider the same proper-time separation for all the fields (this is inevitable if we rewrite (11) in a superfield formalism) and so it makes sense to sum over the $`a_0`$ and $`a_1`$ coefficients of all the fields in the bulk spectrum, in order to determine the overall renormalisation.

The divergent coefficients of $`a_0`$ and $`a_1`$ are proportional to $`\sqrt{l^2m^2+4}=\mathrm{\Delta }2`$. In Table 1 we list the values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }2`$ for the fields in the bulk spectrum, originally worked out in . The multiplets are labelled by an integer $`p2`$ and live in representations of $`SU(4)`$. The $`a_0`$ coefficients are given by $`(1)^{2\sigma }\mathrm{Tr1}`$ where $`\sigma `$ is the spin of the field. As a result, cancellation within supermultiplets is guaranteed by the presence of equal numbers of bosonic and fermionic modes.

The $`a_1`$ coefficients are given by $`\frac{1}{6}R\mathrm{Tr1}\mathrm{Tr}E`$, where $`^2E`$ is the operator associated with the conformally coupled six-dimensional field (this is the operator appearing in the heat-kernel). For a conformally coupled scalar, fermion and gauge-fixed vector field this gives $`a_1=0,`$ $`\widehat{R}/3`$, and $`2\widehat{R}/3`$ respectively.

If we sum the coefficient of $`a_1`$ over all the fields of the theory, the contribution to (11) can be written as

$$d^4x\sqrt{\widehat{g}}\frac{1}{16\pi ^2s}\underset{p}{}(\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_1(x),$$
(12)
and denoting the values of $`a_1`$ for the fields $`\varphi `$, $`\psi `$, $`A_\mu `$, $`A_{\mu \nu }`$, $`\psi _\mu `$, $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ by $`s,f,v,a,r,`$ and $`g`$ respectively we have

$`\left({\displaystyle (\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_1}\right)_{p4}`$ $`=`$ $`(4s+4a+r+f+2v){\displaystyle \frac{p}{3}}+`$
$`(105sg26a8r72f48v){\displaystyle \frac{p^3}{12}}`$ $`+`$ $`(16v+20f+10a+4r+25s+g){\displaystyle \frac{p^5}{12}}`$ (13)
whilst for the $`p=3`$ multiplet we have

$$\left((\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_1\right)_{p=3}=244f+18g+266s+218v+148a+64r.$$
(14)
The $`p=2`$ multiplet contains gauge fields requiring the introduction of Faddeev-Popov ghosts, whose parameters are listed in Table 2. This gives

$$\left((\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_1\right)_{p=2}=12v6s+6r+6f+2g+12a$$
(15)
We have to deal with the sum over multiplets labelled by $`p`$. We will evaluate this divergent sum by weighting the contribution of each supermultiplet by $`z^p`$. The sum can be performed for $`|z|<1`$, and we take the result to be a regularisation of the weighted sum for all values of $`z`$. Multiplying this by $`1/(z1)`$ and integrating around the pole at $`z=1`$ gives a regularisation of the original divergent sum. This yields

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_1=8s+4f+2v$$
(16)
which remarkably depends only on the heat-kernel coefficients of fields in the Super-Yang-Mills theory. By decomposing a five-dimensional vector into longitudinal and transverse pieces and solving the Schrödinger equation for them, it can be seen that the heat-kernel coefficient for a vector field, $`v`$, is related to that for a four-dimensional gauge-fixed Maxwell field, $`v_0`$, as $`v=v_0+2s2s_0`$ where $`s_0`$ is the coefficient for a minimally coupled four-dimensional scalar (Faddeev-Popov ghost), showing $`v2s=v_02s_0=g_v`$ . If we substitute the values for the $`a_1`$ coefficients we see that the sum (16) vanishes, so that there is no overall renormalisation of the boundary Newton’s constant.

As emphasised earlier other renormalisations arising from interactions of bulk Supergravity fields should follow a similar pattern. If the boundary is taken to be Ricci-flat, we expect to observe a cancellation within supermultiplets, whereas if the boundary is non-Ricci flat we would need an additional regularisation of the sum over Kaluza-Klein modes such as we have made use of here.


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# Percolative conductivity in alkaline earth silicate melts and glasses

## Abstract

Ion conducting $`(CaO)_x(SiO_2)_{1x}`$ glasses and melts show a threshold behaviour in dc conductivity near $`x=x_t=0.50`$, with conductivities increasing linearly at $`x>x_t`$. We show that the behaviour can be traced to a rigid ($`x<0.50`$) to floppy ($`x>0.50`$) elastic phase transition near $`x=x_t`$. In the floppy phase, conductivity enhancement is traced to increased mobility or diffusion of $`Ca^{2+}`$ carriers as the modified network elastically softens.

Pacs: 61.43Fs-62.20.-x

Electrical and thermal properties are directly related to the structure of silicate melts and investigations into their structure have received therefore considerable attention in earth science. It is indeed of fundamental importance to understand how magmas which contain alkali and alkaline earth silicates behave under different physical circumstances. Alkali silicate glasses have been extensively studied within this context and numerous articles have focused on the variation of structure, conductivity, glass transition, etc. with respect to the alkali concentration. On the other hand, a small number of studies on alkaline earth silicate glasses have been reported to date. Some of them, however, have focused either on the structure of glasses containing barium and calcium silicates, or on the thermodynamics and miscibility of the corresponding melts and density or specific volume. It is worth mentioning that most of these studies have been restricted around the $`50\%`$ concentration of alkaline earth oxide where glass-forming tendency (GFT) is optimized. Finally, even though most of the fast ionic conductors (FIC) having potential applications in electrochemical devices such as solid state batteries are alkali (or silver) silicates or thiosilicates, the conductivity of alkaline earth silicates is non-negligible \[about $`2.10^7\mathrm{\Omega }^1.cm^1`$ at $`550^oC`$\] and the role of the migrating calcium cations remains to be completely understood. Our work attempts to address for the first time this basic issue.

In this Letter, we report on $`(CaO)_x(SiO_2)_{1x}`$ glasses and the common physical origin for the behavior in both the GFT and the conductivity data that follow directly from the Phillips-Thorpe constraint theory. Calcium silicate melts and glasses near $`x=0.5`$ are optimally constrained and display percolative conduction in both melts and glasses. This is a new feature that has never been observed in the corresponding alkali silicates, which links ionic conductivity to glass elasticity and structure. Furthermore, we show that the sudden increase of the conductivity at high calcium concentration has to be a consequence of the calcium cation mobility percolation arising from the floppy to rigid transition. The major consequence is that here the carrier concentration does not dominate the conductivity, as usually reported.

