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# Magnetic Fields in Galaxy Clusters

## 1. Magnetic Field Measures

A complete description of the astrophysical processes in cluster of galaxies requires knowledge of magnetic fields. The most detailed evidence for this component comes from the radio observations:
$``$ Some clusters of galaxies exhibit diffuse non-thermal synchrotron radio halos, associated with the intra-cluster medium, which extend up to Mega-parsec scales. Using minimum energy assumptions, it is possible to estimate an equipartition magnetic field strength averaged over the entire halo volume. These estimates give equipartition magnetic field strengths of $``$0.1 to 1 $`\mu `$G (e.g. Bacchi et al. 2003).
$``$ In a few cases, clusters containing a radio halo show an hard X-ray excess emission. This emission could be interpreted in terms of Inverse Compton scattering of the cosmic microwave background photons with the relativistic electrons responsible for the radio halo emission. In this case, the measurements of the magnetic field strength (e.g. Fusco-Femiano et al. 1999, Rephaeli et al. 1999) inferred from the ratio of the radio to X-ray luminosities are consistent with the equipartition estimates.
$``$ Indirect measurements of the magnetic field intensity can also be determined in conjunction with X-ray observations of the hot gas, through the study of the Faraday Rotation Measure (RM) of radio sources located inside or behind clusters. By using a simple analytical approach, magnetic fields of $``$$`530`$ $`\mu `$G, have been found in cooling flow clusters (e.g. Allen et al. 2001; Taylor & Perley 1993) where extremely high RMs have been revealed. On the other hand, significant magnetic fields have also been detected in clusters without cooling flows: the RM measurements of polarized radio sources through the hot intra-cluster medium leads to a magnetic field of $`28`$ $`\mu `$G which fluctuate on scales as small as $`215`$ kpc. (e.g. Feretti et al. 1995, Feretti et al. 1999, Clarke et al. 2001, Govoni et al. 2001, Taylor et al. 2001, Eilek & Owen 2002).

The magnetic field strength obtained by RM studies is therefore higher than the value derived from the radio halo data and from Inverse-Compton X-ray studies. However, as pointed out by Carilli & Taylor (2002) and references therein, all the aforementioned techniques are based on several assumptions. For example, the observed RMs have been interpreted, until now, in terms of simple analytical models which consider single-scale magnetic fields. On the other hand, magneto-hydrodynamic cosmological simulations (Dolag et al. 2002) suggest that cluster magnetic fields may span a wide range of spatial scales with a strength that decreases with distance from the cluster center.

We developed a numerical approach for investigating the strength and structure of cluster magnetic fields. It consists of comparing simulated rotation measure, radio halo images, and radio halo polarization, obtained from 3-dimensional multi-scale cluster magnetic field models, with observations (Murgia et al. 2003, submitted).

## 2. Simulated Rotation Measures

The RM is related to the thermal electron density, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$, and magnetic field along the line-of-sight, $`B_{}`$, through the cluster by the equation:

$$\mathrm{RM}=812\underset{0}{\overset{L}{}}n_\mathrm{e}B_{}dl\mathrm{rad}\mathrm{m}^2$$
(1)
where $`B_{}`$ is measured in $`\mu `$G, $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ in cm-3 and $`L`$ is the depth of the screen in kpc.

We consider a multi-scale magnetic field model with a three-dimensional power spectrum: $`|B_k|^2k^n`$. Different power spectrum index will generate different magnetic field configurations and therefore will give rise to very different simulated RM images.

Fig. 1 (top) shows simulated RM images with different values of the index $`n`$ for a typical cluster of galaxies (see caption for more details). RM images, such as those we simulate, cannot be observed for real clusters of galaxies. However, it is relatively easy to measure the RM dispersion and mean ($`\sigma _{\mathrm{RM}}`$ and $`\mathrm{RM}`$) in limited regions by observing radio sources located at different projected distances from the cluster center. Fig. 1 (bottom) shows the simulated profiles of $`\sigma _{\mathrm{RM}}`$ (left), $`|\mathrm{RM}|`$ (center), and $`|\mathrm{RM}|`$/$`\sigma _{\mathrm{RM}}`$ (right), as a function of the distance from the cluster center. While both $`\sigma _{\mathrm{RM}}`$ and $`|\mathrm{RM}|`$ increase linearly with the cluster magnetic field strength, the ratio $`|\mathrm{RM}|`$/$`\sigma _{\mathrm{RM}}`$ depends only on the magnetic field power spectrum slope for a given range of fluctuation scales. This means that the comparison of RM data of radiogalaxies embedded in a cluster of galaxies with simulated profiles, can infer the strength and the power spectrum slope of the cluster magnetic field. The comparison of our simulations with data (Murgia et al. 2003, submitted), indicates magnetic fields strength a factor of about 2 lower than that predicted by the single-scale magnetic field approximation widely used in literature and a rather flat spectral index $`n`$ 2.

## 3. Simulated Radio Halo Images and Radio Halo Polarization

Radio halos observations may provides important information about the cluster magnetic field structure since different values of the power spectrum spectral index will generate very different total intensity and polarization brightness distributions for the radio halo emission.

So far, polarization emission from radio halos has not been detected. The current upper limits to the polarization at 1.4 GHz, for beams of about 45′′, are a few percent ($`34`$%).

