text:
# Rotational bosonic current in a quasi-condensate confined in an optical toroidal trap

## 1 Introduction

Bose-Einstein condensates provide an important quantum system where one can observe many important phenomena such as superfluid-Mott insulator transition  and vortices . Recent advances in experimental techniques  have stimulated interest in one-dimensional (1D) Bose gases. The 1D case leads to some interesting physics which does not occur in higher dimensions. The experimental feasibility of realizing a tightly confined (1D) trapped gas has been investigated theoretically using Bessel light beams . It is well known that a true BEC cannot occur at any finite temperature in an interacting homogeneous Bose gas in 1D , due to long wavelength fluctuations; nor can it occur in the limit of zero temperature , due to quantum fluctuations. However, the presence of a trapping potential changes the density of states at low energies, and in the weakly-interacting limit a BEC may be formed . Recently Petrov et al. discussed three different regimes of quantum degeneracy which can occur in a condensate confined in 1D trap : BEC, quasi-condensate, and Tonks-Girardeau gas. In the weakly interacting limit a BEC exists, but as the interaction becomes stronger the mean field energy becomes important. When this energy becomes of the order of the energy level spacing of the trap, fluctuations again become significant. In this regime, the system forms a quasi-condensate, with local phase coherence, rather than the global coherence associated with a true condensate. The quasi-condensate density has the same smooth profile as a true condensate but the phase fluctuates in space and time. Phase fluctuations of the condensate are caused mainly by low energy collective excitations . Quasi-condensates in 3D have been observed experimentally in equilibrium  and non-equilibrium . The fact that the velocity of a true condensate $`\stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\mathrm{}/m\stackrel{}{}\varphi (\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ (with $`\varphi (\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ the phase of the condensate) leads to the important constraint namely irrotationality $`\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=0`$. On the other hand, the normal component which is substantially higher in a quasi-condensate as compared to a true condensate is not constrained by the condition of irrotationality. Hence we take advantage of this property of the quasi-condensate and propose in this work the use of a 2D optical rotator to produce a rotational bosonic current ($`\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{v}0`$ where $`\stackrel{}{v}=\stackrel{}{v_s}+\stackrel{}{v_n}`$ and $`\stackrel{}{v_n}`$ is the velocity of the normal component) in a quasi condensate and study the conditions under which this current is stable. We show that using this scheme, it is possible to distinguish between quasi-condensate and true condensate. It is to be noted that such a current is not vortex. Such a kind of a rotator has been proposed for cold atoms based on the principle of transfer of angular momentum of the photons to the atoms  using a TEM01 circularly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian beam. It has been experimentally demonstrated that a blue-detuned hollow Bessel laser beam formed by an axicon can be successfully used to trap laser cooled metastable xenon atoms . Experimentally, cesium atoms have been trapped in an all blue-detuned stack of optical rings by interference of a standard gaussian beam with a counter-propagating hollow beam generated by a pair of axicon . We propose the use of such an experimental scheme with a TEM01 beam in order to realize the 2D optical rotator.

## 2 Description of the optical torus

We will examine the motion of a condensate within an optical toroidal ring trap as experimentally realized in Ref.  and previously theoretically analyzed by Wright et al.  The potential created by the optical laser may be written as

$$V(r)=\frac{1}{2}m\omega _r^2(rr_0)^2+\frac{1}{2}m\omega _z^2z^2$$
(1)
where $`x^2+y^2=r^2`$ and $`r_0`$ is the location of the potential minima and also the mean radius of the torus. $`\omega _z`$ ($`\omega _r`$) is the oscillation frequency along the $`z`$($`r`$) direction. Because we suppose the plane of the ring perpendicular to the direction of gravity ($`z`$ direction in our system), the atomic energies are not effected by gravity. The optical torus described by the potential of Eq. (1) is represented in Fig. 1.

The atomic motion within the toroidal trap includes also a rotational energy along the center of the torus, described by the following rotational Hamiltonian:

$$H_r=\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2I}\frac{\delta ^2}{\delta \theta ^2}$$
(2)
where the moment of inertia for an atom with mass $`m`$ is given by $`I=mr_0^2`$. If $`p`$ is the rotational quantum number, then the rotational hamiltonian defines an energy spectrum whose energy spacing is linked to the rotation frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ for $`\mathrm{\Delta }p=1`$ as

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{(2p+1)\mathrm{}}{2mr_0^2}$$
(3)
Note that the rotational frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ depends only on the radius of the ring $`r_0`$. In the radial direction, the ring radius is approximately the radius of the laser beam, which therefore should be chosen as small as possible for a tight confinement. Extending the experimental parameters of  to Rb atoms, with a beam radius of about 50 $`\mu `$m, potential height of 10 $`E_R`$ and $`\omega _R2\pi \times 0.34`$ kHz, one can find $`\omega _r2\pi \times 0.06`$ kHz, $`\omega _z2\pi \times 6.7`$ kHz and $`\mathrm{\Omega }2\pi \times 0.024`$ Hz (for $`p=0p=1`$ transition).

Moreover we will suppose, as in Ref.  that using for the laser field an high order circularly polarized Laguerre-Gaussian mode, an orbital angular momentum is transfered by the laser field to the atoms. Therefore the rotational motion of the condensate atoms at the frequency $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ can be excited by the laser field. Let us now systematically investigate the collective modes of a true condensate and that of a quasi-condensate (in the presence of a rotational velocity field) in an optical torus.

## 3 Collective modes of a true condensate in an optical torus

For a true condensate the velocity is the gradient of a scalar, the velocity field is thus irrotational, unless the phase of the order parameter has a singularity (vortex). A simple description of the collective oscillations is provided by the irrotational hydrodynamics equations of superfluids

$$\frac{n_s}{t}+\stackrel{}{}[n\stackrel{}{v_s}]=0$$
(4)
$$m\frac{\stackrel{}{v_s}}{t}+\stackrel{}{}[\frac{mv_s^2}{2}+V(\stackrel{}{r},t)+n_sg_{3d}]=0$$
(5)
where $`n_s(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ is the superfluid spatial density, $`v_s(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ is the superfluid velocity field in the laboratory frame and $`m`$ is the mass of the atom. The parameter $`g_{3d}`$ characterizes the strength of the inter-atomic interactions and is related to the $`s`$-wave scattering length $`a_s`$ for a 3D gas by $`g_{3d}=4\pi \mathrm{}^2a_s/m`$. These equations are valid in the Thomas-Fermi limit, where the so-called quantum pressure term is neglected. The density can be written as $`n_s=n_0+\delta n_s`$, and $`\stackrel{}{v_s}=\stackrel{}{v_0}+\delta \stackrel{}{v_s}`$ where $`n_0`$($`\stackrel{}{v_0}`$) is the equilibrium density (velocity) and $`\delta n_s`$($`\delta \stackrel{}{v_s}`$) is a small perturbation of the density (velocity) from its equilibrium value. The collective oscillations can be derived by looking for a general time-dependent solutions of the form (see )

$$\delta n_s(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\alpha _0+\alpha _1(x^2+y^2)+\alpha _2z^2+\alpha _3xy+\alpha _4xz+\alpha _5yz$$
(6)
$$\delta \stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\stackrel{}{}(\beta _0+\beta _1(x^2+y^2)+\beta _2z^2+\beta _3xy+\beta _4xz+\beta _5yz)$$
(7)
where $`\alpha _i`$ and $`\beta _i`$ are time dependents parameters to be determined. In the linear limit, one can look for solutions varying in time like $`e^{i\omega t}`$. Linearizing Eqs. (4) and (5) and inserting $`\delta n_s`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{}{v_s}`$ and solving for the modes $`\omega `$ for $`\omega _x=\omega _y=\omega _r`$, one finds

$$\omega _\pm ^2=\frac{3}{2}(\omega _r^2+\omega _z^2)\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{9\omega _r^4+9\omega _z^410\omega _r^2\omega _z^2}$$
(8)
These modes describe the coupling between the center of mass motion along the radial and axial directions. Fig. 2 displays these modes as a function of the radial frequency which are seen to be stable. The frequencies are normalized with respect to the $`\omega _z`$ axial frequency. We now allow for the condition of tight confinement, i.e. the particles are constrained to move only along the path $`x^2+y^2=r_0^2`$. In the tight confinement regime, at sufficiently low temperatures the radial motion of particles (the center of mass modes along $`x`$ and the $`y`$ direction) is essentially frozen if the radial frequency $`\omega _r`$ is much more than the mean-field interaction energy. Note that the tight confinement regime is not the 1D regime as discussed in . In our system, we still have the velocity component in both $`x`$ and $`y`$ directions. We prefer to call it as the pseudo 1D regime. Proceeding as before, we find in the tight confinement regime the two modes corresponding to center of mass motion along the $`z`$ direction and the scissoring modes $`xz`$($`yz`$) as $`\omega ^2=3\omega _z^2`$ and $`\omega ^2=\omega _z^2`$ respectively. These low energy excitations frequencies are exactly the lowest mode of excitation found numerically in  which confirms the accuracy of the hydrodynamic approach.

## 4 Collective modes of a quasi-condensate in an optical torus

### 4.1 Rotational velocity field of a quasi-condensate

The special properties of superfluids are a consequence of their motions being constraint by the fact that the velocity ($`\stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$) of the condensate is proportional to the gradient of the phase ($`\varphi (\stackrel{}{r},t)`$) of the wave function that is $`\stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=\mathrm{}/m\stackrel{}{}\varphi (\stackrel{}{r},t)`$. We see directly from this definition that $`\stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)`$ satisfies two important constraints, namely the condition of irrotationality $`\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t)=0`$ and the Onsager-Feynman quantization condition $`\stackrel{}{v_s}(\stackrel{}{r},t).d\stackrel{}{l}=nh/m`$ ($`n=0,\pm 1,\pm 2\mathrm{}`$). Obviously, in a simply connected geometry with condensate wave function finite everywhere, the condition of irrotationality implies the Onsager-Feynman quantization condition with $`n=0`$, but for more general cases involving vortices or in a torus (multiply connected geometry), $`n`$ can be non zero.

In stable or metastable equilibrium the total bosonic current will have contribution from both the normal as well as the superfluid component (Landau’s two fluid hypothesis). Now if by some mechanism, the condensate in the torus with mean radius $`r_0`$ is made to rotate with an angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, then the linear velocity of the normal component will be simply $`\mathrm{\Omega }r_0`$ while the linear velocity of the superfluid component will be constrained by the quantization condition and in general can not be equal to $`\mathrm{\Omega }r_0`$. In fact, a simple statistical mechanical argument shows that the lowest free energy is obtained when $`n`$ takes the value closest to $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c=\mathrm{}/mr_0^2`$. For $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_c1`$, $`n`$ is equal to zero and consequently the superfluid component no longer contributes to the circulating current. At larger values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ ($`>\mathrm{\Omega }_c/2`$), the superfluid will contribute to the total angular momentum an amount $`n\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$. An inspection of Eq. (3) for $`p=0p=1`$ transition together with the definition of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$, we find that $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_c=0.5`$ irrespective of the radius of the 2D optical rotator. Consequently, in a true condensate, where the normal component is extremely low, the total bosonic current is almost zero for $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_c1`$. Based on the above discussion, we argue that in a quasi-condensate, where the normal component is substantially higher than a true condensate, for $`\mathrm{\Omega }/\mathrm{\Omega }_c1`$, the normal component will contribute significantly to the bosonic current, which one could detect. Thus using this proposal, it could be possible to distinguish between a quasi-condensate and a true one.

We propose that the theoretical scheme introduced in  may be used to transfer orbital angular momentum of the photon to a cloud of ultra-cold atoms in a quasi-condensate state. A velocity field created in such a manner is rotational. This velocity field can be visualized by introducing a vector potential $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ in the quasi-condensate total velocity $`\stackrel{}{v}=\stackrel{}{v_s}+\stackrel{}{v_n}`$

$$\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{r})=\frac{\mathrm{}}{m}[\varphi (\stackrel{}{r})+\stackrel{}{A}]$$
(9)
where the vector potential $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ is associated with the rotational component of the velocity

$$\stackrel{}{A}=\frac{m}{\mathrm{}}\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}\times \stackrel{}{r}$$
(10)
with $`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}=\mathrm{\Omega }\widehat{k}`$. $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the rotational angular velocity of the sample. The corresponding rotational velocity field which is actually the velocity of the normal component

$$\stackrel{}{v}_{rot}=\stackrel{}{v}_n=\mathrm{\Omega }(y\widehat{i}+x\widehat{j})$$
(11)
with $`\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{v}_n=2\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Omega }}`$. The angular velocity of the sample is easily adjusted by the mean ring radius $`r_0`$ (see Eq. (3)).