The samples were prepared by mixing pre-dried $`SiO_2`$ (99.99 $`\%`$) and $`CaCO_3`$ (99.95 $`\%`$) powders in the correct proportions. For each sample, the mixture was melted in a platinum crucible at $`1650^o`$C for two hours, and quenched by plunging the bottom of the crucible in cold water. The glass transition temperatures were determined with a differential scanning calorimeter Setaram DSC-1600 at a heating rate $`10^oC/min`$. These values are slightly larger than those reported by Shelby using the dilatometric technique but they exhibit the same global trend (fig. 1), i.e. a plateau up to a Calcium concentration in the range \[0.45-0.48\] and a more or less linear increase for higher concentrations. In the solid state, the complex electrical conductivity was measured with an impedance spectrometer 4194A in the temperature range $`500^oC950^oC`$ and in the frequency range 100 Hz-10 MHz. The samples were $`0.5cm^2`$ glass pellets with a thickness about $`1mm`$. Platinum was evaporated as electrodes on both faces of the pellet. The temperature was measured with a Pt/Pt-$`10\%`$Rh thermocouple located at about $`1mm`$ from the sample. We restricted our study in the molten state to only three compositions.

The dc conductivity $`\sigma `$ displays almost the same trend as $`T_g(x)`$, with a very small value (about $`10^7\mathrm{\Omega }^1.cm^1`$) for $`x<0.47`$ and a sudden increase for larger compositions. The almost constant value of $`\sigma `$ in the low calcium region and the sudden increase for $`x>0.47`$ has been also obtained in simulations and experiments for the molten state (fig. 2, insert), suggesting that molten and glassy state behave similarly. Furthermore, we have observed the same kind of trend in our molten samples (see fig. 3, below) which are almost at the same temperatures than those of Ref. . Figure 3 shows the Arrhenius plots \[$`\sigma T=\sigma _0\mathrm{exp}[E_A/k_BT]`$\] of the conductivity $`\sigma `$ for the glassy and the molten state. From the latter, it is also obvious that the conductivity data of three compositions in the $`x0.50`$ range map onto each other and have the same global trend in the glass.

These results can be quantitatively understood using the tools of Lagrangian bonding constraints as introduced by Phillips. A network constrained by bond-stretching and bond-bending forces sits indeed at a mechanically critical point when the number of constraints per atom $`n_c`$ equals the network dimensionality. At this point, glass optimum is attained and GFT is enhanced. These ideas can be cast in terms of percolation theory by evaluating the number of zero frequency modes (floppy modes $`F/N`$) from a dynamical matrix, which vanish at the floppy to rigid transition. The very accurate agreement of experiments in chalcogenides with the predictions of the theory is quite remarquable but further investigations devoted to alkali oxide glasses have been performed only recently.

We consider the $`CaOSiO_2`$ system as a network of $`N`$ atoms composed of $`n_r`$ atoms that are $`r`$ fold coordinated. Enumeration of mechanical constraints gives for bond-stretching forces $`r/2`$ and for bond-bending forces $`(2r3)`$ constraints. The average number of floppy modes per atom $`F/N`$ in a three-dimensional network is given by:

$`F/N`$ $`=`$ $`n_dn_c=3{\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{r2}{}}n_r({\displaystyle \frac{5r}{2}}3)`$ (1)
which applied to the present $`(CaO)_x(SiO_2)_{1x}`$ case, yields:

$`F/N`$ $`=`$ $`3{\displaystyle \frac{117x}{3x}}`$ (2)
provided that $`Si`$ is four-folded and calcium and oxygen are two-fold coordinated. The coordination number used in equ. (2) for $`Ca`$ desserves some comments since computer simulations and EXAFS studies have suggested that the number of nearest neighbors of the calcium atom may be about 6. However, Debye-Waller factor in these studies on combined systems using either $`BaO`$ or $`CaO`$ as network modifier are slightly different, suggesting that the oxygen neighbors of $`Ca`$ were not all equivalent thus promoting the chemical hypothesis for the coordination number of Ca ($`r=2`$). On the other hand, in constraint theory one deals only with the bonds that provide a strong mechanical constraint, which means that the covalent bonds are the most qualified. To be more specific, one can use Pauling’s definition to determine the fractional ionic character $`f`$ in the Ca-O bond, which yields here the value $`f=0.774`$ and a corresponding covalency factor of 0.226. With a coordination of 6 for $`Ca`$, the corresponding covalent coordination is $`1.36`$, somewhat lower than $`2`$. Furthermore, mechanical constraints provided by alkali atoms connected to more than one oxygen have been suggested to be only resonating constraints, which do not participate in the global counting. Finally, alkali silicate and tellurate glasses are illustrative precedents. In these systems, the floppy to rigid transition occurs at the expected critical concentration only if the involved atoms (Na) have a covalent coordination number of $`1`$ (and the “Pauling¨ analysis yields the covalent coordination $`0.8321.04`$), even though the number of nearest neighbors of the sodium atom is believed to be 5.

Our interpretation of the dc conductivity is as follows. At $`x=x_c=0.5`$, the number of floppy modes $`F/N`$ vanishes and the network undergoes a rigid to floppy transition, following equ. (2). For $`x<0.5`$ the system is stressed rigid, i.e. there are more constraints than degrees of freedom. As a consequence, the mobility of the calcium cation is very weak because the cation has to overcome a strong mechanical deformation energy to move from one anionic site to another. In an ideal floppy glass at $`x>0.5`$ where only bond-bending and bond-stretching forces are considered this deformation energy is zero and related elastic constants ($`c_{11}`$, $`c_{44}`$) vanish. Therefore, percolation of floppiness equals percolation of $`Ca`$ mobility. As a result, one has a substantial increase of the mobility hence of the conductivity. In the strong electrolyte Anderson-Stuart model, the activation energy for conductivity $`E_A=E_C+E_m`$ depends on the Coulombic term $`E_C`$ (which controls the carrier rate) and a strain term $`E_m`$ related to the mobility that can be thought as the energy required to enlarge the radius of an anionic site of length $`l(x)`$ by an amount $`\delta r`$, the latter quantity being roughly equal to the cation radius:

$`E_m(x)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\pi c_{44}(x)l(x)(\delta r)^2`$ (3)
The energy term $`E_m(x)`$ depends on the shear modulus $`c_{44}(x)`$ which in turn depends on the Ca concentration. In a floppy model network, the shear modulus $`c_{44}(x)`$ is zero leading to a zero value for the strain energy $`E_m(x)`$ and a maximum in mobility.