We simulated the expected total intensity and polarization brightness distribution at 1.4 GHz and 327 MHz, as it would be observed with a beam of 45′′, for different values of the magnetic field strength and power spectrum index, by introducing in the 3-dimensional magnetic field an isotropic population of relativistic electrons.

Fig. 2 (top) shows simulated radio halo brightness and polarization percentage distributions at 1.4 GHz (see caption for more details). Fig. 2 (bottom) shows the expected fractional polarization profiles at 1.4 GHz and 327 MHz for the different values of the average magnetic field strength and power spectrum spectral index. Our results indicate that a power spectrum slope steeper than $`n=3`$ and a magnetic field strength lower than $`1\mu \mathrm{G}`$ result in a radio halo polarization percentage at a frequency of 1.4 GHz that is far in excess of the current observational upper limits at 45′′ resolution. This means that, in agreement with the RM simulations, either the power spectrum spectral index is flatter than $`n=3`$ or the magnetic field strength is significantly higher than $`1\mu \mathrm{G}`$. The halo depolarization at 327 MHz is particularly severe and the expected polarization percentage at this frequency is always below 1%. Moreover we also found that the magnetic field power spectrum slope has a significant effect in shaping the radio halo. In particular, flat power spectrum indexes ($`n<3`$) give raise to very smooth radio brightness images (under the assumption that the radiating electrons are uniformly distributed).

## 4. Conclusions

The numerical approach presented here demonstrates how the dispersion and mean of the RM measured in radio galaxies embedded in a cluster of galaxies can be used to constrain not only the strength but also the power spectrum slope of the intra-cluster magnetic fields. Moreover, the study of the polarization properties of a large scale radio halo, if it is present in a cluster, can be used to improve the estimates based on the RM analysis.

Acknowledgment. We thank L.Feretti, G.Giovannini, D.Dallacasa, R.Fanti, G.B. Taylor and K.Dolag for their collaboration.

## References

Allen S.W., Taylor G.B., Nulsen P.E.J., et al., 2001, MNRAS 324, 842

Bacchi M., Feretti L., Giovannini G., & Govoni, F., 2003, A&A 400, 465

Carilli C.L., Taylor G.B., 2002, ARA&A, 40, 319

Clarke T.E., Kronberg P.P., Böhringer H., 2001, ApJ 547, L111

Dolag K., Bartelmann M., Lesch H., 2002, A&A 387, 383

Eilek J.A., Owen F.N., 2002, ApJ, 567, 2002

Feretti L., Dallacasa D., Giovannini G., Tagliani A., 1995, A&A 302, 680

Feretti L., Dallacasa D., Govoni F., et al., 1999, A&A 344, 472

Fusco-Femiano R., dal Fiume D., Feretti L., et al., 1999, ApJ 513, L21

Govoni F., Taylor G.B., Dallacasa D., et al., 2001b, A&A 379, 807

Rephaeli Y., Gruber D., Blanco P., 1999, ApJ 511, L21

Taylor G.B., Perley R.A., 1993, ApJ, 416, 554

Taylor G.B., Govoni F., Allen S., Fabian A.C., 2001, MNRAS 326, 2


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# The INTEGRAL/IBIS Scientific Data AnalysisBased on observations with INTEGRAL, an ESA project with instruments and science data centre funded by ESA member states (especially the PI countries: Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain), Czech Republic and Poland, and with the participation of Russia and the USA.

## 1 The IBIS coded aperture imaging system

The IBIS telescope (Imager on Board of the INTEGRAL Satellite) (Ubertini et al. 2003), launched onboard the ESA gamma-ray space mission INTEGRAL (Winkler et al. 2003) on October 2002, is a hard-X ray/soft $`\gamma `$-ray telescope based on a coded aperture imaging system (Goldwurm et al. 2001).

In coded aperture telescopes (Fig. 1) (Caroli et al. 1987, Goldwurm 1995, Skinner 1995) the source radiation is spatially modulated by a mask of opaque and transparent elements before being recorded by a position sensitive detector, allowing simultaneous measurement of source plus background (detector area corresponding to the mask holes) and background fluxes (detector corresponding to the opaque elements). Mask patterns are designed to allow each source in the field of view (FOV) to cast a unique shadowgram on the detector, in order to avoid ambiguities in the reconstruction of the sky image. This reconstruction (deconvolution) is generally based on a correlation procedure between the recorded image and a decoding array derived from the mask pattern. Assuming a perfect position sensitive detector plane (infinite spatial resolution), the angular resolution of such a system is then defined by the angle subtended by one hole at the detector. The sensitive area instead depends on the number of all transparent elements of the mask viewed by the detector. In the gamma-ray domain where the count rate is dominated by the background, the optimum transparent fraction is one half. The field of view (sky region where source radiation is modulated by the mask) is determined by the mask and the detector dimensions and their respective distance. To optimize the sensitive area of the detector and have large FOVs, masks larger than the detector plane are usually employed. The FOV is thus divided in two parts. The fully coded (FC) FOV for which all source radiation directed towards the detector plane is modulated by the mask and the Partially Coded (PC) FOV for which only a fraction of it is modulated by the mask. The rest, if detected, cannot be easily distinguished from the background. If holes are uniformly distributed the sensitivity is approximately constant in the FCFOV and decreases in the PCFOV.