### 4.2 Stability conditions for stable persistent current

Let us now analyze the condition for existence of a steady velocity field $`\stackrel{}{v}_n`$ of the form of Eq. (11) in a quasi-condensate for a tight confinement in the presence of a weak perturbation (a slightly distorted potential). The perturbed potential is written as

$$V(r)=\frac{1}{2}m\omega _r^2(rr_0)^2+\frac{1}{2}m\omega _z^2z^2+\frac{1}{2}m(\delta \omega _x)^2x^2+\frac{1}{2}m(\delta \omega _y)^2y^2$$
(12)
where $`\delta \omega _x`$ and $`\delta \omega _y`$ are small external perturbations in the frequencies along $`x`$ and $`y`$ direction. In the presence of the perturbation, the irrotational component of the velocity field is now also included which is written as $`\stackrel{}{v}_{irrot}=\stackrel{}{v}_s=\alpha \stackrel{}{}(xy)`$. Therefore the total velocity field is

$$\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{r})=(\alpha \mathrm{\Omega })y\widehat{i}+(\alpha +\mathrm{\Omega })x\widehat{j}$$
(13)
The macroscopic description of modes with circulation is provided by the equations of two component rotational hydrodynamics

$$m\frac{\stackrel{}{v}}{t}+\stackrel{}{}[\frac{mv^2}{2}+V(\stackrel{}{r},t)+g_{3d}n_s+2g_{3d}n_n]=m\stackrel{}{v}\times (\stackrel{}{}\times \stackrel{}{v})$$
(14)
In the following, we will ignore fluctuations in the density of the normal component ($`n_n`$) and also neglect damping due to interaction between superfluid and normal component. The continuity equation leads to the following expression for $`\alpha `$

$$\alpha =\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }((\delta \omega _y)^2(\delta \omega _x))^2}{2\mathrm{\Omega }^2((\delta \omega _y)^2+(\delta \omega _x)^2)}$$
(15)
Thus we see from Eq. (13) that the irrotational component of the velocity field which comes into picture as a result of the perturbation destroys the bosonic current with uniform angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. From Eq. (15) we infer that for such a uniform current to exist, we must have $`(\delta \omega _x)^2=(\delta \omega _y)^2`$. The conservation of circular symmetry guarantees a uniform current in the quasi-condensate. In the presence of a weak, static, asymmetric perturbation, angular momentum is not conserved. In a rotating quasi-condensate, scattering of particles against such an asymmetric perturbation will ultimately bring the fluid to rest. Having found that circular symmetry as a necessary criterion for a uniform current to exist, we now proceed to calculate the collective modes in the non-equilibrium state. Collective modes in the presence of a rotational velocity field for a trap with circular symmetry can be derived as in section 3 by looking for time-dependant solutions for $`\delta n`$ and $`\delta \stackrel{}{v}`$. We now allow for tight confinement and assume that we still have motion in $`xz`$($`yz`$) planes and also center of mass motion along the $`z`$ direction. The density and velocity fluctuations are now proportional to $`z^2,xz,yz`$. These modes from the usual hydrodynamic approach are found to be

$$\omega ^2=3\omega _z^2$$
(16)
and roots of the equation

$$\omega ^3+\mathrm{\Omega }\omega ^2(\mathrm{\Omega }^2+\omega _z^2)\omega \mathrm{\Omega }(\mathrm{\Omega }^2+\omega _z^2)=0$$
(17)
The modes calculated from of Eq. (16) and Eq. (17) are plotted in Fig. 3. Negative frequencies of excitations are taken as signature of energetic instability which is a result of the absence of thermodynamic equilibrium . The mode corresponding to the center of mass motion along the $`z`$ direction from Eq. (16) (dashed line in Fig. 3) is always positive and constant. This non dependence on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is a consequence of the absence of excitations in the $`xy`$ plane due to tight confinement. We find that for a non-zero value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, one of the scissoring modes in the $`xz`$($`yz`$) planes of Eq. (17) (lower curve in Fig. 3) is always negative. This signals energetic instability because the magnitude of the smallest root is always equal to the angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. This is equivalent to the Landau criterion of super-fluid stability  with respect to proliferation of elementary excitations i.e. the bosonic current becomes unstable when the frequency of the lowest energy excitation becomes equal or more than the angular velocity. A similar result is found for a Bose gas in a toroidal container using Bogoliugov approximation . Thus to have an energetically stable current we need to freeze the motion in $`xz`$ and $`yz`$ planes. This means that we restrict the modes of the elementary excitations to only the $`z`$ direction whose frequency is given by Eq. (16).

Let us now look into the possible experimental realization of such a pseudo quasi-condensate in our proposed scheme. The mean field interaction frequency $`g_{3d}N/\mathrm{}2\pi r_0^3`$ for $`N=10^4`$ and $`a_s=5`$ nm (in the case of Rb) is found to be $`2\pi \times 0.5`$ Hz much less than the radial trap frequency ($`2\pi \times 60`$ Hz, see section 2) which implies that we are indeed in the pseudo 1D regime. Following , one can introduce a dimensionless quantity $`\alpha =4\pi a_s/l`$, where $`l=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/m\omega _z}`$ is the amplitude of axial zero point oscillations. The regime of a weakly interacting gas corresponds to $`\alpha 1`$. In this regime, the condensate is in the Thomas-Fermi regime if the number of particles $`N>\alpha ^1`$. The decrease of temperature to below the degeneracy temperature $`k_BT_d=N\mathrm{}\omega _z`$ leads to the appearance of a quasi-condensate which at $`T<T_{cr}`$ turns to a true condensate. The critical temperature $`T_{cr}`$ is determined by $`k_BT_{cr}=\mathrm{}\omega _z(32N/9\alpha ^2)^{1/3}`$. For $`N10^4`$ and using the values of the trap parameters given earlier (see section 2), we find $`T_d=3`$ mK and $`T_{cr}=17`$ $`\mu `$K. Working between these two temperature limit and having $`\omega _r>g_{3d}N/\mathrm{}2\pi r_0^3`$, one can thus be in the pseudo 1D quasi-condensate regime. This scheme allows us to distinguish between a quasi-condensate and a true condensate by simply measuring the rotational spectrum of the sample. The rotational spectrum of the sample can be measured by using two consecutive Bragg pulses probing the momentum distribution in a trapped Bose gas at low temperature . A stimulated Raman transition involves absorption of a photon from one beam followed by stimulated emission into the other; if the system is in a quasi-condensate regime then this process will transfer an orbital angular momentum off to the atom, but no linear momentum in the axial or radial directions.

## 5 Conclusion

In conclusion, we have proposed the use of a new type of optical toroidal trap to induce a uniform rotational bosonic current (which is not a vortex) in a quasi-condensate. The principle of producing such a current of rotational is based on the transfer of angular momentum of the photon to the atoms of the normal component. The angular velocity induced by the proposed 2D optical rotator is exactly half the critical angular velocity required by the superfluid component to contribute to the total bosonic current. Hence, the given optical rotator is unable to transfer any angular momentum to the atoms in the superfluid component. We are thus able to distinguish between a quasi-condensate and a true condensate by measuring the rotational spectrum of the sample by two-photon Bragg spectroscopy. Our analysis indicates that such a rotational current is uniform when the circular symmetry of the ring trap is conserved and energetically stable when the elementary excitations are completely frozen in the transverse direction ($`xy`$ plane).

## Acknowledgments

Fruitful discussions with I. Carusotto and A. Recati, and a careful check of the manuscript by C. Menotti are acknowledged. This research was supported by the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy under the ICTP-TRIL fellowship scheme and the Sezione A of INFM-Italy through a PAIS Project, by the MIUR-Italy through a COFIN Project, and by the European Commission through the Cold Quantum-Gases Network, contract HPRN-CT-2000-00125.

## References


format: text

text:
# GENERALIZED LADDER OPERATORS FOR THE DIRAC-COULOMB PROBLEM VIA SUSY QM

## I Introduction

The supersymmetry (SUSY) algebra in quantum mechanics (QM) began with the work of Nicolai  and was elegantly formulated by Witten . This approach has attracted interest and was applied to construct the spectral resolution of solvable potentials in many areas of physics . SUSY QM was also formulated by Gendenshtein who used the shape invariance property . The hydrogen atom was studied via SUSY QM in the non-relativistic context by Kostelecky and Nieto . They used the SUSY QM for spectral resolution and also for calculating transition probabilities for alkali-metal atoms. Also, Zhang et al. have considered interesting applications of a semi-unitary formulation of SUSY QM .

The Dirac-Coulomb problem is an exactly solvable problem in relativistic quantum mechanics and the solution can be found in books on quantum mechanics, see for instance . The Dirac-Coulomb problem has also been studied via SUSY QM . Our purpose in this paper is to obtain the complete energy spectrum and the energy eigenfunctions of the Dirac-Coulomb problem using the shape invariance and new generalized ladder operators. The Lie algebra associated with these operators for the shape invariant potentials has been presented by Fukui-Aizawa  and Balantekin . This formalism has been applied to the exactly solvable potentials in non-relativistic quantum mechanics .

It is particularly simple to apply SUSY QM to shape-invariant potentials because their SUSY partners are similar in shape and differ only in the parameters that appear in them. More specifically, if $`V_{}(x;a_1)`$ is any potential, adjusted to have zero ground state energy $`E_{}^{(0)}=0,`$ its SUSY partner $`V_+(x;a_0)`$ must satisfy the requirement $`V_+(x;a_0)=V_{}(x;a_1)+R(a_1),`$ where $`a_0`$ is a set of parameters, $`a_1`$ a function of the parameter $`a_0`$ and $`R(a_1)`$ is independent of $`x`$. In this case, one can determine the energy levels for $`V_+(x;a_0),`$ which correspond to $`E_{}^{(n)}=_{i=1}^nR(a_i).`$ In this context, recently, some relativistic shape invariant potentials have been investigated .

The SUSY hierarchical prescription was used by Sukumar to solve the energy spectrum of the Dirac-Coulomb problem . In this work the Fukui-Aizawa-Balantekin  approach to the Dirac-Coulomb problem is investigated using SUSY QM.

The paper is organized as follows. In section II we realize a graded Lie algebra structure in terms of the 4x4 matrix supercharges, analogous to Witten’s SUSY algebra for the Dirac radial equation associated with the hydrogen atom. In section III, using the shape invariance condition we deduce new generalized ladder operators in relativistic quantum mechanics, via supersymmetry, in order to build up the energy eigenvalue and eigenfunctions of supersymmetric partner potentials. In section IV some concluding remarks are given.

## II THE DIRAC-COULOMB PROBLEM AND SUSY

In this section, we adopt the Sukumar’s approach to construct the 4x4 matrix supercharges. The Dirac radial equation for the hydrogen atom can be written as

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{dG}{dr}& 0\\ 0& \frac{dF}{dr}\end{array}\right)+\frac{1}{r}\left(\begin{array}{cc}k& \gamma \\ \gamma & k\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}G\\ F\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& \alpha _1\\ \alpha _2& 0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}G\\ F\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where $`k`$ is an eigenvalue of the Dirac operator $`K=\beta (\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}\stackrel{}{L}+\mathrm{𝟏}),\gamma =\frac{ze^2}{c\mathrm{}},\alpha _1=m+E,\alpha _2=mE,k=j+\frac{1}{2}(k=\pm 1,\pm 2,\pm 3,\mathrm{}),\stackrel{}{\mathrm{\Sigma }}=(\mathrm{\Sigma }_1,\mathrm{\Sigma }_2,\mathrm{\Sigma }_3)`$ are a set of the Pauli matrices, $`\stackrel{}{L}`$ is the angular momentum operator and 1 is the 2x2 unity matrix. Now, let $`D`$ be the operator which diagonalizes the matrix that appears in the interaction term

$$D^1(k\sigma _3i\gamma \sigma _2)D=s\sigma _3,$$
(2)
where $`s=(k^2\gamma ^2)^{\frac{1}{2}}`$. Then we get

$$D=(s+k)\mathrm{𝟏}+\gamma \sigma _1.$$
(3)
Thus, we obtain

$$\left(\frac{k}{s}+\frac{m}{E}\right)\stackrel{~}{F}=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\stackrel{~}{G},$$
(5)
$$\left(\frac{k}{s}\frac{m}{E}\right)\stackrel{~}{G}=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\stackrel{~}{F},$$
(6)
where

$$\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{G}\\ \stackrel{~}{F}\end{array}\right)=D\left(\begin{array}{c}G\\ F\end{array}\right),\rho =Er.$$
(7)
The eigenvalue equations for $`k=k`$ and $`k=k,`$ respectively, become

$$\left(\frac{k}{s}+\frac{m}{E}\right)\stackrel{~}{F_+}=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\stackrel{~}{G_+},$$
(9)
$$\left(\frac{k}{s}\frac{m}{E}\right)\stackrel{~}{G_+}=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\stackrel{~}{F_+},$$
(10)
$$\left(\frac{k}{s}+\frac{m}{E}\right)\stackrel{~}{F_{}}=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\stackrel{~}{G_{}},$$
(11)
$$\left(\frac{k}{s}\frac{m}{E}\right)\stackrel{~}{G_{}}=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\stackrel{~}{F_{}},$$
(12)
where $`\stackrel{~}{F_\pm }=\stackrel{~}{F}(\pm k)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{G_\pm }=\stackrel{~}{G}(\pm k).`$

Defining the intertwining operators as

$$A_0^{(+)}=𝐈\frac{d}{d\rho }+\left(\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\sigma _3,$$
(13)
$$A_0^{()}=\left(A_0^{(+)}\right)^{}=𝐈\frac{d}{d\rho }+\left(\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\sigma _3$$
(14)
where $`𝐈`$ denotes the 2x2 unit matrix and

$$𝐎=\frac{m}{E}\sigma _1+i\frac{k}{s}\sigma _2,$$
(15)
we get

$$A_0^{(+)}\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{G_+}\\ \stackrel{~}{F_+}\end{array}\right)=𝐎\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{G_+}\\ \stackrel{~}{F_+}\end{array}\right),$$
(16)
$$A_0^{()}\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{F_{}}\\ \stackrel{~}{G_{}}\end{array}\right)=𝐎\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{F_{}}\\ \stackrel{~}{G_{}}\end{array}\right),$$
(17)
where $`𝐈`$ denotes the 2x2 unit matrix.