Additional support for our interpretation derives from two other observations: (1) In the molten $`(CaO)_x(SiO_2)_{1x}`$, we still observe an increase in conductivity with $`x`$ but with values which are substantially higher compared to the glass (fig. 3) and which can be fitted with a Vogel-Fulcher-Tamman (VFT) law:

$`\sigma T=Aexp[\mathrm{\Delta }/(TT_0)]`$ (4)
arising from the variation in temperature of the calcium diffusion constant (via the Nernst-Einstein equation). From the fits (solid lines in insert of fig. 3) it appears that the pseudo-activation energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is constant for the two values in the floppy region ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=2733.0`$ and $`2740.7K`$ for respectively $`x=0.44`$ and $`x=0.5`$) while it increases for the composition $`x=0.53`$ ($`\mathrm{\Delta }=3008K`$). Also, the VFT temperature $`T_0`$ at which the diffusion constant (and the underlying relaxation time towards thermal equilibrium) diverges is dynamically inaccessible during glass transition, but it is accepted that its value is close to the ideal Kauzmann glass transition temperature $`T_K`$. An ideal glass would therefore have its $`T_g`$ close to $`T_K`$ and $`T_0`$, a situation which is met in the present system for the Phillips’ optimal glass composition $`x=0.5`$ ($`T_g/T_0=1.0002`$ compared to $`T_g/T_0=1.0218`$ for $`x=0.44`$ and $`T_g/T_0=1.0621`$ for $`x=0.53`$).

In fig. 4 are represented the Arrhenius activation energy $`E_A`$ for conductivity and the preexponential factor $`\sigma _0`$ as a function of the mean coordination number of the network which is $`\overline{r}=(84x)/(3x)`$. The former displays a minimum at $`\overline{r}=2.4`$ which corresponds to $`x=0.5`$.

This in turn can be compared to the non-reversing heat flow extracted from complex calorimetric measurements at the glass transition temperature for various chalcogenide systems. Here, this relaxing part of the total heat flow exhibits always a minimum at the floppy to rigid transition (close to the mean-field value $`\overline{r}=2.4`$). The same global trend is observed in numerous chalcogenides, and our calcium silicate glasses exhibit also a minimum in $`E_A`$ at the mean coordination number $`\overline{r}=2.4`$. From the chalcogenide example, we suggest that when $`x=0.5`$ structural relaxation of the glass network proceeds with minimal enthalpic changes because the minuscule network stress is uniformly spread when the network is mechanically critical (i.e. F/N=0). Furthermore, we note that the variation of $`\sigma `$ is here not driven by the compositional trends of $`\sigma _0`$. It appears to be rather a balance between the variation of $`E_A`$ and $`\sigma _0`$. (2) Rigidity percolation thresholds in Micro-Raman measurements performed in backscattering geometry have been reported in Ref. . Therefore, we have studied in the present work as a function of the Ca concentration the frequency $`\nu `$ and the linewidth $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ of the stressed rigid $`SiO_{4/2}`$ ($`Q^4`$ unit, where the superscript denotes the number of network bridging oxygens)). The corresponding line ($`A_1`$ stretching mode) exhibits a change of regime (fig. 5) for the line frequency at the concentration $`x=0.50`$, consistently with chalcogen analogs. We concentrate here only on this (stressed rigid) line and will report separately the complete Raman analysis elsewhere. On the other hand, the evolution of the linewidth $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ with $`x`$ permits to follow the local environnement of the $`Q^4`$ unit. For $`x<0.50`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ remains constant, related to the absence of change in the coupling of this unit with the rest of the network. It is the coupling which makes possible the presence of rigid regions (through isostatic $`Q^4Q^3`$ and stressed $`Q^4Q^4`$ bondings) although the number of floppy $`Q^2`$ and $`Q^1`$ units is steadily increasing. Above the critical concentration $`x=0.5`$, the sharp drop of $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ clearly shows decoupling of the $`Q^4`$ unit with respect to the network (fig. 5), signifying decoupling of stressed rigid regions thus percolation of floppiness.

In FICs, it is often believed that it is the carrier concentration that dominates the conductivity. In the strong electrolyte model, the cation electostatic Coulombic energy barrier has to be overcome to ensure conduction. On the other hand, in the weak electolyte model a dissociation energy is needed to create the mobile carrier. These two pictures remain of course valid as long as the sizes of the cations is weak compared to the interstices of the glass network.

Our conclusion brings us back to the analogy with alkali oxide FIC’s and the popular conductivity channel picture. In these glasses, the rigid to floppy transition occurs at the concentration $`x_c=0.20`$ which is very close to the reported threshold concentration separating intrachannel cation hopping (involving a weak mechanical deformation of the network, since the motion occurs only in macroscopic holes of the network) from network hopping (strong mechanical deformation only possible in a floppy network). However, in alkali silicates, no typical behavior emerges in compositional trends of the conductivity because of the growing contribution of the free carrier rate. This has to be put in contrast with our present study on calcium silicates where the conductivity is almost constant up to a critical value $`x_c0.48`$ beyond which $`\sigma `$ steadily increases. Therefore, the free carrier concentration cannot be considered as an increasing function of alkaline earth composition. We believe that conductivity in calcium silicates is driven by the carrier mobility in the network and percolates at the rigid to floppy transition. On this system, further investigations and measurements of physical quantities displaying usually a threshold behavior at the rigidity transition will be achieved in close future.

LPTL is Unité Mixte de Recherche n. 7600. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help of Boris Robert during the course of this work.


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# An improved RF cavity search for halo axions

## I Introduction

The axion is the pseudo-Goldstone boson Weinberg (1978); Wilczek (1978) implied by the Peccei-Quinn solution Peccei and Quinn (1977) to the “strong-CP” problem in QCD (for reviews, see, e.g., Kim (1997); Cheng (1998)). The axion is also a good cold dark matter candidate Preskill et al. (1983); Abbott and Sikivie (1983); Dine and Fischler (1983), and could make a substantial contribution to the nearby galactic halo mass density, estimated to be approximately 0.45 GeV/cm3 Gates et al. (1995). Axions are commonly thought to be thermalized, with energy virial width $`O(10^6)`$ Turner (1990), and may be detected by the Sikivie RF cavity technique Sikivie (1983). This paper describes new results from an ongoing RF cavity search by the ADMX (Axion Dark Matter eXperiment) Collaboration. We report limits based on predictions for the power $`Pg_{a\gamma \gamma }^2`$ deposited in the cavity from two benchmark axion models, DFSZ Dine et al. (1981); Zhitnitskii (1980) and KSVZ Kim (1979); Shifman et al. (1980), where $`g_{a\gamma \gamma }`$ is the effective coupling strength of axions to two photons Sikivie (1983).

## II Experiment

The experimental apparatus has been described elsewhere Peng et al. (2000). Briefly, halo axions couple to the electric field in a tunable resonant cavity plus a DC magnetic field provided by a superconducting solenoid surrounding the cavity volume. The signal is excess power in the cavity when the frequency of the TM010 mode is close to the energy of the halo axions. The electric field in the cavity is coupled by an antenna probe to an ultra-low-noise cryogenic preamplifier, followed by further amplification, mixing, and digitization Hagmann et al. (1998); Asztalos et al. (2001). Figure 1 shows a sketch of the detector and Figure 2 a schematic diagram of the receiver chain.