Representing the mask with an array $`M`$ of 1 (transparent) and 0 (opaque) elements, the detector array $`D`$ is given by the convolution of the sky image $`S`$ with $`M`$ plus an unmodulated background array term $`B`$: $`D=SM+B`$. If $`M`$ has a correlation inverse array $`G`$ such that $`MG=\delta `$-function, then we can reconstruct the sky by performing the following simple operation

$$S^{}=DG=SMG+BG=S\delta +BG=S+BG$$

and $`S^{}`$ differs from $`S`$ only by the $`BG`$ term. In the case the total mask $`M`$ is derived from a cyclic replication of the same basic pattern and the background is given by a flat array $`B`$, the term $`BG`$ is a constant and can be removed. Mask patterns with such properties, including the uniformly redundant arrays (URA), were found in the 70s (Fenimore & Cannon 1978) and then succesfully employed in X/$`\gamma `$-ray telescopes onboard several high energy missions (Caroli et al. 1987, Paul et al. 1991).

The IBIS coded mask imaging system (Fig. 1) includes a replicated Modified URA (MURA)(Gottesman $`\&`$ Fenimore 1989) mask of tungsten elements (Fig. 2) and 2 pixellated gamma-ray detector planes, both approximately of the same size of the mask basic pattern: ISGRI, the low energy band (15 keV - 1 MeV) camera (Lebrun et al. 2003) and PICsIT, sensitive to photons between 175 keV and 10 MeV, disposed about 10 cm below ISGRI (Di Cocco et al. 2003). The physical characteristics of the IBIS telescope define a FCFOV of 8 $`\times `$ 8 and a total FOV (FCFOV+PCFOV) of 19 $`\times `$ 19 at half sensitivity and of 29 $`\times `$ 29 at zero sensitivity. The nominal angular resolution (FWHM) is of 12. ISGRI images are sampled in 5 pixels while PICsIT images in 10 pixels. The MURAs are nearly-optimum masks and a correlation inverse is obtained by setting $`G=2M1`$ (i.e. $`G=+1`$ for $`M=1`$, $`G=1`$ for $`M=0`$) apart from the central element which is set to 0. Simple correlation between such array and the detector plane array provides a sky image of the FCFOV where point sources appear as spikes of approximately the size (FWHM) of 1 projected mask element (12) with flat sidelobes (Fig. 2). The detailed shape of the System Point Spread Sunction (SPSF), the final response of the imaging system including the decoding process to the a point source, actually depends also on the instrument features (pixel size, detector deadzones, mask thickness, etc.) and on the decoding process (Gros et al. 2003). For this simple reconstruction (sum of transparent elements and subtraction of opaque ones) and assuming Poissonian noise, the variance in each reconstructed sky pixel of the FCFOV is constant and simply given by $`V=G^2D=_{kl}D_{kl}`$, i.e. the total counts recorded by the detector. Therefore the source signal to noise is simply

$$S/N=\frac{C_\mathrm{S}}{\sqrt{C_\mathrm{S}+C_\mathrm{B}}}=\frac{\mathrm{Reconstructed}\mathrm{Source}\mathrm{Counts}}{\sqrt{\mathrm{Total}\mathrm{Counts}}}$$

Sources outside the FCFOV but within the PCFOV still project part of the mask on the detector and their contribution can (and must) be reconstructed by properly extending the analysis in this region of the sky. In the PCFOV the SPSF does have secondary lobes (Fig. 3), the sensitivity decreases and the relative variance increases towards the edge of the field. In this part of the field also FCFOV sources will produce side lobes (see Sect. 2).

## 2 Sky image deconvolution

The discrete deconvolution in FCFOV can be extended to the total (FC+PC) FOV by performing the correlation of the detector array $`D`$ in a non cyclic form with the $`G`$ array extended and padded with 0 elements outside the mask. Since the number of correlated (transparent and opaque) elements in the PCFOV is not constant as in the FCFOV, the sums and subtractions for each sky position must be balanced and renormalized. This can be written by

$$S_{ij}=\frac{\underset{kl}{}G_{i+k,j+l}^+W_{kl}D_{kl}}{_{kl}G_{i+k,j+l}^+W_{kl}}\frac{\underset{kl}{}G_{i+k,j+l}^{}W_{kl}D_{kl}}{_{kl}G_{i+k,j+l}^{}W_{kl}}$$

where the decoding arrays are obtained from the G array by setting $`G^+=G`$ for $`G>0`$, $`G^+=0`$ for $`G0`$ and $`G^{}=G`$ for $`G<0`$, $`G^{}=0`$ for $`G0`$, and then are enlarged and padded with 0’s outside the mask region. The sum is performed over all detector elements $`k,l`$ and $`i,j`$ run over all sky pixels (both of FC and PCFOV). In the FCFOV we obtain the same result of the standard FCFOV correlation. To consider effects such as satellite drift corrections (see Goldwurm 1995), dead areas, noisy pixels or other instrumental effects which require different weighing of pixels values, a specific array $`W`$ is used. For example $`W`$ is set to 0 for noisy pixels or detector dead areas and corresponding detector pixels are not included in the computation. The variance, which is not constant outside the FCFOV, is computed accordingly by

$$V_{ij}=\frac{\underset{kl}{}(G_{i+k,j+l}^+W_{kl})^2D_{kl}}{(_{kl}G_{i+k,j+l}^+W_{kl})^2}+\frac{\underset{kl}{}(G_{i+k,j+l}^{}W_{kl})^2D_{kl}}{(_{kl}G_{i+k,j+l}^{}W_{kl})^2}$$