Using the result

$$A_0^{}=\sigma _1A_0^+\sigma _1,$$
(18)
we see that there exist the supersymmetric partner eigenvalue equations:

$$A_0^{()}A_0^{(+)}\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{G_+}\\ \stackrel{~}{F_+}\end{array}\right)=\left(1+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}\frac{m^2}{E^2}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{G_+}\\ \stackrel{~}{F_+}\end{array}\right)$$
(19)
and

$$A_0^{(+)}A_0^{()}\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{F_{}}\\ \stackrel{~}{G_{}}\end{array}\right)=\left(1+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}\frac{m^2}{E^2}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}\stackrel{~}{F_{}}\\ \stackrel{~}{G_{}}\end{array}\right).$$
(20)
The mutually adjoint non-Hermitian supercharge operators for Witten’s model are given by

$$Q_+=A_0^{(+)}\sigma _{}=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& A_0^{(+)}\\ 0& 0\end{array}\right)_{4x4},Q_{}=A_0^{()}\sigma _+=\left(\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\\ A_0^{()}& 0\end{array}\right)_{4x4},$$
(21)
so that the SUSY Hamiltonian $`H`$ takes the form

$`H=[Q_+,Q_{}]_+`$ $`=`$ $`\left(\begin{array}{cc}H_{}& 0\\ 0& H_+\end{array}\right),`$ (24)
and satisfies $`[H,Q_\pm ]_{}=0.`$

The pair of SUSY hamiltonians is given by

$$H_\pm =𝐈\frac{d^2}{d\rho ^2}+W^2\frac{dW}{d\rho }$$
(25)
where the matrix superpotential is given by $`W(\rho )=\left(\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)\sigma _3.`$

## III SPECTRAL RESOLUTION VIA LADDER OPERATORS

Let us now build up the energy eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of supersymmetric partner potentials using the shape invariance condition and the generalized ladder operators. From the last section one obtains the following matrix forms of the pair of SUSY potentials:

$$V_{}(\rho ,\lambda ,s)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{s(s1)}{\rho ^2}\frac{2\gamma }{\rho }+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}& 0\\ 0& \frac{s(s+1)}{\rho ^2}\frac{2\gamma }{\rho }+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}\end{array}\right),$$
(26)
$$V_+(\rho ,\lambda ,s)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\frac{s(s+1)}{\rho ^2}\frac{2\gamma }{\rho }+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}& 0\\ 0& \frac{s(s1)}{\rho ^2}\frac{2\gamma }{\rho }+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}\end{array}\right).$$
(27)
Although the SUSY partner potentials $`V_{(\pm )}`$ are not shape invariant, we can see that their components are:

$$V_{(+)11}(\rho ,\gamma ,s)=V_{()11}(\rho ,\gamma ,s+1)\frac{\gamma ^2}{(s+1)^2}+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2},$$
(28)
$$V_{()22}(\rho ,\gamma ,s)=V_{(+)22}(\rho ,\gamma ,s+1)\frac{\gamma ^2}{(s+1)^2}+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}.$$
(29)
From (34), (28) and (29) one can written

$$R_{11}(a_1)=R_{22}(a_1)=\frac{\gamma ^2}{(s+1)^2}+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}=\frac{\gamma ^2}{a_0^2}\frac{\gamma ^2}{a_1^2},$$
(30)
where $`a_0=s`$ and $`a_1=a_0+1,`$ so that $`a_i=a_0+i,R_{11}(a_i)=\frac{\gamma ^2}{(s+i)^2}+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}=\frac{\gamma ^2}{(a_i)^2}+\frac{\gamma ^2}{a_0^2}.`$ Thus we get the following energy eigenvalues of $`H_{()11}=H_{(+)22}:`$

$$E_{11}^{(n)}=E_{+22}^{(n)}=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}R_{11}(a_i)=\gamma ^2\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\left(\frac{1}{(a_i)^2}\frac{1}{a_{i1}^2}\right)=\frac{\gamma ^2}{(s+n)^2}+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}.$$
(31)
Comparing (31) with the eigenvalue equation (20) we obtain the energy eigenvalues of the hydrogen relativistic atom, viz.,

$$1+\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}\frac{m^2}{E^{(n)^2}}=\frac{\gamma ^2}{s^2}\frac{\gamma ^2}{(s+n)^2},$$
(32)
providing

$$E^{(n)}=\sqrt{\frac{m^2}{1+\frac{\gamma ^2}{(\sqrt{k^2\gamma ^2}+n)^2}}},n=0,1,2,\mathrm{},$$
(33)
which is in agreement with the result obtained by Sukumar using the SUSY Hamiltonian hierarchy method .

Note that the shape invariance condition is associated with translation of the parameters $`a`$’s, so that the Eq. (28) can be written in the following form

$$A_{11}^{()}(a_0)A_{11}^{(+)}(a_0)=A_{11}^{(+)}(a_1)A_{11}^{()}(a_1)+R_{11}(a_1),$$
(34)
where

$$A_{11}^{(\pm )}(s)=\pm \frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s},a_0=s.$$
(35)
Following Fukui-Aizawa-Balantekin approach , we obtain the following ladder operators

$$B_{}(s)=T^{}(s)A_{11}^{}(s),B_+(s)=B_{}^{}(s),$$
(36)
where $`T(s)`$ being a translation operator defined by

$$T(s)=e^\frac{}{s},$$
(37)
with $`T^{}(s)=e^\frac{}{s}.`$ In this case we have the identity $`R(a_n)=T(a_0)R(a_{n1})T^{}(a_0)`$ and the folowing algebra

$$[B,B_+]=T(a_0)R(a_0)T^{}(a_0)=R(a_1),R(a_n)B_+(a_0)=B_+(a_0)R(a_{n1}),$$
(38)
where the shape invariance provides us the translations of the parameters $`a_n,`$ viz., $`a_n=a_0+n,`$ valid for any $`n.`$ Thus, it is easy to see that the operators $`B_\pm (a_0)`$ and $`R(a_n)`$ satisfy the following commutation relations

$$[H_{()11},B_+^n]=(R(a_1)+R(a_2)+\mathrm{}+R(a_n))B_+^n,$$
(39)
and

$$[H_{()11},B_{}^n]=B_{}^n(R(a_1)+R(a_2)+\mathrm{}+R(a_n)),n=1,2,\mathrm{},$$
(40)
with $`H_{()11}=B_+B_{}=A_{11}^{(+)}A_{11}^{()}.`$ Consequently we see that the $`\stackrel{~}{F}_{}^{(n)},`$ component eigenfunction of the $`n`$-th excited stated, is given by

$$\stackrel{~}{F}_{}^{(n)}B_+^n(s)\stackrel{~}{G}_{}^{(0)}(\rho ;s),n=1,2,3,\mathrm{}_.$$
(41)
The ground state eigenfunction must be annihilated by $`B_{}(s),`$ then

$$A^{}(s)\stackrel{~}{G}_{}^{(0)}(\rho ;s)=0,$$
(42)
which leads us to the following physically acceptable solution

$$\stackrel{~}{G}_{}^{(0)}(\rho ;s)=N_G\rho ^se^{\frac{\gamma }{s}\rho },$$
(43)
where $`N_G`$ being the normalization constant.

¿From $`(\text{36})`$ and $`(\text{37})`$ we see that the raising operator may be written as

$$B_+(s)=\left(\frac{d}{d\rho }+\frac{s}{\rho }\frac{\gamma }{s}\right)e^\frac{}{s}.$$
(44)
Consequently, for the first excited state one may write

$`\stackrel{~}{F}_{}^{(1)}(\rho ;s)`$ $`=B_+(s)\stackrel{~}{G}_{}^{(0)}(\rho ;s)`$ (47)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\rho }}+{\displaystyle \frac{s}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{s}}\right)e^\frac{}{s}\rho ^se^{\frac{\gamma }{s}\rho }`$
$`=\left[(2s+1)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{s(s+1)}}\right)\right]\rho ^{s+1}e^{\frac{\gamma \rho }{s+1}}.`$
Finally we would like to call attention to the fact that the above formalism may be applied to the exactly solvable potentials in relativistic quantum mechanics . Also, the applications of semi-unitary transformations to construct supersymmetric partner Hamiltonian in non-relativistic quantum mechanics  can be implemented for the Dirac-Coulomb problem.

## IV Conclusion

In this paper we investigated the Dirac-Coulomb problem via supersymmetry in quantum mechanics. The shape invariant formalism for the supersymmetric partners is applied to obtain the complete energy spectrum and eigenfunctions of the Dirac-Coulomb problem.

Our approach uses the algebraic structure for shape invariant potential, recently proposed by Fukui-Aizawa-Balantekin  . This approach is different from the SUSY Hamiltonian hierarchy method applied by Sukumar .

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is grateful to A. N. Vaidya, whose advises and encouragement were precious. RLR was supported in part by CNPq (Brazilian Research Agency). He wishes to thank J. A. Helayel Neto for the kind of hospitality at CBPF-MCT. The author wishes also to thank the staff of the CBPF and DCEN-CFP-UFCG.


text:
# Symmetries, magnetic fields, and the shape of molecular cloud cores

## 1. Antecedents

“Do you think that non-symmetric, magnetized, self-gravitating equilibria can exist?” This question is a typical example of the classic, fundamental kind of problems that Frank likes to address. This contribution presents a summary of the results obtained by the writer in his effort to answer Frank’s question.

## 2. Introduction

Ignoring magnetic fields and considering only bounded masses, the result that static stars must be spherical probably follows from the expression of the Newtonian potential alone, but nobody has been able to give a rigorous proof (even less in general relativity, see Misner, Thorne, & Wheeler 1970). For a homogeneous static star, the spherical configuration is that of minimum gravitational energy (the proof is due to Lyapunov, and is reported in Poincaré 1902). Thus, the sphere is the only $`\mathrm{𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒}`$ form of equilibrium. Lamb (1932) argued that “the only form of equilibrium of a mass of homogeneous liquid under its own attraction is a sphere” on the basis of the Lichtenstein (1918) theorem. As this theorem asserts, a rotating star is necessarily symmetric with respect to a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis and passing through the center of mass of the star; if there is no rotation, every plane through the center of mass must be a plane of symmetry, hence the star must be spherical.

Interstellar clouds are not homogeneous balls. The most idealized model of a cloud consists of an equilibrium configuration of an isothermal gas, in which self-gravity is balanced by thermal pressure alone. As it is well known, the equilibrium of such cloud is governed by the quasi-linear elliptic partial differential equation (PDE)

$$^2\psi +e^\psi =0,$$
(1)
where $`\psi `$ is the non-dimensional gravitational potential. Does this equation allow only spherically symmetric solutions? With the condition $`\psi =0`$ over an arbitrary boundary surface, eq. (1) is known to mathematicians as a Liouville-Gel’fand equation. In 1979, the fundamental theorem of Gidas, Ni, & Niremberg established that all solutions of this class of equations are spherically symmetric if the boundary surface is spherical.

The problem with real clouds is that, unlike stars, they have no “boundary surface”: they have infinite extent on the scale of the forming star. When the boundary condition on eq. (1) is pushed to infinity, non-spherically symmetric solutions of eq. (1) appear, but they are either unphysical because they correspond to $`\rho <0`$ (Matsuno 1987), or not force-free at singular points (Medvedev & Narajan 2000). Thus, the deceptively simple question of whether a balance of gravity and pressure alone may lead to physically acceptable non-spherical equilibria remains unsettled. In this contribution, we concentrate on dense, quiescent, molecular cloud cores, containing a few solar masses of gas, and characterized by very low levels of turbulence. A wealth of observations shows that cores are magnetized (see e.g. Crutcher 2001). Therefore, we formulate the problem of the existence of equilibrium states in the general context of magnetohydrostatics (MHS).

Little is known about the intrinsic shapes of cores, which are observed in projection against the plane of the sky. From a selected sample, Myers et al. (1991) concluded that the mean observed aspect ratio was consistent with either oblate or prolate spheroids. Later, for a larger sample, Ryden (1966) and Curry (2002) found that the observed distribution of axis ratios was more consistent with prolate rather than oblate shapes. Recent statistical studies (Jones, Basu, & Dubinski 2001; Jones & Basu 2002), based on the largest available catalogues of dense cores, found unsatisfactory agreement with either oblate or prolate spheroids, and rejected the possibility that cores are axisymmetric configurations. A good fit to the observed axial distribution was generally found assuming that cores are triaxial ellipsoids. The best-fit axial ratios $`a:b:c`$ and their standard deviations determined for the same sample by these studies are remarkably close: $`1:(0.9\pm 0.1):(0.5\pm 0.1)`$ according to Jones & Basu (2002), $`1:(0.8\pm 0.2):(0.4\pm 0.2)`$ according to Goodwin, Ward-Thompson, & Whitworth (2003). The result $`ab>c`$ clearly suggests that cores are preferentially flattened in one direction and nearly oblate, and implies that molecular cloud cores may not be particularly far from conditions of equilibrium.