The magnet is a superconducting solenoid of 7.9 T central field. The RF cavity is a circular cylinder (50 cm diameter, 100 cm long) constructed of stainless steel plated with copper and subsequently annealed. The unloaded cavity quality factor Q is approximately 200,000 at a resonant frequency of 500 MHz. In recent running, the temperature of the cavity was 1.6 K. The frequency of the cavity mode is tuned with a pair of axial tuning rods (metal or dielectric) that can be translated from near the cavity center to the wall.

For our most recent run, we used one metal tuning rod ($`d7.5`$ cm) and one ceramic dielectric tuning rod ($`d5.0`$ cm), with the ceramic rod fixed near the cavity center. With this tuning rod configuration, we were able to tune from 461–550 MHz, corresponding to axion masses 1.9–2.3 $`\mu `$eV.

The cryogenic gain of the receiver comes from balanced GaAs HFET preamplifiers built by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory Daw and Bradley (1997). At the operating temperature of 1.6 K, they have a noise temperature of approximately 1.9 K and power gain of 17 dB. The amplifier noise temperature was deduced by employing the warmed, critically coupled cavity as a Nyquist source. Due to their improved noise performance compared to earlier preamplifiers, the system noise temperature (sum of cavity physical temperature and electronic noise temperature) is significantly improved, producing a factor of 2 increase in the search rate relative to earlier operation Asztalos et al. (2001); Hagmann et al. (1998).

Data were collected from 08 July 2002 through 27 May 2003 in the form of “medium resolution” single-sided power spectra. Each spectrum consists of 10000 averaged, 400-bin, 125 Hz/bin subspectra, with each spectrum having 80 seconds of exposure. After each 80-second spectrum, the cavity frequency was tuned downwards by approximately 1 kHz. There is also a dedicated hardware channel optimized for detecting very narrow axion lines; results from this channel are not reported here.

Each frequency bin appears in 15 to 25 power spectra, corresponding to an averaging time of about 25 minutes. The receiver is stable over a much longer time, as demonstrated in figure 3. This figure shows the single-bin rms power divided by the average power versus the number of averages (lower abscissa) and the averaging time in days (upper abscissa). The log-log slope is approximately $`1/2`$ until $`10^{8.5}`$ averages, corresponding to 30 days of continuous averaging; this establishes the ultimate single-bin sensitivity of the receiver, corresponding to $`10^{26}`$ Watts, or approximately 1 RF photon per minute at the signal frequency.

## III Data analysis and Results

The receiver transfer function was calibrated by recording spectra with a precision noise source at the receiver input. Each cavity spectrum was corrected with this receiver calibration. The center 175 bins of each spectrum were then corrected with a 5-parameter equivalent-circuit model characterizing the cavity, transmission line, and amplifier interaction. Subsequently, spectra were linearly combined with a bin-by-bin weighting that accounts for that bin’s contribution to a thermalized axion signal. More details can be found in Asztalos et al. (2001); Peng et al. (2000).

This resulting medium resolution combined power spectrum was used in two parallel analyses. The first analysis created a power spectrum that was the sum of every 6 adjacent bins of the combined power spectrum, as was done previously Asztalos et al. (2001); Peng et al. (2000). The second analysis, first suggested in Krauss et al. (1985), is newly reported here, and applied a Wiener filter (WF) Press et al. (1992) derived from the thermalized near-Maxwellian axion signal lineshape Turner (1990), whose output formed another power spectrum.

The output of the WF is a bin-by-bin sum with weighting

$$W(\nu )=\frac{S^2(\nu )}{S^2(\nu )+N^2(\nu )}$$
(1)
where $`S(\nu )`$ and $`N(\nu )`$ are the expected signal and noise powers in each frequency bin of the combined power spectrum (by contrast, the first analysis weights 6 adjacent bins with unity and others zero). The WF was normalized so as to nearly match the number of candidates from the 6-bin search at the same candidate threshold.

Figure 4 shows a WF weighting for an axion mass corresponding to 500 MHz. The abscissa represents the 125 Hz frequency bin offset from 500 MHz and the ordinate the WF weight.

We compared the WF and 6-bin sensitivity by simulating three different signal lineshapes on Gaussian noise: the thermalized near-Maxwellian lineshape, a narrow single-bin lineshape (developing power in one bin), and a 10-bin wide lineshape (developing power uniformly in 10 adjacent bins). For the narrow lineshape, the WF is more sensitive than the 6-bin filter; this is expected because the WF is narrower. For the wide lineshape, the WF is slightly less sensitive. This is demonstrated in figure 5, which shows search confidence versus candidate threshold in units of single-bin rms power (as in Asztalos et al. (2001); Peng et al. (2000)). Sensitivity to narrow lineshapes is important, as narrow structures are predicted to accompany galaxy formation Sikivie et al. (1995).

Candidates were selected separately from both analyses. The 6-bin threshold was chosen so as to have the analysis sensitive to thermalized KSVZ axions at 94% confidence, established via Monte Carlo technique. The WF threshold was selected to yield the same or slightly fewer number of candidates than the 6-bin search at the same confidence. There were 3159 6-bin candidates and 2974 WF candidates (1473 appeared in common), consistent with the expectation from system noise.

More data were taken at just these candidate frequencies so as to nearly double the effective integration time. Of these candidates, 176 6-bin candidates and 187 WF candidates (76 candidates in common) passed a second candidate threshold (chosen to maintain greater than 93% search confidence for thermalized KSVZ axions). Yet more data were taken at these surviving candidate frequencies, and candidates again were selected. Of these candidates, 12 6-bin candidates and 13 WF candidates (10 candidates in common) persisted. The number of candidates from these successive stages were approximately consistent with expectations from system noise.

At very high search confidence, ten of the 15 persistent candidates did not reappear after integrating for over 2 hours at each candidate frequency. These candidates are therefore highly unlikely to be axions. The remaining five candidates (common to both filters) reappeared after this long integration. These five candidate frequencies were reexamined after removing a 20 dB attenuator at a calibration port. The power at each candidate frequency increased by roughly 100-fold, consistent with the removal of the attenuator and the hypothesis that these candidates are due to environmental RF contamination. In a further study, the cavity was replaced by a stub antenna connected to the input of the receiver. These same five candidates were also seen in these background power spectra. The attenuation and stub antenna studies suggest these remaining candidates are interfering external signals and are therefore rejected as axions.

Figure 6 shows axion-to-photon couplings excluded at greater than 90% confidence across our search range. The upper and lower abscissas represent axion mass and corresponding microwave photon frequency; the left and right ordinates represent power sensitivity in units of expected thermalized KSVZ axion power, and the axion-to-photon coupling $`g_{a\gamma \gamma }`$ divided by axion mass $`m_a`$. The solid line is the 6-bin analysis upper limit, and the dotted line is the WF analysis upper limit. The WF analysis was not applied to frequencies greater than 550 MHz.