since the cross-terms $`G^+`$ and $`G^{}`$ vanish. In the FCFOV the variance is approximately constant and equal to the total number of counts on the detector. The values computed by these formula are then renormalized to obtain the images of reconstructed counts per second from the whole detector for an on-axis source. Since mask elements are larger than detector pixels, the decoding arrays are derived as above after $`G`$ has been sampled in detector pixels by projection and redistribution of its values on a pixel grid. For non integer sampling of elements in pixels (the IBIS case) $`G`$ will assume continuous values from -1 to 1. Different options can be adopted for the fine sampling of the decoding array (Fenimore $`\&`$ Cannon 1981, Goldwurm 1995), the one we follow optimizes the point source signal to noise (while slightly spreading the SPSF peak). The SPSF, for an on-axis source and the IBIS/ISGRI configuration, obtained with the described deconvolution is shown in Fig. 3. Note the central peak and the flat level in the FCFOV, and the secondary lobes with the 8 main ghosts of the source peak at distances multiple of the mask basic pattern in the PCFOV. This procedure can be carried out with a fast algorithm by reducing previous formulae to a set of correlations computed by means of FFTs.

## 3 Non-uniformity and background correction

In most cases and in particular at high energies the background is not spatially uniform. Further modulation is introduced on the background and source terms by the intrinsic detector non-uniformity. The modulation is magnified by the decoding process (the term $`GB`$ in Sect. 1) and strong systematic noise is generated in the deconvolved images (Laudet $`\&`$ Roques 1988). The resulting systematic image structures have spatial frequencies similar to those of the modulation on the detector plane. For the IBIS detector, intrinsic non-uniformity is generated by variations in efficiency of single detectors or associated electronics. Anticoincidence effects and scattering may also induce features at small spatial scales, of the order of the mask element size (Bird et al. 2003). The modulation induced by the external background is normally a large scale structure dominated by the differences in efficiency of the veto system and of multiple event tagging. The background intensity may be variable on timescales from hours/days (activation in radiation belts, solar flares) to weeks/months (orbit circularization, solar cycle modulation) (Terrier et al. 2003).

For the PICsIT layer, two more effects should be taken into account: the modulation at the border of the detector semimodules (Di Cocco et al. 2003) caused by the onboard multiple reconstruction system, and the cosmic-rays induced events. The former is due to the fact that multiple events are reconstructed by analysing events per semimodule. When a multiple event is detected by two semimodules, it is considered as two single events. Since this occurs at the borders of the semimodules, there is an excess of single events in these zones, and a corresponding deficit of multiple counts in the same pixels. Obviously this effect becomes important as the energy increases. In Fig. 5 it is shown an example of a single event shadowgram not yet corrected, where the border effects are clearly visible, and after the correction for background and non-uniformities (Natalucci et al. 2003). The second effect is due to spurious events caused by cosmic-rays interaction with CsI crystals (Segreto et al. 2003). This is relevant only at low energies ($`<`$ 250 keV) and results in a loss of sensitivity of about a factor of 4. It is possible to remove these fake events only if PICsIT is in photon-by-photon mode, while on the histograms it is possible to apply only an a-posteriori correction, by rescaling those pixels that, after the background subtraction, appear to be still noisy.

If the shape of the background does not vary rapidly, regular observations of source empty fields can provide measures of the background spatial distribution which can be used to flat-field the detector images prior to the decoding (contribution of weak sources is smoothed out by summing images corresponding to different pointing aspects) (Bouchet et al. 2001). If $`U`$ is the detector non-uniformity and $`B`$ the background structure, then the recorded detector image during an observation is $`D=(SM)U+B`$ and a basic correction can be performed by $`(DbB_{EF})/U_C`$, where $`B_{\mathrm{EF}}`$ is obtained from the empty field observations, $`U_\mathrm{C}`$ is an estimate of the detector non-uniformity from ground calibrations or Monte Carlo modelling and b is a normalization factor. If $`U_C`$ is a good estimate of $`U`$ and $`B_{\mathrm{EF}}`$ is close to $`B`$ we obtain the needed correction. The normalization $`b`$ is estimated either using the relative exposure times or the total number of counts in the images.

## 4 The IBIS scientific data analysis

The specific procedure for the IBIS data analysis starts from the data files obtained with the Integral Science Data Center (ISDC) (Courvoisier et al. 2003) preprocessing and performs a number of analysis steps which are hereafter described for the IBIS standard and photon-photon modes and the ISGRI and PICsIT data only.