## 3. Ideal magnetohydrostatic equilibria

Consider a magnetized, isothermal, self-gravitating cloud satisfying the ideal MHS equations

$$c_\mathrm{s}^2\rho +\rho 𝒱=\frac{1}{4\pi }(\times 𝐁)\times 𝐁,$$
(2)
$$𝐁=0,$$
(3)
$$^2𝒱=4\pi G\rho ,$$
(4)
where $`𝐁`$ is the magnetic field, $`\rho `$ is the density, $`𝒱`$ is the gravitational potential, and $`c_\mathrm{s}`$ is the sound speed. All known solutions of this set of equations are characterized by a coordinate symmetry that reduces the number of variables from three to two or one. The symmetry associated with an ignorable coordinate allows MHS problems to be reduced to a second-order elliptic PDE (Dungey 1953), conventionally called the Grad-Shafranov equation. Symmetric equilibria may be grouped into (i) axisymmetric ($`/\phi =0`$), (ii) cylindrically symmetric ($`/z=0`$), and (iii) helically symmetric systems ($`/\phi =k/z`$). As shown by Edenstrasser (1980), helical symmetry represents the most general admissible invariance property of the MHS equations, with rotational and translational invariance as limiting cases.

Applications to the study of interstellar molecular clouds have largeley focused on magnetic configurations of the first kind, assuming azimuthal symmetry (e.g. Mouschovias 1976; Nakano 1979; Tomisaka, Ikeuchi,& Nakamura 1988). Cylindrically symmetric equilibria have been extensively studied, originally in connection with the stability of galactic spiral arms (Chandrasekhar & Fermi 1953; Stodółkiewicz 1963), and later as models of filamentary clouds (Nagasawa 1987; Nakamura, Hanawa, & Nakano 1995). In the latter context, magnetic configurations possessing helical symmetry have also been explored (Nakamura, Hanawa, & Nakano 1993, Fiege & Pudritz 2000a,b).

Even in the special case of non-selfgravitating plasmas, the fundamental question as to the existence of MHS equilibria of a more general symmetry or with no symmetry at all (3-D MHS equilibria) has been formulated several times (e.g. Low 1980, Degtyarev et al. 1985) but never properly answered. Grad (1967) conjectured that, with $`𝒱=0`$, only “highly symmetric” solutions of the system (2)–(3) should be expected, in order to balance the highly anisotropic Lorentz force with with pressure gradients and gravity, which are forces involving scalar potentials. In a fundamental paper, Parker (1972) proved rigorously the non existence of 3-D MHS equilibria that are small perturbations of 2-D equilibria having translational symmetry. This result, conventionally referred to as Parker’s theorem, stimulated much subsequent work and led to the concept of topological non-equilibrium for magnetic configurations lacking high degrees of symmetry (see e.g. Tsinganos, Distler, & Rosner 1984; Moffatt 1985, 1986; Vainshtein et al. 2000). Before extending Parker’s theorem and its implications to conditions typical of molecular cloud cores, one must understand how (a) fluid motions and (b) gravitational forces affect the existence of equilibria.

As for the effect of fluid motions, Tsinganos (1982) found that Parker’s theorem remains valid for steady dynamical ($`𝐯0`$) configurations possessing translational invariance, and stressed the analogy between this result and the familiar Taylor-Proudman theorem of hydrodynamics. However, somewhat at variance with these findings, Galli et al. (2001) found that a class of MHD equilibria possessing axial symmetry (rotating, magnetized, self-gravitating singular isothermal disks) does have neighboring non-axisymmetric equilibrium states, provided the rotation speed becomes sufficiently high (supermagnetosonic). As for the effect of gravity, Field (1982, quoted by Tsinganos et al. 1984) noted that the neglect of the constraining effect exerted by the plasma’s self-gravity may severely limit the existence of MHS equilibria. In a series of papers (Low 1985; Bogdan & Low 1986; Low 1991), Low and collaborators have elaborated a general method to solve the equations of MHS in the presence of an external gravitational field, either uniform or variying as $`1/r^2`$, without postulating the existence of an ignorable coordinate but assuming an electric current everywhere perpendicular to the gravitational field. Even under these restricted assumptions, the problem presents however considerable mathematical difficulties.

## 4. Scale-free equilibria

In order to simplify the problem, we assume that the density and magnetic field are scale-free, i.e. varying as powers of the radial coordinate $`r`$ in spherical coordinates $`(r,\theta ,\phi )`$. In general, any solenoidal vector field B can be expressed as a linear combination of two basic fields $`𝐓`$ and $`𝐒`$ (Chandrasekhar 1961), characterized by vanishing radial component ($`T_r=0`$) and vanishing radial component of the curl ($`[\times 𝐒]_r=0`$), respectively. For a scale-free configuration, if there is no current at one radius, then the same is true for all radii. This condition must be certainly satisfied at large radii, otherwise there would be a flow of charge to infinity, and the cloud would become electrically charged. Thus, the magnetic field in our problem must be purely of the $`𝐒`$-type, and given by

$$𝐁=\times \left[\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }}{r}\right)\times 𝐫\right],$$
(5)
where $`\mathrm{\Psi }(r,\theta ,\phi )`$ is an arbitrary scalar function of position. Here we adopt the scaling of Li & Shu (1996, hereafter LS96),

$$\rho =\frac{c_\mathrm{s}^2}{2\pi Gr^2}R(\theta ,\phi ),$$
(6)
$$𝒱=2c_\mathrm{s}^2[(1+H_0)\mathrm{ln}r+V(\theta ,\phi )],$$
(7)
$$\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{2c_\mathrm{s}^2r}{\sqrt{G}}F(\theta ,\phi ).$$
(8)
The quantity $`H_0`$ in the expression of the gravitational potential eq. (7) is a dimensionless constant measuring the fractional increase in the mean density that arises because the magnetic field contributes to support the cloud against self-gravity (LS96).

## 5. Spectral magnetohydrostatics

A natural basis for a multipole expansion of eq. (2)–(4) is provided by scalar spherical harmonics $`Y_{lm}`$ and vector spherical harmonics $`𝐏_{lm}`$, $`𝐁_{lm}`$, and $`𝐂_{lm}`$ (see e. g. Morse & Feshbach 1953)

$$𝐏_{lm}=Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi )\widehat{𝐫},𝐁_{lm}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{l(l+1)}}_\mathrm{\Omega }Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi ),𝐂_{lm}=\widehat{𝐫}\times 𝐁_{lm},$$
(9)
where $`_\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the angular part of the $``$ operator. We expand the functions $`R(\theta ,\phi )`$, $`V(\theta ,\phi )`$, and $`F(\theta ,\phi )`$ in scalar spherical harmonics,

$$R(\theta ,\phi )=1+H_0+\underset{lm}{}R_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi ),$$
(10)
$$V(\theta ,\phi )=\underset{lm}{}V_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi ),F(\theta ,\phi )=\underset{lm}{}F_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\phi ),$$
(11)
where the sum is for $`l1`$ and $`lml`$, and $`R_{lm}`$, $`V_{lm}`$, and $`F_{lm}`$ are constant complex coefficients. This expansion makes possible to solve immediately Poisson’s equation, obtaining $`R_{lm}=l(l+1)V_{lm}`$. Vector quantities like $`_\mathrm{\Omega }R`$, $`_\mathrm{\Omega }V`$, etc., are instead expressed as series of vector spherical harmonics, as

$$_\mathrm{\Omega }R=\underset{lm}{}\sqrt{l(l+1)}R_{lm}𝐁_{lm},_\mathrm{\Omega }V=\underset{lm}{}\sqrt{l(l+1)}V_{lm}𝐁_{lm},\mathrm{etc}.$$
(12)
The properties of the product of vector spherical harmonics allow non-linear terms to be dealt with in a systematic way in terms of Wigner $`3j`$ symbols (generalized Clebsh-Gordan coefficients), that can be easily evaluated by Racah’s formula (see e.g. Varshalovich, Moskalev, & Khersonskii 1988).

After several manipulations (the details will be given elsewhere), we obtain the equation expressing the condition of radial force balance,

$$H_0R_{lm}=\underset{l^{}m^{}}{}\underset{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }}{}\mathrm{\Theta }_{ll^{}l^{\prime \prime }}^{mm^{}m^{\prime \prime }}A_{l^{}m^{}}A_{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }},$$
(13)
the equation expressing the condition of tangential force balance,

$$[l(l+1)2(1+H_0)]R_{lm}=\underset{l^{}m^{}}{}\underset{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }}{}(\mathrm{\Delta }_{ll^{}l^{\prime \prime }}^{mm^{}m^{\prime \prime }}R_{l^{}m^{}}R_{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ll^{}l^{\prime \prime }}^{mm^{}m^{\prime \prime }}A_{l^{}m^{}}A_{l^{\prime \prime }m^{\prime \prime }})$$
(14)
and the condition for magnetic support,

$$\underset{lm}{}|A_{lm}|^2=4\pi H_0(1+H_0),$$
(15)
where $`R_{lm}`$ and $`A_{lm}=l(l+1)F_{lm}`$ are complex coefficients. The coupling coefficients $`\mathrm{\Theta }_{ll^{}l^{\prime \prime }}^{mm^{}m^{\prime \prime }}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ll^{}l^{\prime \prime }}^{mm^{}m^{\prime \prime }}`$, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ll^{}l^{\prime \prime }}^{mm^{}m^{\prime \prime }}`$ are real, and are equal to zero when the usual triangular conditions on the Wigner $`3j`$ symbols are not all satisfied. In this way, the representation of the physical variables has been transferred from function space, in terms of $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$, to the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space, each vector component now being the coefficient of the corresponding harmonic.

## 6. Test of the method: the axisymmetric case

The procedure for examining the properties of the spectral equations is to truncate the equations by selecting a finite set of expansion coefficients up to some $`l=l_{\mathrm{max}}`$, and setting to zero all other coefficients. As a test of the method, we have solved the spectral MHS equations for $`m=0`$ and various values of $`l_{\mathrm{max}}`$, and compared the results with the axisymmetric solution (singular isothermal toroids) found by LS96. Setting $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=2`$, is equivalent to solving only the radial component of the equation of force balance. At this level of approximation, all variables have simple analytical expressions. For increasingly larger values of $`l_{\mathrm{max}}`$, we solve numerically the resulting nonlinear algebraic system with Newton’s method, assuming as a first guess the solution obtained with the previous value of $`l_{\mathrm{max}}`$. Already for $`l_{\mathrm{max}}=4`$, the solution is within $`1\%`$ of the exact solution obtained with the method of LS96 over a wide range of values of $`H_0`$.

### 6.1. Perturbation analysis

In order to assess the validity of Parker’s theorem for models of molecular cloud cores, we investigate whether the class of axisymmetric toroids of LS96 can allow neighbouring 3-D equibria. To this goal, we perform a linearization of the set of nonlinear algebraic equations near the solution determined in the previous section. We consider two kinds of perturbations: (i) azimuthally symmetric but non-symmetric with respect to the $`\theta =\pi /2`$ plane, and (ii) symmetric with respect to the $`\theta =\pi /2`$ plane, but not azimuthally symmetric. In the former case the density perturbation is characterized by $`l`$ odd and $`m=0`$, in the latter by $`l+m`$ even and $`m0`$. The details of the calculation are too lenghty to be given here, and will be published elsewhere.

The results show that the axisymmetric singular isothermal toroids allow neighbouring 3-D equilibria of either type (i) or (ii), for any value of $`H_0`$, if the perturbation of the density contains harmonics with $`l=1`$ (for case i) or harmonics with $`m=1`$ (for case ii). The first case corresponds to a “bending” of the toroid with respect to the original equatorial plane, the second case corresponds to a “stretching” of the toroid on one side, while preserving equatorial symmetry. In the limiting case $`H_0=0`$, where the toroid becomes the unmagnetized singular isothermal sphere, these two distortions are equivalent, and correspond to the small ellipticity limit of the ellipsoidal equilibria found by Medvedev & Narajan (2000). In the limit $`H_0\mathrm{}`$, the toroid becomes a thin disk, and the $`m=1`$ distortion reproduces the small ellipticity limit of the sequence of elliptical disklike equilibria found by Galli et al. (2001). Since the ellipsoidal equilibria by Medvedev & Narajan (2000) are not force-free at the central singularity, the same is probably true for the elliptic disklike equilibria found by Galli et al. (2001) and all intermediate toroidal configurations with a $`m=1`$ distortion. Very likely, also the “bending” distortion of the toroids results in an equilibrium configuration that is not force-free at the central singularity, but a rigorous proof would be beyond the goals of this paper. We provisionally dismiss both the “$`l=1`$ bending” and “$`m=1`$ stretching”, although the appearance of these permitted distortions of a singular isothermal system deserves further scrutiny.

For arbitrary $`m1`$, the perturbation analysis shows that the singular isothermal toroids of LS96 do not have neighbouring non-axisymmetric equilibria. This results is in agreement with Parker’s theorem, and extends its validity for the first time to the realm of self-gravitating equilibria. Combining this result with the findings of Galli et al. (2001), one is led to the conclusion that the presence of fluid motions (specifically, rotation), rather than the effect of self-gravity, is a crucial ingredient for the occurrence of symmetry breakings in MHD equilibria. However, the required supermagnetosonic levels of rotation are too high to be of any consequence for molecular cloud cores.