These results also constrain the local axion dark matter halo mass density Asztalos et al. (2002). Figure 7 shows the axion halo mass density excluded at greater than 90% confidence for thermalized KSVZ and DFSZ axions. The upper and lower abscissas represent axion mass and corresponding microwave photon frequency; the ordinate represents local axion dark matter mass density. The lower pair of lines are upper limits for KSVZ axions; the upper pair of lines are upper limits for the weaker-coupled DFSZ axions. Solid lines are upper limits obtained from the 6-bin analysis; dotted lines are the upper limits obtained from the more sensitive WF analysis.

## IV Conclusion

In conclusion, we now exclude at greater than 90% confidence a KSVZ halo axion of mass 1.9–3.3 $`\mu `$eV, assuming axions saturate the local dark matter halo. We also exclude at greater than 90% confidence a local axion dark matter halo mass density of greater than 0.45 GeV/cm3 ($``$3 GeV/cm3) for KSVZ (DFSZ) axions. Improvements to this experiment come from lower noise preamplifiers; scanning is faster by a factor of 2. The analysis is also improved; the resulting power sensitivity gain from the WF is approximately 13%, representing an increased effective integration time of about 25%.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the University of California, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48, and the University of Florida under grant DE-FG02-97ER41209.


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# Untitled Document

Baltic Astronomy, vol.12, XXX--XXX, 2003.

Compact object mergers as progenitors of short bursts

T. Bulik1 and K. Belczynski2,3

1   Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center, Bartycka 18, 00716 Warsaw, Poland

2   Northwestern University, 2145 Sheridan Rd. Evanston, IL, USA

3   Lindheimer Fellow

Received October 15, 2003

## Abstract

Compact object mergers are possible progenitors of short burst We analyze properties of compact object mergers using the StarTrack population synthesis code, and find that the double neutron star population is dominated by short lived systems, thus they merge within host galaxies, while black hole neutron star binaries merge outside of the host galaxies.

Key words:  star: binaries; gamma rays: bursts

1.   INTRODUCTION

Ever since the discovery (Klebesadel, Strong & Olson 1973) of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) the main problem faced by researchers was to identify the physical mechanism behind these phenomena and to place them somewhere within the realm of standard astrophysics. The discovery of afterglows (Costa et al. 1997) lead to great progress in the field. It allowed to identify GRB host galaxies, and to study their properties. GRB afterglows were localized within host galaxies. Long GRBs take place inside small star forming galaxies.

Coalescences of compact object binaries have been considered as a possible mechanism of GRBs. Several types of such mergers were considered - see Fryer, Woosley & Hartmann (1999). The main problem is that the timescale of the merger is relatively short and it is difficult to explain long bursts, yet it is still possible that the progenitors of short bursts are compact object mergers.

These discoveries were followed by several studies (Bloom, Sigurdsson & Pols 1997; Bulik, Belczynski & Zbijewski 1997) using the population synthesis approach to calculate offsets for simulated populations of possible GRB progenitors, with conclusion that most double neutron star binaries merge outside host galaxies.

Here we report the results of the careful examination of properties of compact object binaries with the StarTrack population synthesis code (Belczynski, Kalogera & Bulik 2002), which singificantly changes the conclusions reported above.

2.   PROPERTIES OF COMPACT OBJECT BINARIES

A novel feature of the StarTrack code (Belczynski, Kalogera & Bulik 2002) was to include the evolution of He stars. Within the code helium stars with the mass under $`4.5M_{}`$ develop convective envelopes. This leads to a possibility of initiating common envelope (CE) episodes by He stars in close binaries.

We have found that one can identify three different types of evolutionary paths leading to formation of double neutron star (NSNS) binaries (Belczynski, Bulik & Kalogera 2002). Group I contains systems which involved a double CE phase between tow helium stars which later underwent supernova explosions. Group II consist of systems which underwent a CE with a He star donor in a binary with a NS. Group III are the remaining, classical systems for which no CE phase with an He star took place. The systems of Group II dominate the population of NSNS binaries, they constitute nearly $`90`$% of the entire population of such objects. However these binaries as well as the ones of Group I are very short lived. The additional CE phase tightens up these systems which decreases significantly their lifetimes as compact object binaries. The typical lifetimes due to gravitational wave emission of these binaries is $`1`$ Myr. The nuclear lifetimes of their progenitors is about ten times longer. On the other hand black hole neutron star (BHNS) binaries cannot undergo this additional CE phase because the massive He star do not have convective envelopes. Therefore the BHNS binaries are much more long lived. The NSNS binaries of Group III are also long lived, the typical lifetimes of BHNS and NSNS binaries of Group III stretches from a Gyr to the Hubble time. We present the distribution of lifetimes of BHNS and NSNS binaries from the formation of two stars on ZAMS to the merger due to gravitational wave emission in Figure 1. Since the population of NSNS binaries is dominated by the Group II systems the typical lifetime of such systems stretches from $`10`$ to $`50`$ Myrs.

Given the lifetimes and the velocities attained due to supernova kicks by the compact object binaries one can calculate the distributions of their merger sites around galaxies. We have found that the NSNS binaries merger predominantly within the host galaxies, contrary to the results of previous studies (Belczynski, Bulik & Rudak 2002). This is due to the fact that although the spatial velocities of the NSNS binaries are of the order of up to few hundred km s-1, their lifetimes are short and they do not have the time to leave the host galaxies. The NSNS binaries of Group III manage to leave the host galaxies and merge outside of them. BHNS binaries leave the host galaxies: although their spatial velocities are smaller their lifetimes are much longer.

3.   CONCLUSIONS

We have reviewed the properties of possible progenitors of short GRBs: the coalescences of compact object binaries. We find that the properties of the NSNS and BHNS binaries are significantly different. The lifetimes of a majority of NSNS binaries are much shorter then the lifetimes of BHNS binaries. We find that the distribution of merger sites of these two types of binaries are different: NSNS binaries merge inside host galaxies, while the BHNS binaries merge outside of them. The difference in the lifetimes of these two types of binaries implies also different redshift distributions of such mergers. The NSNS binary mergers shall trace the star formation rate history, while the BHNS mergers shall not because of their long lifetimes. Finally, the luminosity function, or rather the internal pool of energy in the burst should be much narrower for the NSNS mergers than for the BHNS mergers. This is due to the fact that the mass range of neutron star is rather narrow, while the masses of black holes of stellar origin may reach up to $`1520M_{}`$ for population I stars, and could be much higher for the black holes originating from lower metallicity population II and earlier stars. The properties of NSNS and BHNS mergers are summarized in Table 1.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. This work was supported by the KBN grant 5P03D01120. TB thanks the organizers of the meeting for support. Hálásan köszönom!