The ISDC preprocessing decodes the telemetry packets, prepares the scientific and housekeping (HK) data with the proper satellite onboard times. This analysis task also computes the good time intervals by checking the satellite attitude, the telemetry gaps and the instrument modes and by monitoring the technological parameters. For the IBIS standard mode (Ubertini et al. 2003, Di Cocco et al. 2003) the following data sets are provided, for each elementary observation interval (science window) which corresponds to a constant pointing or slew satellite mode:
\- ISGRI event list: position, arrival time, pulse-height channel, rise-time.
\- PICsIT spectral-image histograms: 2 sets of $`64\times 64`$ pixel images in 256 energy channels, one for the integrated single events and the other for the integrated multiple events.
\- PICsIT spectral timing histograms: count rates from the whole PICsIT camera integrated in a short time interval (0.97-500 ms, default: 2 ms) for up to 8 energy bands (default: 4 bands).
\- Compton events list: ISGRI position, PICsIT position, ISGRI deposited energy, PICsIT deposited energy, ISGRI risetime, arrival time of events in coincidence between ISGRI and PICsIT.
For the IBIS photon-photon mode the same ISGRI and Compton data are provided while PICsIT histograms are replaced by
\- PICsIT event list for single and double events: position, deposited energy, arrival time.
The first tasks performed by the IBIS specific software are the computation of the livetimes of the single pixels, of the deadtimes and of the deposited energies for all events. Detector images are then built and corrected. Sky images are reconstructed for each pointing and then combined to obtain mosaic of sky images of the whole observation. Source spectra are extracted by performing image binning and correction on small energy bands and then comparing resulting images to source models. All data products are written in files with the standard FITS and OGIP format in order to allow the use of standard high-level data analysis packages like FTOOLS, XSPEC and DS9.

### 4.1 Pixels livetimes, deadtimes and energy corrections

From the data of each single science window, prepared by the standard ISDC preprocessing, selected IBIS housekeeping (HK) data are first analyzed to prepare correction parameters for the scientific analysis. The HK tables reporting the initial status (on/off) of detector pixels, their low energy thresholds and their status evolution during the observations are decoded and the information organized to allow computation of livetime of each single pixel during the science window. The deadtime and its evolution is computed from the countrates reported in the HKs for the different IBIS datatypes, also including the time loss of random coincidences during veto rejection or calibration source tagging.

The ISGRI event pulse height channel and risetime information in the science data list are then used to reconstruct event deposited energy (in keV) by correcting the pulse height amplitude for the charge loss effect and for gains and offsets (Lebrun et al. 2003). The correction is performed using look-up tables (LUT) derived from ground and inflight calibrations (Terrier et al. 2003). PICsIT energies are reconstructed on board using gain and offset LUT before histograms are accumulated. A further correction on the PICsIT single events can be performed on ground by using pixel gain and offsets values refined according to temperature variations (Malaguti et al. 2003).

### 4.2 Image binning and uniformity-background correction

For each pointing science window the event list or the histograms are then binned in detector images for the specified energy bands and for a given risetime interval. The procedure computes an efficiency (or exposure) map combining informations from good time intervals, telemetry or data gaps, deadtimes, livetime of each pixel, and low energy thresholds. The map gives an exposure of each pixels considering all these effects and relative to an effective exposure time of the pointing.

ISGRI images are then enlarged to 130 $`\times `$ 134 pixels and PICsIT images to 65 $`\times `$ 67 pixels to include the deadzones between the modules. Residual noisy pixels, i.e. pixels with large values ($`>510\sigma `$) above the average are then identified and efficiencies of noisy and deadzone pixels are set to 0. The detector image pixels are divided by the non-zero-values of the efficiencies to renormalize their values. For efficiencies equal to 0 the weighting array $`W`$ is set to 0 and the pixels are not included in the image or spectral reconstructions. The correction for detector and background non-uniformity is then applied using the background images derived from empty field observations and the detector uniformity maps (Terrier et al. 2003, Natalucci et al 2003). For the spectral extraction however the correction is not perfomed at this level, background and non-uniformity are accounted for directly in the fitting procedure.

### 4.3 Iterative sky image reconstruction and cleaning

From the corrected detector images the analysis procedure decodes the sky images using the algorithm described in Sect. 2 and iteratively searches for significant peaks in the image. The signal to noise levels (S/N) of detection can be set by the users, and the search can be preferencially performed or even totally restricted to the sources included in an input catalogue. The search procedure is a delicate process due to the presence of the 8 ghosts (per source) and is sensitive to the choices of the S/N levels of search in particular if the background is not fully corrected. The first significant peak is detected and fitted with an analytical approximation of the SPSF to finely determine the position of the source and its flux (Gros et al. 2003). The model of the shadowgram projected by the source at the derived position is computed, decoded, normalized to the observed excess and subtracted from the image. Such a source response model must take into account the mask element thickness, the effects at the mask border, the different opacity of the mask support and of the passive shield, and the transparent zones in or between these elements. However the model includes only the geometrical absorption effects. Proper account of scattering and energy redistribution is included in the energy response. The same routine which computes the model of source shadowgram on the detector is used in the spectral extraction. The source parameters (position, flux, and signal to noise) are stored in an output file and the procedure uses the source catalogue to identify the source. A second excess is then searched and cleaned and the procedure continues till all sources or excesses are identified and cleaned. The image of the main peak of each source is finally restored in the sky image while the secondary lobes are excluded. Units of intensity images are in reconstructed counts per second for an on-axis source, and a variance image is computed in the proper units.

### 4.4 Image mosaic and final image analysis

The reconstructed and cleaned sky images of each pointing science window are then rotated, projected over a reference image and summed after a properly weighting with their variance and exposure time. There are two ways to implement the rotation of an image. Either the pixel value is redistributed around the reference pixels on which is projected or its value is entirely attributed to the pixel whose center is closer to the projected center of the input pixel. In the first case the source is slightly smoothed and enlarged but the source centroid is well reconstructed, while in the second case discrete effects can produce a bias in the source centroid but the intensity will be better reconstructed and the source less spread.