What is then the fate of a quasi-static cloud core and its frozen-in magnetic field, formed by whatever process in a configuration presumably lacking a high degree of symmetry? Parker (1979) argued that realistic magnetic fields with no well defined symmetries must evolve in a genuinely time-dependent way, until all non-symmetric components of the field are destroyed by dissipation and reconnection and the topology becomes symmetric. The numerical simulations of Vainshtein et al. (2000) provide a striking illustration of this process.

The problem with starless cores is that ohmic dissipation times are of the order of $`10^{15}`$ yr, and therefore the kind of monotonic relaxation to equilibrium envisaged by Parker can be ruled out. To the extent that cores can be represented as isolated systems devoid of internal sources of energy, these systems must instead undergo weakly damped Alfvèn oscillations around the equilibrium state (say, a non-singular version of the axisymmetric toroids of LS96) with period $`L/(c_\mathrm{s}^2+v_\mathrm{A}^2)^{1/2}`$ (Woltjer 1962), where $`v_\mathrm{A}`$ is the Alfvèn speed of the plasma. As we noted in § 2, the deviation of the average shape of cloud cores from axisymmetric oblate spheroids is small ($`ab`$). If we adopt this deviation as a rough measure of nonequilibrium, a simple harmonic oscillator analogy provides an estimate of the average velocity $`v`$ of pulsation,

$$\frac{v}{(c_\mathrm{s}^2+v_\mathrm{A}^2)^{1/2}}\frac{ab}{a},$$
(16)
which, for $`a:b=1:0.8`$ (see § 2) gives $`v0.2(c_\mathrm{s}^2+v_A^2)^{1/2}`$. For a typical core with $`c_\mathrm{s}=0.2`$ km s-1, $`n(\mathrm{H}_2)=10^4`$ cm-3, and $`B=10`$ $`\mu `$G, this implies coherent pulsations with $`v0.05`$ km s-1.

## 7. Conclusions

Whether or not real cloud cores are triaxial ellipsoids that pulsate because of their intrinsic topological non-equilibrium, as suggested by the theoretical arguments discussed in the previous sections, the material presented in this contribution illustrates well the richness of possible implications concealed in a typical question asked by Frank.

## References

Bogdan, T. J., & Low, B. C. 1986, ApJ, 306, 271

Chandrasekhar, S., & Fermi, E. 1953, ApJ, 118, 116

Chandrasekhar, S. 1961, Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability (Oxford: Univ. Press), 225

Crutcher, R. M. 2001, in ASP Conf. Ser. Vol. 243, From Darkness to Light, eds. T. Montmerle & P. André (San Francisco: ASP), 27

Curry, C. L. 2002, ApJ, 576, 849

Dungey, J. 1953, MNRAS, 113, 180

Degtyarev, L. M., Drozdov, V. V., Mikhailov, M. I., Pustovitov, V. D., & Shafranov, V. D. 1985, Sov. J. Plasma Phys. 11, 22

Edenstrasser, J. W. 1980, J. Plasma Phys., 24, 299

Fiege, J. D., & Pudritz, R. E. 2000a, MNRAS, 311, 85

Fiege, J. D., & Pudritz, R. E. 2000b, MNRAS, 311, 105

Galli, D., Shu, F., Laughlin, G., & Lizano, S. 2001, ApJ, 551, 367

Gidas, B., Ni, W., & Nirenberg, L. 1979, Comm. Math. Phys., 68, 209

Goodwin, S., Ward-Thompson, D., & Whitworth, A. 2003, MNRAS, 330, 769

Grad, H. 1967, Phys. Fluids, 10, 137

Jones, C. E., Basu, S., & Dubinski, J. 2001, ApJ, 551, 387

Jones, C. E., & Basu, S. 2002, ApJ, 569, 280

Lamb, H. 1932, Hydrodynamics (Cambridge: University Press), 698

Li, Z.-Y., & Shu, F. H. 1996, ApJ, 472, 211 (LS96)

Lichtenstein, L. 1918, Berl. Ber., 1120

Low, B. C. 1980, Sol. Phys., 65, 147

Low, B. C. 1985, ApJ, 293, 31

Low, B. C. 1991, ApJ, 370, 427

Matsuno, Y. 1987, J. Math. Phys., 28, 2317

Medvedev, M. V., & Narajan, R. 2000, ApJ, 541, 579

Misner, C. W., Thorne, K. S., & Wheeler, J. A. 1970, Gravitation (San Francisco: Freeman & Co.), 294

Moffatt, H. K. 1985, J. Fluid Mechanics, 159, 359

Moffatt, H. K. 1986, J. Fluid Mechanics, 166, 359

Morse, P. M., & Feshbach, H. 1953, Methods of Theoretical Physics (New York: McGraw Hill), 276

Mouschovias, T. Ch. 1976, ApJ, 206, 753

Myers, P. C., Fuller, G. A., Goodman, A. A., & Benson, P. J. 1991, ApJ, 376, 561

Nagasawa, M. 1987, Progr. Theor. Phys., 77, 635

Nakano, T. 1979, PASJ, 31, 697

Nakamura, F., Hanawa, T., & Nakano, T. 1993, PASJ, 45, 551

Nakamura, F., Hanawa, T., & Nakano, T. 1995, ApJ, 444, 770

Parker, E. N. 1972, ApJ, 239, 746

Parker, E. N. 1979, Cosmical Magnetic Fields (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 359

Poincaré, H. 1902, Figures d’equilibre d’une masse fluide (Paris: Naud), 11

Ryden, B. S. 1996, ApJ, 471, 822

Stodółkiewicz, J. S. 1963, Acta Astron., 13, 30

Tomisaka, K., Ikeuchi, S., & Nakamura, T. 1988, ApJ, 326, 208

Tsinganos, K. C. 1982, ApJ, 259, 832

Tsinganos, K. C., Distler, J., & Rosner, R. 1984, ApJ, 278, 409

Vainshtein, S., Mikić, Z., Rosner, R., & Linker, J. 2000, Phys. Rev. E 62, 1245

Varshalovich, D. A., Moskalev, A. N., & Khersonskii, V. K. 1988, The Quantum Theory of Angular Momentum (Singapore: World Scientific), 208

Woltjer, L. 1962, ApJ, 135, 235


text:
# Asymptotically optimal 𝐾_𝑘-packings of dense graphs via fractional 𝐾_𝑘-decompositions

## 1 Introduction

All graphs considered here are finite, undirected and simple. For standard graph-theoretic terminology the reader is referred to . Let $`H`$ be a fixed graph. For a graph $`G`$, the $`H`$-packing number, denoted $`\nu _H(G)`$, is the maximum number of pairwise edge-disjoint copies of $`H`$ in $`G`$. A function $`\psi `$ from the set of copies of $`H`$ in $`G`$ to $`[0,1]`$ is a fractional $`H`$-packing of $`G`$ if $`_{eH}\psi (H)1`$ for each $`eE(G)`$. For a fractional $`H`$-packing $`\psi `$, let $`|\psi |=_{H\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{G}{H}\right)}\psi (H)`$. The fractional $`H`$-packing number, denoted $`\nu _H^{}(G)`$, is defined to be the maximum value of $`|\psi |`$ over all fractional packings $`\psi `$. Notice that, trivially, $`\nu _H^{}(G)\nu _H(G)`$. In case $`\nu _H(G)=e(G)/e(H)`$ we say that $`G`$ has an $`H`$-decomposition. In case $`\nu _H^{}(G)=e(G)/e(H)`$ we say that $`G`$ has a fractional $`H`$-decomposition. It is well known that computing $`\nu _H(G)`$ is NP-Hard for every fixed graph $`H`$ with more than two edges in some connected component . It is well known that computing $`\nu _H^{}(G)`$ is solvable in polynomial time for every fixed graph $`H`$ as this amounts to solving a (polynomial size) linear program.

The combinatorial aspects of the $`H`$-packing and $`H`$-decomposition problems have been studied extensively. Wilson in  has proved that whenever $`nn_0=n_0(H)`$, and $`K_n`$ satisfies two obvious necessary divisibility requirements, $`K_n`$ has an $`H`$-decomposition. The $`H`$-packing problem for $`K_n`$ ($`nn(H)`$) was solved , by giving a closed formula for $`\nu (H,K_n)`$. For graphs $`G`$ which are not complete, giving sufficient conditions guaranteeing an $`H`$-decomposition or, at least, a packing covering all but a small fraction of the edges seems to be an extremely difficult task, even if we assume that $`G`$ is dense. To be more precise, let us define the following problem and parameter.

Problem: Given a fixed graph $`H`$, determine $`c_H`$, which is the supremum of all possible constants $`c`$ guaranteeing that every graph $`G`$ with $`n`$ vertices and minimum degree $`\delta (G)(1c)(n1)`$ has $`\nu _H(G)(1o_n(1))e(G)/e(H)`$.

Wilson’s Theorem implies that $`c_H0`$ exists. In fact, $`c_H0`$ can also be derived from Rödl’s result  which is weaker than Wilson’s for graphs, but is more general since it applies to $`r`$-uniform hypergraphs as well. Gustavsson  has proved that $`c_H>0`$ for every graph $`H`$. However, Gustavsson’s lower bound for $`c_H`$ is horribly close to $`0`$. Already for $`H=K_3`$ it only gives $`c_{K_3}>10^{24}`$, and, more generally, if $`H`$ has $`k`$ vertices then $`c_H>10^{37}k^{94}`$. Gustavsson’s result does however, show that the minimum degree requirement, together with necessary divisibility conditions, guarantees an $`H`$-decomposition. The exact value of $`c_H`$ is unknown for any fixed non-bipartite graph $`H`$. Notice that, trivially, $`c_H=1`$ in case $`H`$ is a bipartite graph as the Turán number of such graphs is $`o(n^2)`$. However, if we insist on having a packing of size $`e(G)/e(H)`$ then it is known that a minimum degree of $`0.5n(1+o_n(1))`$ suffices for each fixed bipartite graph $`H`$ (other than the trivial $`K_2`$) having a vertex of degree one (this includes all trees) and this is asymptotically tight .

In this paper we prove the first reasonable general lower bound for $`c_H`$.

###### Theorem 1.1

For all $`k3`$, $`c_{K_k}1/9k^{10}`$.

Although Theorem 1.1 is stated only for $`K_k`$, a simple argument given in the sequel shows that the same lower bound holds for any graph $`H`$ with $`k`$ vertices. Theorem 1.1 is deduced as a combination of two powerful theorems, the first of which is the following.

###### Theorem 1.2

For all $`k3`$, any graph $`G`$ with $`n`$ vertices and $`\delta (G)n(11/9k^{10})+o(n)`$ has a fractional $`K_k`$-decomposition.

The proof of Theorem 1.2 appears in the following section.

Recently, Haxell and Rödl  proved that the $`H`$-packing number and the fractional $`H`$-packing number are very close for dense graphs. A simpler and more general proof of their result appears in .

###### Theorem 1.3

\[Haxell and Rödl \] For any fixed graph $`H`$, if $`G`$ has $`n`$ vertices then $`\nu _H^{}(G)\nu _H(G)=o(n^2)`$.

Theorem 1.2 gives that for sufficiently large $`n`$, any graph $`G`$ with $`n`$ vertices and $`\delta (G)n(11/9k^{10})+o(n)`$ has $`\nu _{K_k}^{}(G)=e(G)/e(K_k)`$. Thus, by Theorem 1.3, it also has $`\nu _{K_k}(G)e(G)/e(K_k)o(n^2)=(1o_n(1))e(G)/e(K_k)`$. Consequently, $`c_{K_k}1/9k^{10}`$ and Theorem 1.1 follows.

Finally, we note that an $`1/(k+1)`$ upper bound for $`c_{K_k}`$ is given in the final section together with some additional concluding remarks.

## 2 Proof of Theorem 1.2

Let $``$ be a fixed family of graphs. An $``$-decomposition of a graph $`G`$ is a set $`L`$ of subgraphs of $`G`$, each isomorphic to an element of $``$, and such that each edge of $`G`$ appears in precisely one element of $`L`$. Let $`K_t^{}`$ denote the complete graph with $`t`$ vertices, missing one edge. Let $`_k=\{K_k,K_{2k1},K_{2k1}^{}\}`$. The proof of Theorem 1.2 is a corollary of the following stronger theorem.

###### Theorem 2.1

For all $`k3`$, every graph with $`n`$ vertices and minimum degree at least $`n(11/9k^{10})+o(n)`$ has an $`_k`$-decomposition.

The following simple lemma shows that Theorem 1.2 is a corollary of Theorem 2.1.

###### Lemma 2.2

For all $`k2`$, the graphs $`K_{2k1}`$ and $`K_{2k1}^{}`$ have a fractional $`K_k`$-decomposition.

Proof: It is trivial that for all $`k^{}k`$, $`K_k^{}`$ has a fractional $`K_k`$-decomposition. In Particular, $`K_{2k1}`$ has a fractional $`K_k`$-decomposition. Let $`A=\{u,v\}`$ denote the set of the two non-adjacent vertices of $`K_{2k1}^{}`$, and let $`B`$ denote the set of the remaining $`2k3`$ vertices. Each edge incident with $`A`$ lies on $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k4}{k2}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$. Each edge with both endpoints in $`B`$ lies on $`2\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k5}{k3}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$ that contain a vertex of $`A`$. Since $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k4}{k2}\right)=2\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k5}{k3}\right)`$, by assigning the value $`1/\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{2k4}{k2}\right)`$ to each copy of $`K_k`$ containing a vertex of $`A`$, and assigning the value $`0`$ to the remaining copies of $`K_k`$, we obtain a fractional $`K_k`$-decomposition of $`K_{2k1}^{}`$.