REFERENCES

Belczynski, K., Bulik, T., & Kalogera, V. 2002, ApJ Lett., 571, L147

Belczynski, K., Bulik, T., & Rudak, B. 2002, ApJ, 571, 394

Belczynski, K., Kalogera, V., & Bulik, T. 2002, ApJ, 572, 407

Bloom, J. S., Sigurdsson, S., & Pols, O. R. 1999, MNRAS, 305, 763 Bulik, T., Belczyński, K., & Zbijewski, W. 1999, MNRAS, 309, 629

Costa, E. et al. 1997, IAU Circ., 6576, 1

Fryer, C. L., Woosley, S. E., & Hartmann, D. H. 1999, ApJ, 526, 152

Klebesadel, R. W., Strong, I. B., & Olson, R. A. 1973, ApJ Lett., 182, L85


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# The observers’ view of (very) long X-ray bursts: they are super!

## 1 Type I X-ray bursts

Many low-mass X-ray binaries show thermo-nuclear explosions, or so-called type I X-ray bursts (hereafter normal X-ray bursts; for reviews see ). These appear as rapid ($``$1–10 sec) increases in the X-ray flux, followed by an exponential-like decline, with typical durations of the order of seconds to minutes. They recur with a frequency (typically hours to days) which is (partly) set by the supply rate of fresh fuel. The (net) burst spectra are well described by black-body emission from a compact object with $``$10 km radius and inferred temperature of $``$1–2 keV. The temperature increases during the burst rise and decreases during the decay, reflecting the heating and subsequent cooling of the neutron star surface. Typical integrated burst energies are in the 1039 to 1040 erg range.

During some X-ray bursts the energy release is high enough that the luminosity at the surface of the neutron star reaches the Eddington limit. At that point the neutron star photosphere expands due to radiation pressure. Such bursts are referred to as ‘photospheric radius-expansion type I X-ray bursts’, or radius-expansion bursts for short. During expansion and subsequent contraction the luminosity is expected to remain almost constant near the Eddington limit. Radius expansion bursts are recognized by an increase in the inferred radius with a simultaneous decrease in the effective temperature near the peak of an X-ray burst, at approximately constant observed flux. Note that when the expansion is large the effective temperature may become so low that the peak of the radiation shifts to UV wavelengths, and no or little X-rays are emitted. Such events are recognizable by so-called ‘precursors’ in the X-ray light curves followed by a ‘main’ burst .

The decay times of X-ray bursts show a bimodal distribution between 1–50 sec, with maxima near 5 sec and 15 sec (Fig. 1). These may be generally attributed to normal X-ray bursts involving either pure He burning or mixed H/He burning, respectively (see , and references therein; see also Cumming, this volume).

Noticably, Fig. 1 shows 5 events which have long (minutes) to very long (hours) decay times. SLX 1737$``$282 is the source which burst displayed an exponential decay time of $``$10 min . Note that the X-ray burst seen from 1RXS J171824.2-402934 by the BeppoSAX/WFC has a long decay time as well, i.e., $`\text{ }>`$200 sec . Other clear examples of such long X-ray bursts are those seen from GX 17+2 (RXTE/PCA, ) and (possibly) 4U 1708$``$23 (SAS-3, ) which had exponential decay times of $``$5 min. These long X-ray bursts have durations on the order of half an hour and energy releases of $``$1041 erg, i.e., typically an order of magnitude more than normal X-ray bursts. The four events with hours long decay times are the subject of this overview, and are referred to as superbursts. In the next sections I describe the phenomenology of these very long X-ray bursts. I note that the long X-ray bursts discussed above can be accommodated for in current ‘normal’ X-ray burst theory for those sources accreting at very low rates ($`\text{ }<`$0.01 times the Eddington accretion rate, see, e.g., ). They do not, however, seem to be related to the superbursts (see, e.g., ).

## 2 Superbursts

The first superburst was discovered by Cornelisse et al. to come from the X-ray burster 4U 1735$``$444 . Another superburst was independently found, originating from the X-ray burster 4U 1820$``$303 . Thereafter, six more events have been seen to occur in five other X-ray bursters . The fact that only eight such events have been found, despite ample observing time, indicates that they must be rare (see, e.g., ). The recurrence times of these events are, therefore, not well constrained, although Wijnands  reported two superbursts from 4U 1636$``$536 which were $``$4.7 years apart. Observational estimates of the recurrence times are on the order of a year (see, e.g., ). The availability of X-ray instruments such as the BeppoSAX/WFC and the RXTE/ASM, which more frequently monitor the X-ray sky, and the RXTE/PCA+HEXTE, which perform long studies of the X-ray burster population, is the main reason that superbursts have now been discovered. In Table 1 I show the properties of the superbursts observed so far.

In Fig. 2 (top) I show as an example the superburst from KS 1731$``$260. Clearly, the light curve consists of a fast rise and a slower exponential-like decay. During the rise to superburst maximum the spectrum hardens, whereas during the decay the spectrum softens (Fig. 2, middle). This is also reflected in the spectral fits to the time-resolved pre-burst subtracted X-ray spectra, obtained during the superburst (Fig. 2, bottom). They are generally best described by a black-body model (but see below), and the effective temperature increases and decreases, respectively, during the rise and decay. These characteristics are similar to those for normal X-ray bursts, and it was therefore suggested that they are due to thermo-nuclear runaway events as well . A big difference with the normal X-ray bursts is the duration, and therefore the total energy release, of the superburst. Superbursts last from hours to half a day (with exponential decay times of a few hours) and integrated fluxes of around 1042 erg (see Table 1). This is about two or three orders of magnitude more than normal X-ray bursts! Fig. 3 clearly illustrates this difference, by plotting a normal X-ray burst from 4U 1820$``$30 and the superburst from 4U 1820$``$30 on the same time scale. (The long duration and their enormous energy output is the reason they are referred to as ‘superbursts’ ; see also the Section ‘Epilogue’ after the reference list.)

As noted above, the superbursts show exponential-like decays. Closer inspection of the superburst in Fig. 3 shows, however, that its decay exhibits clear deviations from a pure exponential. This is exemplified in Fig. 4 where I subtracted the exponential fit to the superburst light curve from the superburst light curve. The corresponding residuals show variations on various time scales, but noticably on the orbital period (11.4 min ). The time resolved X-ray spectral parameters vary on the same time scale . A variation is also seen in the superburst light curve of 4U 1254$``$690, which is related to its regular X-ray dipping activity , but is less clear because of the longer orbital period (3.9 hr ). The superbursts of 4U 1636$``$536 and 4U 1735$``$444 were too short (see Table 1) to clearly show variations on their orbital periods (3.8 and 4.5 hr, respectively ). No orbital periods are known for Ser X-1 and KS 1731$``$260; their superburst light curves were consistent with being exponential. The RXTE/ASM coverage of the superburst light curve of GX 3+1 is too sparse to say something meaningful.