After the mosaic step is completed the routine restart the search and analysis of point sources in the mosaicked sky image, again using a catalogue for the identification. Results of fluxes and positions are reported in output. Since the point source location error is inversely proportional to the source signal to noise (Gros et al. 2003), location of weak sources is better carried out on mosaicked images. Note that the search for significant excesses (both for single pointing and for the mosaic) must be performed taking into account that these are correlation images and considering the number of independent trials that are made by testing all pixels of the reconstructed sky image. The critical level at which an unknown excess is significant must be increased from the standard 3 $`\sigma `$ value to typically 5 - 6 $`\sigma `$ (see e.g. Caroli et al. 1987). In the case of residual (background) systematic modulation, the detection level must be further increased (for example by a factor given by the ratio of measured to computed image standard deviation).

### 4.5 Source spectra and light curve extractions

Once the positions of the active sources of the field are known, their fluxes and count spectra are extracted for each pointing science window in predefined energy bins. Detector images and their efficiencies are built for these energy bins, enlarged and then searched for residual noisy pixels. For each source and each energy band a shadowgram model is then computed using the detailed modelling algorithm described above. If $`P_{kl}^n(\mathrm{\Delta }E_h)`$ is the model for the source n and the energy bin $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_h`$, the total sky plus background model $`T`$ at the pixel $`k,l`$ is defined as

$$T_{kl}^m(\mathrm{\Delta }E_h)=\underset{n=1}{\overset{m}{}}f_n^hP_{kl}^n(\mathrm{\Delta }E_h)E_{kl}^hU_C^h+b^hB_{kl}(\mathrm{\Delta }E_h)E_{kl}^h$$

where the sum is extended to all ”active” sources of the region and where the background image $`B`$ is derived from the empty field data, the $`U_\mathrm{C}`$ is the estimated detector non-uniformity and $`E`$ is the efficiency image. This model is fitted to the enlarged and noisy-pixel-corrected detector images $`D_{k,l}`$ by using the maximum likelihood technique with Poissonian distribution. The optimization gives the multiplicative factors $`f_n^h`$ and $`b^h`$ for each energy band which (after proper normalizations and division by the exposure time), provide the source and background count rate spectra. It is important to perform the simultanous fit for the models of all the active sources of the field to avoid contamination by other sources of the interested spectrum. Spectra of the same source collected in different pointing science windows can then be summed to obtain an average spectrum during an observation. The spectra are compared to physical spectral models convolved with the energy response function of the instrument (Laurent et al. 2003) in order to evaluate source physical parameters. Finally, a similar procedure, where the images are binned in large energy bands and small time intervals, provides source light curves on time bins shorter than science windows for the predefined active sources in the field of view. For PICsIT operating in standard mode, light curves of the count rates registered by the whole detector can be generated directly from the spectral timing data and used to search for characteristic variability signatures like pulsations or bursts.

## 5 Final remarks

The software has been tested using inflight data in several conditions and the performance is satisfactory considering the early phase of the mission. Background corrections have been already implemented for the analysis of PICsIT data while not yet fully used for the ISGRI analysis (but see Terrier et al. 2003). Fig. 5 shows the correction operated on the Crab nebula PICsIT images as described in Sect. 3. In Fig. 6 the resulting sky image mosaic obtained from the IBIS scientific pipeline applied to about 130 elementary pointings on Cygnus X-1, illustrate the quality of the scientific analysis presently available. Images are well reconstructed and cleaned and sources well detected and finely positioned, with typical absolute error radii (90$`\%`$ confidence level) of less 1 for strong source (S/N $`>`$ 30-40) and less than 3 for moderate or weak ones (S/N $``$ 10-40) (Gros et al. 2003). Fig. 7 shows a reconstructed PICsIT image of the Crab, a very bright constant and pointlike source for IBIS, often used as calibration source for high energy instruments. Fig. 8 reports a reconstructed Crab count spectrum obtained with the described scientific analysis procedures from the ISGRI data of an observation pointed on the source and performed in staring mode (constant attitude asset during the observation, see Winkler et al. 2003). The spectrum is compared to a model of a simple power law using the instrument energy response files. The best fit in the range 20-700 keV is found for a slope of 2.05 which is compatible with the high energy spectrum of the Crab. To have acceptable $`\chi ^2`$, systematic errors of about 10$`\%`$ have to be included.

These examples give an idea of the performance of the analysis s/w and of the calibration and response files presently available. The procedures described here have been integrated in the ISDC analysis system and constitute the core of the IBIS data analysis software of the Quick Look and Standard Analysis run at the ISDC and of the INTEGRAL Data Analysis System package. The IBIS analysis software and associate calibration files are constantly improved and integrated in the following versions of the ISDC system. The present set has already been used to derive a number of interesting results from the IBIS data of the high energy sources observed with INTEGRAL (see this volume).

## Acknowledgments

A.Gros and P.D. acknowledge financial support from the French Spatial Agency (CNES). L.F. acknowledges financial support from the Italian Spatial Agency (ASI) and the hospitality of the ISDC.


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Astrophysical results from COAST.
*Pages 369-378 of:* *SPIE Proceedings, Vol. 4838, Interferometry for Optical Astronomy II, W. Traub Eds.*

ZIAD, A., BORNINO, J., MARTIN, F., & AGABI, A. 1994.

Experimental estimation of the spatial-coherence outer scale from a wavefront statistical analysis.
*Astronomy and Astrophysics*, 282(Feb.), 1021-1033.