We now focus on proving Theorem 2.1. For the rest of this section, let $`t=2k1`$. Notice that the $`o(n)`$ term in the statement of Theorem 2.1 allows us to assume, whenever necessary, that $`n`$ is sufficiently large. In the proof of Theorem 2.1 it will be convenient to use Wilson’s Theorem  mentioned in the introduction. (We note that it is also possible to use Rödl’s packing theorem  instead of Wilson’s Theorem at the price of some complication in the proof). Wilson’s Theorem applied to $`K_t`$ states the following.

###### Lemma 2.3

\[Wilson\] Let $`t>2`$ be a positive integer. There exists $`N=N(t)`$ such that for all $`n>N`$ with $`n1,tmodt(t1)`$, there is a decomposition of $`K_n`$ into $`K_t`$.

We shall prove Theorem 2.1 under the relaxed assumption that $`n1modt(t1)`$. We first need to justify this relaxation. Indeed, if $`1<bt(t1)`$ and $`nbmodt(t1)`$ then we can perform the following preprocessing. Let $`v`$ be any vertex of $`G`$, and let $`N(v)`$ denote its neighborhood. Let $`G[N(v)]`$ be the subgraph induced by this neighborhood. Notice that $`G[N(v)]`$ has less than $`n`$ vertices, but has minimum degree at least $`n(12/9k^{10})+o(n)`$. By the theorem of Hajnal and Szemerédi , such a high minimum degree for a graph with at most $`n`$ vertices is far more than what is needed in order to guarantee that $`G[N(v)]`$ has a spanning subgraph $`G^{}`$ with each component of $`G^{}`$ being either a $`K_{k1}`$ or a $`K_{3k4}`$. In fact, a minimum degree of at least $`n(11/(3k4))`$ already guarantees the existence of such a $`G^{}`$. Now, if $`H`$ is a $`K_{k1}`$ component of $`G^{}`$ then $`H\{v\}`$ is a $`K_k`$ copy of $`G`$. If $`H`$ is a $`K_{3k4}`$ component of $`G^{}`$ then $`Hv`$ contains two edge-disjoint subgraphs, one being $`K_k`$ and the other being $`K_t^{}`$, and with all $`3k4`$ edges between $`v`$ and the vertices of $`H`$ absorbed. We thus have a set of edge-disjoint subgraphs of $`G`$, each being either $`K_k`$ or $`K_t^{}`$, and that absorb all edges incident with $`v`$. Deleting $`v`$ and the edges of these subgraphs we remain with a graph with $`n1`$ vertices and minimum degree at least $`\delta (G)(3k4)(n1)(11/9k^{10})+o(n1)`$. Repeating this process at most $`b1`$ times we eventually have a graph with $`n^{}=nb+11modt(t1)`$ vertices and minimum degree at least $`\delta (G)(3k4)((2k1)(2k2)1)n^{}(11/9k^{10})+o(n^{})`$, which satisfied our relaxed assumption. Our preprocessing shows that any $`_k`$-decomposition of this resulting $`n^{}`$-vertex graph can be extended to an $`_k`$-decomposition of the original $`n`$-vertex graph.

Proof of Theorem 2.1 We may assume that $`n1modt(t1)`$ and that, whenever necessary, $`n`$ is sufficiently large as a function of $`k`$ (and hence $`t`$). In particular, $`n>N(t)`$ where $`N(t)`$ is the constant from Lemma 2.3. Fix a $`K_t`$-decomposition of $`K_n`$. Namely, let $`D`$ be a family of $`t`$-sets of $`[n]=\{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ such that each pair appears in precisely one element of $`D`$. Such a $`D`$ is also called a $`t`$-design. Notice that $`|D|=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)/\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)`$. For a permutation $`\pi `$ of $`[n]`$, and for $`SD`$, let $`S_\pi =\{\pi (j):jS\}`$. Hence, $`D_\pi =\{S_\pi :SD\}`$ is also a $`t`$-design. Let $`G`$ be an $`n`$-vertex graph with vertex set $`[n]`$. For a permutation $`\pi `$ of $`[n]`$ let $`G_\pi `$ be the family of $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)/\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)`$ edge-disjoint subgraphs of $`G`$ whose elements are the induced subgraphs of $`G`$ on $`S_\pi `$, for all $`SD`$. Notice that if $`G=K_n`$ then, trivially, $`G_\pi `$ is a $`K_t`$-decomposition for each $`\pi `$, but if $`GK_n`$, $`G_\pi `$ contains elements that are not isomorphic to $`K_t`$. The following is a simple corollary of Lemma 2.3.

###### Corollary 2.4

Let $`0<\alpha <1`$ be fixed. Let $`G`$ be a graph with $`n>N(t)`$ vertices, $`n1modt(t1)`$. If $`\delta (G)(1\alpha )n`$ and $`\pi `$ is any permutation of $`[n]`$ then $`G_\pi `$ has at least $`(1o(1))n^2(\frac{1}{t(t1)}\frac{\alpha }{2})`$ elements isomorphic to $`K_t`$ and at most $`(1+o(1))n^2(\frac{\alpha }{2})(\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)1)`$ edges appear in elements of $`G_\pi `$ that are not isomorphic to $`K_t`$.

Proof: The number of non-edges of $`G`$ is at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)(1\alpha )n^2/2`$. Thus, $`G_\pi `$ has at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)(1\alpha )n^2/2`$ elements that are not $`K_t`$ and therefore $`G_\pi `$ has at least $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)/\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)+(1\alpha )n^2/2`$ elements isomorphic to $`K_t`$ and at most $`(\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n}{2}\right)(1\alpha )n^2/2)(\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)1)`$ edges of $`G`$ are in non-$`K_t`$ elements of $`G_\pi `$.

Assume that $`\delta (G)n(11/9k^{10})+o(n)`$. Our goal is to show that there exists a permutation $`\pi `$, such that $`G_\pi `$ has some “nice” properties. Let $`A_\pi `$ denote the set of edges of $`G`$ that appear in non-$`K_t`$ elements of $`G_\pi `$. By Corollary 2.4, with $`\alpha =1/9k^{10}`$,

$$|A_\pi |(1+o(1))n^2\left(\frac{1}{18k^{10}}\right)\left(\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)1\right)(1+o(1))\frac{n^2}{9k^8}.$$
(1)
Consider the spanning subgraph of $`G`$ consisting of the edges of $`A_\pi `$. It will not be confusing to denote this subgraph by $`A_\pi `$ as well. Let $`F_\pi G_\pi `$ be the set of $`K_t`$-elements of $`G_\pi `$. Put $`r=\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k}{2}\right)1`$. We say that an $`r`$-subset $`S=\{H_1,\mathrm{},H_r\}`$ of $`F_\pi `$ is good for $`eA_\pi `$ if we can select edges $`f_iH_i`$ such that $`\{f_1,\mathrm{},f_r,e\}`$ is the set of edges of a $`K_k`$ in $`G`$. We say that $`\pi `$ is good if for each $`eA_\pi `$ there exists an $`r`$-subset $`S(e)`$ of $`F_\pi `$ such that $`S(e)`$ is good for $`e`$ and such that if $`ee^{}`$ then $`S(e)S(e^{})=\mathrm{}`$.

###### Lemma 2.5

If $`\pi `$ is good then $`G`$ has an $`_k`$-decomposition.

Proof: For each $`eA_\pi `$, pick a copy of $`K_k`$ in $`G`$ containing $`e`$ and precisely one edge from each element of $`S(e)`$. As each element of $`S(e)`$ is a $`K_t`$, deleting one edge from such an element results in a $`K_t^{}`$. We therefore have $`|A_\pi |`$ copies of $`K_k`$ and $`|A_\pi |(\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k}{2}\right)1)`$ copies of $`K_t^{}`$, all being edge disjoint. The remaining element of $`F_\pi `$ not belonging to any of the $`S(e)`$ are each a $`K_t`$, and they are edge-disjoint from each other and from the previously selected $`K_k`$ and $`K_t^{}`$.

Our goal in the remainder of this section is, therefore, to show that there exists a good $`\pi `$. We use probabilistic and counting arguments to derive this fact. We will show that with positive probability, a randomly selected $`\pi `$ is good. We begin by showing that with high probability, a randomly selected $`\pi `$ has the property that $`A_\pi `$ has a relatively small maximum degree.

Let $`v`$ be any vertex of $`G`$, and let $`E(v)`$ denote the set of edges incident with $`v`$. By our assumption, $`|E(v)|(11/9k^{10})n`$. Let $`E_\pi (v)=E(v)A_\pi `$. Notice that if $`\pi `$ is selected uniformly at random then $`|E_\pi (v)|`$, which is the degree of $`v`$ in $`A_\pi `$, is a random variable. We say that a subset $`SE(v)`$ is separated by $`\pi `$ if each edge of $`S`$ belongs to a different element of $`G_\pi `$. Let $`\beta =3/k^8`$ and consider any fixed set $`SE(v)`$ with $`|S|=\beta n`$. We shall prove that the probability that $`SE_\pi (v)`$ and that $`S`$ is separated by $`\pi `$ is much smaller than the total number of subsets of $`E(v)`$ with size $`\beta n`$. Thus, the probability that the degree of $`v`$ in $`A_\pi `$ exceeds $`t\beta n`$ is also very small (in fact, much smaller than $`1/n`$), and consequently, the maximum degree of $`A_\pi `$ is at most $`t\beta n`$ almost surely. Let $`S=\{e_1,\mathrm{},e_m\}`$ where $`m=\beta n`$ and let $`e_i=(v,v_i)`$. Let $`S_\pi (i)`$ denote the element of $`G_\pi `$ to which the edge $`e_i`$ belongs, $`i=1,\mathrm{},m`$. Notice that $`S`$ is separated by $`\pi `$ if and only if $`S_\pi (i)S_\pi (j)`$ for all $`ij`$. Clearly, by using conditional probabilities we have

$$\mathrm{Pr}[(SE_\pi (v))(S\mathrm{is}\mathrm{separated}\mathrm{by}\pi )]=$$
(2)
$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}\mathrm{Pr}[(e_iA_\pi )(j<i,S_\pi (i)S_\pi (j))|(\{e_1,\mathrm{},e_{i1}\}A_\pi )(S_\pi (j)S_\pi (j^{}),1j<j^{}<i)].$$

We shall prove that each term in the product appearing in the r.h.s. of the last equation is small. For this purpose we require a lemma which quantifies the fact that in a graph with high minimum degree every edge appears on many copies of $`K_t`$.

###### Lemma 2.6

If $`G^{}`$ is a graph with $`n^{}`$ vertices and minimum degree at least $`n^{}r`$ then every edge of $`G^{}`$ appears on at least $`\frac{1}{(t2)!}_{i=2}^{t1}(n^{}ir)`$ distinct copies of $`K_t`$.

We prove the lemma by induction on $`t`$. For $`t=2`$ and $`t=3`$ the lemma is obvious. Assume the lemma holds for all $`t^{}<t`$. Let $`e=(u,v)`$ be an edge of $`G^{}`$. Let $`N(u,v)`$ denote the set of common neighbors of $`u`$ and $`v`$. Clearly, $`|N(u,v)|n^{}2r`$. Let $`G^{}=G^{}[N(u,v)]`$. The minimum degree of $`G^{}`$ is at least $`|N(u,v)|r`$. It follows that $`G^{}`$ has at least $`(n^{}2r)(n^{}3r)/2`$ edges. The number of distinct copies of $`K_{t2}`$ in $`G^{}`$ is equal to the number of distinct copies of $`K_t`$ containing $`e`$ in $`G^{}`$. By the induction hypothesis, each edge of $`G^{}`$ appears in at least $`\frac{1}{(t4)!}_{i=4}^{t1}(n^{}ir)`$ distinct copies of $`K_{t2}`$. Since each copy of $`K_{t2}`$ is counted $`(t2)(t3)/2`$ times the number of distinct copies of $`K_{t2}`$ in $`G^{}`$ is at least

$$\frac{(n^{}2r)(n^{}3r)}{2}\frac{1}{(t4)!}\underset{i=4}{\overset{t1}{}}(n^{}ir)\frac{2}{(t2)(t3)}=\frac{1}{(t2)!}\underset{i=2}{\overset{t1}{}}(n^{}ir)$$

as required.

###### Corollary 2.7

If $`G^{}`$ is a graph with $`n^{}`$ vertices and minimum degree at least $`n^{}(1\gamma )`$ then, for every edge $`e`$ of $`G^{}`$, the probability that a randomly selected $`t`$-vertex subgraph of $`G^{}`$ that contains $`e`$ is not a $`K_t`$ is at most $`1(1t\gamma )^{t2}`$.