For four sources observations were available near the start of the superburst. All of these showed ‘precursor’ normal X-ray bursts near the start of the superburst. An example is shown in Fig. 5. In 4U 1636$``$536 the precursor burst showed up $``$125 sec after the emission had increased suddenly by $``$70%. The precursor burst is double-peaked, possibly indicating a radius-expansion event. This precursor burst is shorter (about 5 sec) and has a peak flux which is roughly 60% lower than normal X-ray bursts from this source (see, e.g., ). The shortness of the precursor burst and its possible radius-expansion indicates a pure He flash. Immediately after the precursor burst the superburst had started (see Fig. 5). Superburst maximum was reached $``$14 min later. Similarly, in KS 1731-260 a weak precursor burst was seen. However, this source displayed some activity afterwards; the superburst started $`\text{ }>`$200 sec after the precursor burst. The actual rise to maximum of the superburst was not covered, but the maximum of the superburst was reached $``$20 min after the precursor burst. The precursor burst in 4U 1254$``$690, on the other hand, was the strongest among previously seen normal X-ray bursts. Like in 4U 1636$``$536, its superburst had started immediately after the precursor burst. In 4U 1636$``$536, KS 1731$``$260 and 4U 1254$``$690 the peak flux of the precursor burst was higher than the superburst peak flux.

The superburst from 4U 1820$``$303 was immediately preceded by a burst (with no recognizable pre-precursor-burst emission like that seen in 4U 1636$`536`$); this precursor burst had the same features as its normal X-ray bursts. Both the precursor burst and the superburst of 4U 1820$``$303 were radius-expansion events; the precursor burst peak flux was somewhat weaker than the superburst peak flux. Note that near maximum of the radius-expansion phase of the superburst the flux dropped even below the pre-superburst persistent-source level down to the background-flux level , indicating the pronounced effect of the superburst on the inner disk regions where presumably the pre-superburst emission is produced. The peak of the superburst was reached only $``$2 min after the precursor burst. No radius-expansion phase was found during the superburst of 4U 1636$``$536, which is consistent with its peak luminosity being lower than peak luminosity reached during usual radius-expansion bursts (see Table 1). Similarly, no such phase could be identified in the other superbursts either, but the rise was not or poorly covered in the other cases.

Analysis of the X-ray spectra during the superburst from 4U 1820$``$30 revealed the presence of a broad emission line between 5.8 and 6.4 keV, as well as an edge near 8–9 keV . Similar deviations from a black-body spectrum appear during the decay part of the superburst of 4U 1636$``$536 . This may be due to reflection of the superburst flux from the inner accretion disk. Note that qualitatively similar residuals have been seen during strong normal X-ray bursts (; , and references therein; see also ).

Highly coherent pulsations during a superburst of 4U 1636$``$536 were found near 1.72 ms . The pulsations were detected during an 800 sec interval near the maximum of the superburst (note that only during two intervals high time resolution data were obtained: $``$2500 sec near the peak of the superburst and $``$4000 sec in the decaying tail, see ). Within the 800 sec interval the frequency increased monotonically from 581.89 to 581.93 Hz, consistent with the predicted orbital motion of the neutron star around the donor star during this interval. The average pulse profile was sinusoidal, with a time-averaged amplitude of $``$1% (half amplitude). The highly coherent pulsation points towards a rapidly rotating neutron star to be present in 4U 1636$``$53; it further supports the connection between burst-oscillation frequencies and the neutron-star spin frequencies (see, e.g., , and references therein).

So far, the superbursts have only been observed in sources with persistent pre-burst luminosities, $`L_{\mathrm{pers}}`$, of $``$0.1–0.25 times the Eddington luminosity, $`L_{\mathrm{Edd}}`$  (see Table 1); apparently, the underlying mass accretion rates create ideal circumstances for the origin of the superbursts .

It was already clear from the BeppoSAX/WFC observations that the superburst affects the normal X-ray burst activity. No normal X-ray bursts were found, during the continuous monitoring observations of 4U 1735$``$444, for about 7.5 days immediately after the superburst, despite the X-ray flux level being similar to occasions when the source did exhibit normal X-ray bursts. This became even more apparent when analysing the BeppoSAX/WFC observations of KS 1731$``$260 and Ser X-1 (Fig. 6). These observations revealed that before the superburst the source was happily showing normal X-ray bursts, then for about a month after the superburst the normal X-ray bursting ceased, and finally it resumed bursting again afterwards. For 4U 1636$``$536 a similar cessation time scale can be inferred (see Table 1).

From the previous paragraphs it may have become clear that the properties of the superburst observed from 4U 1820$``$303 seem to be different from those of the other superbursts: the peak temperature and peak flux reached during the superburst were higher with respect to other superbursts, which resulted in a somewhat larger fluence compared to the other superbursts. Also, the peak flux of the precursor burst was somewhat weaker than that of the superburst. These are related to the fact that the superburst of 4U 1820$``$30 showed strong radius expansion, whereas the other superburst did not show evidence for such a phase. Note also, that the peak of the superburst is reached much faster (by about a factor 10) than seen in 4U 1636$``$536 and KS 1731$``$260.

4U 1820$``$303 being an exception to the ‘superburst rule’ might be related to the fact that its orbital period is much smaller than those of 4U 1636$``$536, 4U 1254$``$690 and 4U 1735$``$444 (see above). Systems like 4U 1820$``$30 are thought to contain a degenerate He-donor (e.g., ), whereas for the others it has been shown that the donors provide a mix of H/He (presumably solar; ). This is consistent with 4U 1820$``$30 showing only He-flashes, whereas the other sources clearly have shown X-ray bursts due to unstable mixed H/He burning (except GX 3+1, see ).

## 3 Some theoretical interpretation

Generally, the superbursts last too long and their energy release is too much in order to explain them through unstable burning of H and/or He (see, e.g., ). Moreover, regular normal X-ray bursts are seen up to the occurrence of the superburst (e.g., ), including the precursor burst. The long rise and decay times of the superbursts are consistent with unstable burning from a greater depth, i.e., below the H and/or He layer. It has, therefore, been suggested that unstable burning of C is the origin of the superbursts  (see also Cumming, this volume).

If the accreted material onto the neutron star is pure He, C can be produced when He is burned stably or unstably (nearly 100% and $``$3%, respectively ). This applies to the He accretor 4U 1820$``$303 which shows long periods of high intensity during which no bursts occur, consistent with a period of stably burning He. Note that unstable C burning can only reproduce the superburst observed when taking into account neutrino losses and significant heat flux deeper into the neutron star . Recurrence times on the order of 1–2 years  are expected (but see  who quote a recurrence time of about 10 years). However, if the (degenerate) donor still provides some H, the recurrence times may be 5–10 years .