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# 0.1 Introduction

## 0.1 Introduction

The construction of a non-trivial quantum theory of gravitation represents one of the major open problems in theoretical physics. Approaches based on perturbative methods failed due to the non-renormalizability of the underlying theory in dimensions greater than two. One possibility to deal with the quantization problem consists in discretization of space-time and quantization via the path integral, in close analogy to quantum field theory on a flat background geometry. There are two related schools attempting at a lattice theory of quantum gravity, dynamical triangulation and Regge quantum gravity. We concentrate on the latter approach and refer to  for an excellent review of the former framework. Regge calculus is the only discretization scheme reproducing the Bianchi identities of classical general relativity and is formulated exclusively in terms of the edge lengths of the lattice, independent of any coordinate system. Taking advantage of the freedom in how to choose the lattice structure as well as the action, we investigate in this paper different formulations, all of them based on the original work by Regge , namely Standard Regge Calculus (SRC) , a Group Theoretical Model (GTM) , and the $`Z_2`$-Regge Model ($`Z_2`$RM) . Different to ordinary lattice gauge theory, quantum fluctuations are represented by fluctuations in the edge lengths. In particular the Monte Carlo method is a convenient tool for evaluating the discrete Euclidean functional integral in a non-perturbative way. It was shown that within a certain range of the gravitational coupling the path integral converges to make up a well-defined phase of lattice quantum gravity. We present an extension of the phase diagram of the models in four dimensions mentioned above. Due to the fact that a Wick rotation from the Lorentzian to the Euclidean sector of quantum gravity is not feasible, in general the sign of the action in the path integral is not fixed a priori. Therefore we investigate the continuation of the well-defined phase into the region of negative gravitational coupling. It turns out to be terminated by a pronounced transition-like cross-over to an ill-defined phase suggesting to look for a continuum limit. In particular the $`Z_2`$RM permits accurate investigations of the negative coupling region. Further, we calculate two-point functions to probe the existence of massless quanta of the gravitational field. A candidate for a realistic quantum theory of gravity should reproduce the expected long-range interaction behavior observed in nature.

## 0.2 Lattice quantum gravity

Any smooth $`d`$-manifold can be approximated by appropriately gluing together pieces of flat space, called $`d`$-simplices, ending up with a simplicial lattice. We take the edge lengths as the dynamical degrees of freedom and leave the triangulation of the lattice fixed. Adopting the Euclidean path-integral approach we may write down the partition function

$$Z=D[q]e^{I(q)},$$
(1)
with the gravitational action $`I`$ introduced in more detail below. The functional integration extends over the squared edge lengths $`q_l`$ of the links $`l`$ of the simplicial lattice.

One of the problems with (1) is the ambiguity in performing the link-lengths integration. Commonly the measure is written as

$$D[q]=\underset{l}{}dq_lq_l^{\sigma 1}(q),$$
(2)
with $``$ a function of the quadratic edge lengths being equal to one if the Euclidean triangle inequalities are fulfilled and zero otherwise. The question remains whether such a local measure is sufficient at all and how the power $`\sigma `$ might be chosen. In an effort to clarify the role of the measure the conventional definition of diffeomorphisms has been employed in the two-dimensional case, assuming that a piecewise linear space, i.e. a Regge surface, is exactly invariant under the action of the full diffeomorphism group . After a conformal gauge fixing was performed in the continuum formalism with the DeWitt measure, it was shown that the evaluation of the non-local Faddeev-Popov determinant by using such a Regge regularization leads to the usual Liouville field theory results in the continuum limit. All that is based on a description of piecewise linear manifolds with deficit angles, not edge lengths, and is mostly taken as an argument that the correct measure of Standard Regge Calculus has to be non-local. However, to our knowledge it is not obvious that this argument carries over to a discretized Lagrangian, which is formulated in terms of fluctuating edge lengths, obeying triangle inequalities, and which is not invariant under the diffeomorphism group due to the presence of curvature defects: different assignments of edge lengths correspond to different physical geometries, and as a consequence there are no gauge degrees of freedom in Standard Regge Calculus, apart from special geometries (like flat space) . Furthermore, the generalization of this procedure to higher dimensions and its numerical implementation are technically demanding and some of the proposed non-local measures do not agree with their continuum counterparts in the weak field limit, which is a necessary condition for an acceptable discrete measure . But this property is fulfilled for the standard simplicial measure (2).

Working in Euclidean space, i.e. with positive definite metric, the conformal mode renders the four-dimensional continuum Einstein-Hilbert action unbounded from below. This unpleasant feature persists in the discretized Regge-Einstein action but need not necessarily lead to an ill-defined path integral . Indeed, numerical simulations reveal the existence of a well-defined phase with finite expectation values within a certain range of the bare gravitational coupling. A lattice action for gravitation is given by

$$I(q)=\beta \underset{t}{}R_t(A_t,\delta _t)+\lambda \underset{s}{}V_s,$$
(3)
where the first sum runs over all triangles $`t`$ with areas $`A_t(q)`$ and the corresponding deficit angles $`\delta _t(q)`$ yield the curvature elements $`R_t`$. The second term extends over the volumes $`V_s(q)`$ of all four-simplices $`s`$ and allows together with the cosmological constant $`\lambda `$ to set an overall scale in the action. Next we define our three different models for subsequent numerical treatment.