Proof: There are precisely $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n^{}2}{t2}\right)`$ subgraphs with $`t`$ vertices that contain the edge $`e`$. By Lemma 2.6, with $`r=\gamma n^{}`$, the number of $`K_t`$-subgraphs that contain $`e`$ is at least

$$\frac{1}{(t2)!}\underset{i=2}{\overset{t1}{}}(n^{}i\gamma n^{})>\frac{1}{(t2)!}(n^{})^{t2}(1t\gamma )^{t2}>\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n^{}2}{t2}\right)(1t\gamma )^{t2}.$$

Thus, the probability that a randomly selected $`t`$-vertex subgraph of $`G^{}`$ that contains $`e`$ is not a $`K_t`$ is at most $`1(1t\gamma )^{t2}`$.

Corollary 2.7 enables us to estimate the terms in the r.h.s. of (2). Let $`Y_\pi (j)`$ be the set of $`t`$ vertices of the element $`S_\pi (j)`$. Notice that given the knowledge that $`S_\pi (j)S_\pi (j^{})`$ for $`1j<j^{}<i`$ implies, in particular, the knowledge that $`Y_\pi (j)Y_\pi (j^{})=\{v\}`$. Thus, if $`W=_{j=1}^{i1}Y_\pi (j)`$ then $`|W|=(i1)(t1)+1`$. Thus, we know the size of $`W`$. In order to prove an upper bound on each term of the r.h.s. of (2) it suffices to prove an upper bound on $`\mathrm{Pr}[(e_iA_\pi )(S_\pi (i)W=\{v\})|W]`$ whose value does not depend on the specific set $`W`$, but which may, and will, depend on the prior knowledge that $`|W|=(i1)(t1)+1`$. Indeed, let $`G^{}`$ be the induced subgraph of $`G`$ obtained by deleting the set of vertices $`W\{v\}`$. Notice that $`G^{}`$ has $`n^{}=n(i1)(t1)`$ vertices. Clearly, $`\mathrm{Pr}[(e_iA_\pi )(S_\pi (i)W=\{v\})|W]`$ is precisely the probability that a randomly selected $`t`$-vertex subgraph of $`G^{}`$ containing $`e_i`$ is not a $`K_t`$. Using the fact that $`(i1)(t1)<mt<<n/2`$, we have that the minimum degree of $`G^{}`$ is a least $`n^{}n/9k^{10}n^{}(12/9k^{10})`$. Using $`\gamma =2/9k^{10}`$, we have by Corollary 2.7 that $`\mathrm{Pr}[(e_iA_\pi )(S_\pi (i)W=\{v\})|W]1(1t\gamma )^{t2}`$. Consequently each term in (2) is bounded from above by $`1(1t\gamma )^{t2}`$. We therefore have

$$\mathrm{Pr}[(SE_\pi (v))(S\mathrm{is}\mathrm{separated}\mathrm{by}\pi )](1(1t\gamma )^{t2})^m.$$
(3)
###### Lemma 2.8

With probability $`1o(1)`$, $`A_\pi `$ has maximum degree at most $`6n/k^7`$.

Proof: Since the maximum degree of each element of $`G_\pi `$ is at most $`t1`$ we have, by the definition of $`E_\pi (v)`$, that there is $`SE_\pi (v)`$ such that $`S`$ is separated by $`\pi `$ and $`|S||E_\pi (v)|/(t1)`$. Thus, it suffices to show that for each vertex $`v`$, $`E_\pi (v)`$ has no subset separated by $`\pi `$ of size greater than $`3n/k^8`$ with probability $`1o(1/n)`$ since this implies that $`|E_\pi (v)|(t1)3n/k^86n/k^7`$ with probability $`1o(1/n)`$ and hence the maximum degree of $`A_\pi `$ is at most $`6n/k^7`$ with probability $`1o(1)`$. Indeed, by (3) the probability that $`E_\pi (v)`$ has a subset separated by $`\pi `$ of size $`m=\beta n=3n/k^8`$ is at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n1}{m}\right)(1(1t\gamma )^{t2})^m`$ where $`\gamma =2/9k^{10}`$. We therefore have

$$\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n1}{m}\right)(1(1t\gamma )^{t2})^m\left(\frac{1}{\beta ^\beta (1\beta )^{1\beta }}\left(1(1\frac{4}{9k^9})^{2k3}\right)^\beta \right)^n$$

$$\left(\frac{1}{\beta ^\beta (1\beta )^{1\beta }}\left(1(1\frac{1}{k^8})\right)^\beta \right)^n=\left(\frac{1}{3^\beta (1\beta )^{1\beta }}\right)^n=o\left(\frac{1}{n}\right).$$

By Lemma 2.8, we may fix a permutation $`\pi `$ for which $`A_\pi `$ has maximum degree at most $`6n/k^7`$. Let $`A_\pi =\{e_1,\mathrm{},e_m\}`$. We perform the following algorithm which has $`m`$ iterations. In the $`i^{}`$th iteration we pick an $`r`$-subset $`S(e_i)`$ of $`F_\pi `$ which is good for $`e_i`$ and which satisfies the following two properties:

1. $`S(e_i)S(e_j)=\mathrm{}`$ for all $`j=1,\mathrm{},i1`$.
2. For each $`v`$, let $`f_i(v)`$ denote the number of edges incident with $`v`$ and which belong to some element of $`S(e_j)`$, $`ji`$, and where $`v`$ is not an endpoint of $`e_j`$. Then, $`f_i(v)n/(2k)`$.

Notice that if we can complete all $`m`$ iterations of the algorithm then the first requirement guarantees that $`\pi `$ is good and hence, by Lemma 2.5 we are done. The second requirement is needed in order to guarantee that the algorithm will, indeed, complete all $`m`$ iterations. We therefore need to prove the following lemma.

###### Lemma 2.9

If $`A_\pi `$ has maximum degree at most $`6n/k^7`$ then the algorithm completes all $`m`$ iterations.

Proof: The most difficult case is to prove that the $`m`$’th iteration can also be completed, assuming all previous iterations have completed. Let $`e_m=(u,v)`$. We define several parameters. Let $`a_1`$ denote the number of $`K_k`$ copies of $`G`$ that contain $`e_m`$. Let $`a_2`$ denote the number of $`K_k`$ copies of $`G`$ that contain $`e_m`$ and also contain two edges from the same element of $`F_\pi `$. Let $`a_3`$ denote the number of $`K_k`$ copies of $`G`$ that contain $`e_m`$ and also contain another edge from $`A_\pi `$. Let $`E_m`$ denote the set of $`(m1)r\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)`$ edges in all elements of $`_{i=1}^{m1}S(e_i)`$. Let $`a_4`$ denote the number of $`K_k`$ copies of $`G`$ that contain $`e_m`$ and also contain an edge of $`E_m`$. Let $`V_m`$ be the subset of vertices of $`G`$ where $`xV_m`$ if and only if $`xu,v`$ and $`f_{m1}(x)>n/kr(t1)`$. Let $`F_m`$ be the set of all edges of all copies of $`F_\pi `$ that contain at least one vertex of $`V_m`$. Let $`a_5`$ denote the number of $`K_k`$ copies of $`G`$ that contain $`e_m`$ and also contain an edge of $`F_m`$.

We claim that if $`a_1>a_2+a_3+a_4+a_5`$ then the $`m`$’th iteration can be completed. Indeed, if this is the case then by the definitions of $`a_2`$ and $`a_3`$ there exists a copy of $`K_k`$ in $`G`$ which contain $`e_m`$, and whose other $`r`$ edges all belong to distinct elements of $`F_\pi `$, say, $`S(e_m)=\{H_1,\mathrm{},H_r\}`$. Furthermore, by the definition of $`a_4`$ we may also assume that no $`H_i`$ is an element of a previous $`S(e_j)`$ for $`j<m`$, and hence $`S(e_m)S(e_j)=\mathrm{}`$ for all $`j=1,\mathrm{},m1`$. Finally, by the definition of $`a_5`$ we may assume that no $`H_i`$ contains a vertex of $`V_m`$. Thus, for $`xV_m`$ we have $`f_m(x)=f_{m1}(x)n/(2k)`$ by our assumption. By definition, since $`u,v`$ are incident with $`e_m`$ we have $`f_m(v)=f_{m1}(v)n/(2k)`$ and $`f_m(u)=f_{m1}(u)n/(2k)`$. For $`xV_m\{u,v\}`$ notice that we have $`f_m(x)f_{m1}(x)+r(t1)n/(2k)`$ as well.

It remains to show that $`a_1>a_2+a_3+a_4+a_5`$. We now estimate these parameters. A similar proof to that of Corollary 2.7 (where we use $`n`$ instead of $`n^{}`$, $`k`$ instead of $`t`$ and $`\gamma =1/9k^{10}`$ immediately gives

$$a_1\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n2}{k2}\right)(1\frac{1}{9k^9})^{k2}n^{k2}\frac{0.95}{(k2)!}(1o(1)).$$
(4)
Consider a pair of edges $`f_1,f_2`$ that belong to the same element of $`F_\pi `$. If they are both independent from $`e_m`$ then $`\{e_m,f_1,f_2\}`$ spans at least five vertices. Thus, there are at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n5}{k5}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$ that contain all three of them. As there are less than $`|F_\pi |t^4=\mathrm{\Theta }(n^2)`$ possible choices for pairs $`f_1,f_2`$ the overall number of such copies is $`O(n^{k3})`$. If $`f_1,f_2`$ are not independent from $`e_m`$ then we must have that $`\{e_m,f_1,f_2\}`$ spans at least four vertices. Thus, there are at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$ that contain all three of them. However, there are less than $`2n`$ edges not independent from $`e_m`$, so the overall number of choices for $`f_1,f_2`$ is only $`O(n)`$. Overall there are, again, only $`O(n^{k3})`$ such copies. We have proved that

$$a_2=O(n^{k3}).$$
(5)
Consider an edge $`fA_\pi `$ with $`fe_m`$. If $`f`$ and $`e_m`$ are independent then there are at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$ containing both of them. Overall, there are at most $`m\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)`$ such copies. If $`f`$ and $`e_m`$ are not independent then there are at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$ containing both of them. However, the maximum degree of $`A_\pi `$ is at most $`6n/k^7`$ and hence there are at most $`12n/k^7`$ choices for $`f`$. Using (1) we therefore have

$$a_3m\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)+\frac{12n}{k^7}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)(1+o(1))\frac{n^2}{9k^8}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)+\frac{12n}{k^7}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)$$
(6)
$$n^{k2}\left(\frac{1}{9k^8(k4)!}+\frac{12}{k^7(k3)!}\right)(1+o(1)).$$

Notice that $`|E_m|=(m1)r\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)mk^4(1+o(1))\frac{n^2}{9k^8}k^4(1+o(1))\frac{n^2}{9k^4}`$. If $`fE_m`$ is independent from $`e_m`$ then they appear together in at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$. If $`f`$ and $`e_m`$ are not independent, then they may appear together in at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$. Suppose, w.l.o.g., that $`f=(u,x)`$. Since $`f_{m1}(u)n/(2k)`$ we know that there are at most $`n/(2k)+qr(t1)n/(2k)+2k^4q`$ choices for $`f`$ where $`q`$ is the number of edges $`e_j`$ with $`j<i`$ and which have $`u`$ as an endpoint. However, $`q\mathrm{\Delta }(A_\pi )6n/k^7`$. Thus, we have that

$$a_4(1+o(1))\frac{n^2}{9k^4}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)+\left(\frac{n}{2k}+2k^4\frac{6n}{k^7}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)$$
(7)
$$n^{k2}\left(\frac{1}{9k^4(k4)!}+\frac{1}{2k(k3)!}+\frac{12}{k^3(k3)!}\right)(1+o(1)).$$

In order to estimate $`a_5`$ we need to estimate the size of $`V_m`$. Since $`|E_m|(1+o(1))\frac{n^2}{9k^4}`$ we have that $`|V_m|(n/(2k)r(t1))<(1+o(1))2n^2/9k^4`$. Thus, $`|V_m|(1+o(1))4n/9k^3`$. Trivially, each vertex appears it at most $`(n1)/(t1)`$ elements of $`F_\pi `$. Thus, the overall number of elements of $`F_\pi `$ containing an element of $`V_m`$ is at most $`(1+o(1))4n^2/(9k^3(t1))`$. It follows that $`|F_m|(1+o(1))\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)4n^2/(9k^3(t1))`$. As before, for $`fF_m`$ which is independent of $`e_m`$ there are at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$ containing both $`f`$ and $`e_m`$. If $`fF_m`$ is not independent with $`e_m`$ then assume $`f=(u,x)`$. We therefore must have some $`yV_m`$ (possibly $`y=x`$) such that $`(u,y)`$ and $`(u,x)`$ are in the same element of $`F_\pi `$. It follows that there are at most $`2|V_m|(t1)`$ choices for $`f`$ which shares an endpoint with $`e_m`$ and, as before, each such $`f`$ appears together with $`e_m`$ in at most $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)`$ copies of $`K_k`$. We therefore have

$$a_5(1+o(1))\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{t}{2}\right)\frac{4n^2}{9k^3(t1)}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n4}{k4}\right)+2(t1)(1+o(1))\frac{4n}{9k^3}\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n3}{k3}\right)$$
(8)
$$n^{k2}\left(\frac{4}{9k^2(k4)!}+\frac{16}{9k^2(k3)!}\right)(1+o(1)).$$

By inequalities (4), (5),(6),(7) and (8) we have that $`a_1>a_2+a_3+a_4+a_5`$ since

$$0.95>\frac{(k2)(k3)}{9k^8}+\frac{12(k2)}{k^7}+\frac{(k2)(k3)}{9k^4}+\frac{k2}{2k}+\frac{12(k2)}{k^3}+\frac{4(k2)(k3)}{9k^2}+\frac{16(k2)}{9k^2}$$

holds for all $`k3`$.