If the accreted material onto the neutron star is a mixture of H and He, C can also be produced by either unstable or stable burning of H/He, but only in rather limited amounts ($`\text{ }<`$1% and $``$10%, respectively ). In the months before the superburst and/or after the normal X-ray burst cessation period, normal X-ray bursts in the H-rich accretors occur irregularly with a mean rate of about 3 per day  (see, e.g., Fig. 6; see also ). This indicates that at least some of the accreted material is burning stably around the time of superburst. This may suggest that superbursts only occur in systems where in between normal X-ray bursts stable burning takes place (see also ; Cumming, this volume). In this respect it is interesting to make notice of other frequently bursting X-ray sources in the Galactic Center region, such as 4U 1702$``$429 and A1742$``$294, which have similar normal X-ray burst occurrence times . These may be good candidates for exhibiting superbursts as well.

Cumming & Bildsten  have shown that it is possible to ignite small amounts of C for the H/He accretors, when it resides in a bath of heavy elements. These heavy elements are the products of the unstable burning through the rp-process during the mixed H/He X-ray bursts. In this case the superburst recurrence times depend on the accretion rates onto the neutron star, being in the order of decades, a year to a decade, or a week to a month, for accretion rates of about 0.1, 0.3, or 1 times the Eddington accretion rate, respectively. More recently, it was found that due to the high temperatures reached during the superburst, a photo-disintegration runaway may be triggered. With this mechanism the heavy elements are converted into iron group elements. This gives rise to an energy production which is comparable to the C burst itself  (but see ). Since the X-ray flux doubles immediately after the precursor burst of, e.g., 4U 1636$``$536, it is interesting to speculate that the precursor burst may have triggered this photo-disintegration process, and that unstable C burning had already started before that (which may have triggered in turn the precursor burst, see, e.g, ). Note that if the precursors are due to ignition of the He layer by flux from the C burning, then the mass of the He layer will be some amount less than the critical mass needed for igniting a normal X-ray burst. Therefore, it is reasonable for the precursors to be weak compared to a normal X-ray burst (Cumming, this volume).

Another scenario was proposed by Kuulkers et al. , who suggested that H left over from the burning of the H/He layer is reignited by electron capture, with subsequent capture of the resulting neutrons by heavy nuclei, deeper into the neutron star (i.e., in the same bath as mentioned above). In this case relatively large amounts of H have to be left over in order to satisfy the energy release. Recent calculations have shown, however, that H is more or less depleted after the H/He burning , making this scenario less viable. Nevertheless, recurrence times on the order of a year or less are to be expected .

The bottomline here is, that at present one can not strongly rule out the proposed models, purely based on the recurrence times. For that one needs more stringent time scales from multiple superbursts in a source.

## 4 Conclusion

The recent discovery of eight long X-ray flares, superbursts, seen in seven X-ray burst sources share many of the characteristics of type I X-ray bursts. What distinguishes them from type I X-ray bursts are the long duration (exponential decay times of a few hours), the large fluences ($``$1042 erg), and the extreme rarity. They are therefore attributed to a new mode of thermo-nuclear runaway events. The current view is that the superbursts are caused by the unstable burning of the ashes of the (un)stable H and/or He burning. Such bursts in principle thus not only tell us about properties of material buried below the H and/or He layer, but also about the burning of the H and/or He layer itself (see, e.g., ; Cumming, this volume).

With monitoring programs on satellites currently operating (Integral, RXTE) as well as future missions (e.g., Swift), one hopes to discover more of these powerful events. On the other hand, a scan through archival data could reveal other (parts of) superbursts. Multiple superbursts from the same source may help to constrain their recurrence times, whereas the study of superbursts from other sources may help to understand the environment in which the superbursts reside. Crucial information comes also from the type I X-ray burst behaviour months to years before and after a superburst. Dedicated programs, such as to continuously monitor the Galactic Center region with a wide field of view (e.g., MIRAX), are ideal for such studies.

## Acknowledgements

The RXTE/ASM data are provided by the ASM/RXTE teams at MIT and at the RXTE SOF and GOF at NASA’s GSFC. Andrew Cumming and Jean in ’t Zand are acknowledged for providing comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. I thank Joeri van Leeuwen for drawing my attention to Superman.

## Epilogue

Although the word ‘superburst’ was first used by Wijnands  to describe the powerful, very long X-ray flares, historically it should be noted that a relatively strong type I X-ray burst seen from 4U 1728$``$34 was denoted with the same name. I quote: There is one burst (we call it the ‘super burst’) which is about 3 times more energetic than the average burst from \[4U 1728$``$34\] . Interestingly, scientists in a completely other research area struggled with a similar nomenclature ‘problem’. This was related to exceptional phenomena seen from the Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park. I quote: … the power of the steam phase was frequently a mind-numbing sensory overload. The most common reaction of the most experienced observer was: ‘I don’t believe it!’ … At first the authors called this unusual display an ‘Oh my god’ burst. Later that evening while describing the unusually powerful event to other observers, it was called a superburst for want of a better name. The authors regret that this unoriginal term has become the accepted name for the phenomena, since the same term has been in common usage for years to describe unusually powerful eruptions of Great Fountain Geyser (, and references therein).

I further quote: Great Fountain Geyser (Fig. 7) is a fountain-type geyser. The interval between eruptions ranges from 9 to 15 hours, but its short term average interval is usually stable enough that the eruptions can be predicted to within an hour or two. Great Fountain Geyser’s maximum height ranges from about 75 feet to over 220 feet. The duration of an eruption is usually about one hour, but durations of over two hours have been seen.

Great Fountain Geyser has two types of truly spectacular behaviour. A superburst is an exceptionally tall burst of water, over 150 feet. Some superbursts have reached 230 feet. Superbursts, when they occur, are usually the first burst of the eruption, but they have been known to sometimes occur later in the eruption. A blue bubble occurs when a calm and still pool of water is domed up by a large expanding steam bubble. As the steam bubble rises and expands, the entire 16 feet wide pool of water is lifted and domed outward creating a beautiful blue bubble. Once the steam reaches the surface, the water explodes outward and upward. Blue bubbles most commonly occur at the start of the eruption, but they have been known to occur at the start of other active periods. A fair number of blue bubbles result in a superburst, but not all.

Great Fountain Geyser sometimes goes through a Wild Phase. During a wild phase the geyser seems to forget how to end an eruption. A 10 to 50 feet play continues for hours to days. Once the play finally ends, Great Fountain Geyser usually takes a few days to recover before returning to “normal” eruptions. Interestingly, wild phases mainly occur late in the year. (Courtesy ‘The Geyser Observation and Study Association’; for more information about the Great Fountain Geyser and other geysers I refer to http://www.geyserstudy.org.)