We have now completed the proof of Theorem 2.1.

## 3 Concluding remarks and open problems

* Although Theorem 1.1 and Theorem 1.2 are stated only for $`K_k`$, it is easy to see that these theorems also hold for any $`k`$-vertex graph. Indeed, if $`H`$ has $`k`$ vertices then, trivially, $`K_k`$ has a fractional $`H`$-decomposition. Thus, any graph which has a fractional $`K_k`$-decomposition also has a fractional $`H`$-decomposition. It follows that Theorem 1.2 holds also for $`H`$. Combining Theorem 1.3 and Theorem 1.2 as explained in the introduction gives that Theorem 1.1 also holds for $`H`$.
* For all $`k3`$, Theorem 1.1 gives a lower bound of $`1/9k^{10}`$ for $`c_{K_k}`$. We now prove that $`c_{K_k}1/(k+1)`$. We will prove something slightly stronger; For all $`ϵ>0`$ there exists $`\delta >0`$ and a graph $`G`$ with $`n`$ vertices and $`\delta (G)n(11/(k+1))ϵn`$ for which $`\nu _{K_k}^{}(G)(1\delta )(e(G)/e(K_k))`$. We will use a modification of a construction from  for this purpose. Let $`s`$ be a positive integer and let $`H_s`$ be any $`r`$-regular graph with $`2s(k^3k)`$ vertices and $`r=4s(k^2k)d`$ where $`d=ϵ2s(k^3k)(k1)`$. Such graphs clearly exist for $`s`$ sufficiently large as a function of $`k`$ and $`ϵ`$. Let $`G_s`$ be the graph constructed by blowing up each vertex of $`K_{k1}`$ to a copy of $`H_s`$. Clearly, $`G_s`$ has $`n=2s(k^3k)(k1)`$ vertices. $`G_s`$ is regular of degree $`\delta =r+2s(k^3k)(k2)`$. Notice that $`\delta =n(11/(k+1))ϵn`$. However, any $`K_k`$ in $`G`$ must contain an edge from one of the blown up copies of $`H_s`$. It follows that

$$\nu _{K_k}^{}(G)(k1)e(H_s)=(k1)s(k^3k)(4s(k^2k)d).$$

But

$$e(G)=(2s(k^3k))^2\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k1}{2}\right)+(k1)s(k^3k)(4s(k^2k)d).$$

It follows that $`\nu _{K_k}^{}(G)(1\delta )(e(G)/\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{k}{2}\right))`$ where $`\delta =\delta (ϵ,k)`$.
* Theorem 1.2 can be implemented in polynomial time, since given an input graph $`G`$ with $`\delta (G)(11/9k^{10})n+o(n)`$ we are guaranteed by Lemma 1.2 that the solution to the linear program computing $`\nu _{K_k}^{}(G)`$ is $`e(G)/e(K_k)`$. It is shown in  that Theorem 1.3 can be implemented in polynomial time, namely, any fractional packing can be converted in polynomial time to an integral packing whose value differs from $`\nu _{K_k}^{}(G)`$ by $`o(n^2)`$. It follows that Theorem 1.1 can also be implemented in polynomial time. The same arguments hold if we replace $`K_k`$ with any $`k`$-vertex graph $`H`$.
* It is plausible Theorem 1.1 can also be proved for hypergraphs. Namely, for any positive integers $`k`$ and $`r`$ with $`k>r`$ there exists $`\delta =\delta (k,r)`$ such that the following holds. Let $`K_k^r`$ denote the complete $`r`$-uniform hypergraph on $`k`$ vertices. Then, any $`n`$-vertex $`r`$-uniform hypergraph $`H`$ with minimum degree at least $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{n1}{r1}\right)(1\delta (k,r))`$ has a $`K_k^r`$-packing of size at least $`(1o(1))e(H)/e(K_k^r)`$. We already have some partial results in this direction. The proof in the hypergraph case turns out to be significantly more involved than in the graph-theoretic case. Details will appear in a separate paper.
* The constant $`1/9k^{10}`$ is chosen to accommodate all $`k3`$ throughout all the lemmas. By carefully reviewing all computations for the case $`k=3`$ it is easy to get $`c_{K_3}1/90000`$ which is 6 times better than the general constant. We do not bother with the details since there is no indication that this improved lower bound is close to the truth. In fact, it the conjecture of Nash-Williams  is true then $`c_{K_3}=1/4`$.
* Theorem 1.1 should be compared to other packing results which guarantee a tight packing. If all edges of the graph $`G`$ lie on $`\alpha n^{k2}(1+o(1))`$ copies of $`K_k`$ for some $`\alpha `$ then the result of Frankl and Rödl  guarantees a packing of size $`(1o(1))e(G)/e(K_k)`$. However, for any $`\delta >0`$, there are graphs with minimum degree at least $`(1\delta )n`$ for which no such $`\alpha `$ exists. For any $`\delta >0`$, applying the result of Kahn  to graphs with minimum degree at least $`(1\delta )n`$ yields a packing of size $`(1\beta )e(G)/e(K_k)`$, where $`\beta `$ is a constant that depends on $`\delta `$ and $`k`$ and tends to zero as $`\delta `$ tends to zero.
* Theorem 2.1 gives a nontrivial minimum degree requirement which guarantees the existence of an $``$-decomposition for the family $`=\{K_k,K_{2k1},K_{2k1}^{}\}`$. It is interesting to find other more general families $``$ for which nontrivial minimum degree conditions guarantee an $``$-decomposition, and which do not rely on the horrible bounds from . Notice that if $``$ contains a bipartite graph with minimum degree one this problem is solved in .


text:
# 1 6-cm 𝐼 contours of 0820+225 with the RM distribution superposed in grey scale and plots of 𝜒 versus 𝜆².

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

EVIDENCE FOR TOROIDAL B-FIELD STRUCTURES IN BL LAC OBJECTS

D.C. Gabuzda É. Murray P. Cronin

Department of Physics, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

Received: 34 October 2003

## Abstract

If the transverse jet B fields observed in BL Lac objects on parsec scales represent the toroidal component of the jet B fields, this should give rise to rotation-measure gradients across the jets, due to the systematic change in the line-of-sight component of the jet B field. We have found evidence for such rotation-measure gradients in one-third to one-half of the 1 Jy BL Lac objects we have analyzed. We present and discuss these new results, together with some of their implications for our understanding of the parsec-scale jets of AGN.

Key words:  Use the key words from the A&A thesaurus

1.   INTRODUCTION

BL Lac objects are highly variable, appreciably polarized Active Galactic Nuclei that are observationally similar to radio-loud quasars in many respects, but display systematically weaker optical line emission. VLBI polarization observations of radio-loud BL Lac objects have shown a tendency for the dominant magnetic (B) fields in the parsec-scale jets to be transverse to the local jet direction (Gabuzda, Pushkarev, & Cawthorne 2000 & references therein). This has often been interpreted as evidence for relativistic shocks that enhance the B-field component in the plane of compression, perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the shock (Laing 1980; Hughes, Aller, & Aller 1989).

It has been suggested more recently that the transverse jet B fields of BL Lac objects often correspond to the toroidal B-field component of the jet itself (e.g., Gabuzda 1999, 2003; Gabuzda & Pushkarev 2002). Such fields could come about as a result of the “winding up” of an initial “seed” field with a significant longitudinal component by the rotation of the central accreting object (e.g. Nakamura, Uchida, & Hirose 2001; Lovelace et al. 2002; Hujeirat et al. 2003; Lynden-Bell 2003; Tsinganos & Bogovalov 2002). It is therefore of interest to identify robust observational tests that can distinguish between transverse B fields due to a toroidal field component and due to shock compression. One possibility is to search for rotation-measure (RM) gradients across the jets, which should arise in the case of a toroidal B-field structure due to the systematic change in the line-of-sight magnetic field across the jet. Asada et al. (2002) claim to have detected such a gradient across the VLBI jet of 3C273. We present and discuss here evidence for transverse RM gradients in a number of BL Lac objects.

2.   OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS

Our analysis was based on polarization observations of the 34 BL Lac objects in the complete sample defined by Kühr & Schmidt (1990) carried out in February 1997 (1997.11, 24 sources) and June 1999 (1999.46, six sources) at 6, 4 & 2 cm using the NRAO Very Long Baseline Array. After eliminating sources that did not clearly show polarization outside the core at all three wavelengths, we were left with 22 sources suitable for rotation-measure mapping. A brief description of the data analysis is given by Gabuzda & Murray (2003), and more complete information will be given in a future paper.

We found clear RM gradients transverse to the VLBI jets in six of the objects, probable RM gradients in two more sources, and tentative RM gradients in three more. The figure shows the 6-cm VLBI $`I`$ image of 0820+25 with its parsec-scale RM distributions superposed in grey scale. The accompanying plots show the observed polarization position angles, $`\chi `$, as a function of the observing wavelength squared, $`\lambda ^2`$, for individual locations in the VLBI jet. In all cases, the observed $`\chi `$ values are in good agreement with the $`\lambda ^2`$ law expected for Faraday rotation.

3.   DISCUSSION

It is natural to interpret the observed transverse RM gradients as reflecting a toroidal or helical B field associated with these VLBI jets. In this case, the gradients are due to the systematic change in the line-of-sight B field component across the jet. The fact that we detected transverse RM gradients in one-third to one-half of the sample sources studied suggests that they are quite common in BL Lac objects. In two cases for which RM maps are available at multiple epochs (Mrk501: Croke et al., these proceedings; 1803+784: Zavala & Taylor 2003), the independent RM maps show transverse RM gradients in the same sense, providing evidence that the phenomenon is stable over time scales of one to several years.

A helical B-field could come about via the “winding up” of a seed field threading the central accretion disk by the joint action of the rotation of the accretion disk and the jet outflow (e.g., Nakamura, Uchida, & Hirose 2001; Lovelace et al. 2002; Hujeirat et al. 2003; Lynden-Bell 2003; Tsinganos & Bogovalov 2002). It is intriguing that a B field with a predominant toroidal component would also come about if a non-zero current flows along the jet (e.g., Pariev, Istomin & Beresnyak 2003; Lyutikov 2003). Indeed, if we are seeing a dominant toroidal B-field component, basic physics demands that there must be currents flowing in the region enclosed by the field.

If we view a toroidal or helical B field at $`90^{}`$ to the jet axis in the rest frame of the source and the distribution of thermal electrons is approximately uniform, we would expect to observe a rotation measure close to zero along the jet axis (since the line-of-sight B-field component there is close to zero) and RMs of opposite sign on either side of the axis. When the B field is viewed at some other angle to the jet axis, there will still be a systematic gradient in the RM across the jet, however the gradient “peak” will be shifted, and the RM will not necessarily pass through zero. Note that photons emitted at $`90^{}`$ to the jet axis in the source frame will be observed in the observer’s frame to propagate at an angle $`\theta =1/\gamma `$ to the jet axis, where $`\gamma `$ is the Lorentz factor for the jet’s motion.

The results of our search for rotation-measure gradients transverse to the VLBI jets of BL Lac objects yield firm evidence for such gradients in several sources, lending strong support to earlier arguments that the “transverse” B fields that are often observed in these objects are associated with toroidal or helical structure of the intrinsic jet B fields. This underlines the view of these jets as fundamentally electromagnetic structures, and suggests that they may well carry non-zero currents. It also suggests that the jets may be Poynting-flux dominated, which is of cardinal theoretical importance.

A version of this paper with a colour figure can be found at astro-ph/0309668.

REFERENCES Asada K. et al. 2002, PASJ, 54, L39 Gabuzda D. C. 1999, New Astronomy Reviews, 43, 695 Gabuzda D. C. 2003, New Astronomy Reviews, 47, 599 Gabuzda D. C., Murray É. 2003, astro-ph/0309668 Gabuzda D. C., Pushkarev A. B. 2002 in Particles and Fields in Radio Galaxies, ASP Conf. Ser. 250, eds. R. Laing and K. Blundell, p. 180 Gabuzda D. C., Pushkarev A. B., Cawthorne T. V. 2000, MNRAS, 319, 1109 Hugeirat A., Livio M., Camenzind M., Burkert A. 2003, A&A, 408, 415 Hughes P. A., Aller H. D., Aller M. A. 1989, ApJ, 341, 68 Laing R. 1980, MNRAS, 193, 439 Lovelace R. V. E., Li H., Koldoba A. V., Ustyugova G. V., Romanova M. M. 2002, ApJ, 572, 445 Lynden-Bell D. 2003, MNRAS, 341, 1360 Lyutikov M. 2003, New Astronomy Reviews, 47, 513 Nakamura M., Uchida Y., Hirose S. 2001, New Astronomy, 6, 61 Pariev V. I., Istomin Ya. N., Beresnyak A. R. 2003, A& A, 403, 805 Tsinganos K., Bogovalov S. 2002, MNRAS, 337, 553 Zavala R. T., Taylor G. B. 2003, ApJ, 589, 126