### 0.2.1 Standard Regge Calculus (SRC)

Here we employ the Regge-Einstein action with $`R_t=A_t\delta _t`$, set the cosmological constant $`\lambda =1`$ and choose the gravitational measure to be uniform, $`\sigma =1`$ . In the classical continuum limit the Regge action $`2_tR_t`$ is equivalent to the Einstein-Hilbert action $`d^4x\sqrt{g}R`$ if the so-called fatness $`\varphi _s`$ of a 4-simplex obeys

$$\varphi _s\frac{V_s^2}{\text{max}_{ls}(q_l^4)}f=\text{const}>0.$$
(4)
A lower limit $`f=10^4`$ restricts the configuration space and thus facilitates numerical simulations .

### 0.2.2 Group Theoretical Model (GTM)

Constructing the dual of a simplicial lattice, Poincaré transformations can be assigned to its links to yield an action in which the sin of the deficit angle enters, $`R_t=A_t\mathrm{sin}\delta _t`$, and that reduces to the Regge action in the small curvature limit . While in the classical continuum limit the deficit angles become small, this is in general not the case in the path-integral quantization on a finite lattice, where one has to sum over all possible discrete configurations. A priori it is hence not clear whether both SRC and the GTM result in the same quantum continuum theory. For comparison we again use the uniform measure with $`\sigma =1`$, set the cosmological constant $`\lambda =1`$, and choose a lower limit on the fatness, $`f=10^4`$.

### 0.2.3 $`Z_2`$-Regge Model ($`Z_2`$RM)

This model was invented in an attempt to reformulate SRC as the partition function of a spin system . It is defined by restricting the squared link lengths to take on only two values

$$q_l=b_l(1+ϵ\sigma _l),\sigma _lZ_2.$$
(5)
By setting $`b_l=1,2,3,4`$ for edges, face diagonals, body diagonals and the hyperbody diagonal of a hypercube, respectively, the link lengths are allowed to fluctuate around their flat-space values. The Euclidean triangle inequalities are automatically fulfilled as long as $`ϵϵ_{\mathrm{max}}IR_+`$ and therefore $`=1`$ in any case. Consequently, the uniform measure in the quantum-gravity path-integral becomes identical to unity for all possible link configurations. The action can be rewritten in terms of complicated local “spin-spin” interactions. Nevertheless, numerical simulations of the $`Z_2`$RM become extremely efficient by implementing look-up tables and a heat-bath algorithm. Computations have been performed with the parameter $`ϵ=0.0875`$ and the cosmological constant $`\lambda =0`$ because (5) already fixes the average lattice volume.

## 0.3 Phase structure

Monte Carlo simulations with at least 50k sweeps for each value of the coupling $`\beta `$ have been performed on regularly triangulated hypercubic lattices with toroidal topology and $`N_0=4^4`$ vertices. We measured expectation values of the average link length $`q=N_1^1_lq_l`$ ($`N_1`$ denotes the total number of links) and the average curvature

$$R=\frac{2_tR_t}{_sV_s}q,$$
(6)
within the models described above.

Let us first concentrate on SRC, cf. figures 1a and 2a. The expectation values of the average link length change only slightly, increase near $`\beta _c^{}0.16`$ and $`\beta _c^+0.116`$, and become arbitrarily large for $`\beta <\beta _c^{}`$ and $`\beta >\beta _c^+`$ indicating the emergence of an ill-defined phase with spike-like structures. The expectation value of the average curvature is negative in the well-defined phase, but $`|R|`$ becomes very large in the ill-defined phase where simplices collapse into degenerate configurations with long links and small volumes. The coupling of SU(2)-gauge theory to SRC was examined in  and turns out to have little influence on the gravitational phase diagram.

The GTM behaves very similar, see figures 1b and 2b. Again expectation values are finite and well-defined only in a certain coupling region between $`\beta _c^{}0.115`$ and $`\beta _c^+0.14`$. In contrast to the Regge model the curvature $`R`$ is mostly positive in this coupling interval. However, as long as we deal with non-renormalized entities it is not clear whether the observed differences in the phase structure are physically significant. Although SRC and GTM have the same classical continuum limit, it is necessary to demonstrate that they coincide in their critical properties in order to have the same quantum continuum limit.

The $`Z_2`$RM is always well-defined because (5) limits the link lengths a priori, cf. figures 1c and 2c. The lattice freezes, forming characteristic configurations where the systems with continuously varying edge lengths become ill-defined. Such a model is of course better suited for investigations of the phase boundaries which here occur at $`\beta _c^{}4.665`$ and $`\beta _c^+22.3`$. While the transition at $`\beta _c^+`$ is quite clearly of first order, the behavior at $`\beta _c^{}`$ is more subtle and will be discussed in some detail below in Section 0.5. Different to SRC and the GTM the four kinds of links in the $`Z_2`$RM are not equivalent by definition (5). This is reflected in the corresponding average link lengths $`q`$ in a single configuration, see figure 3. Thus we can examine their respective influence on the phase transitions. For example the hyperbody diagonal shows a considerable discontinuity at $`\beta _c^+`$ and exactly this diagonal was identified from weak-field calculations of Regge gravity to belong to the (five) spurious metric degrees of freedom . It would be interesting to clarify whether physical and spurious degrees of freedom decouple as predicted from weak-field Regge theory. A simulation of the $`Z_2`$RM with the hyperbody diagonal fixed results in unchanged order of the transition but in slightly shifted values of the critical couplings. An intriguing question remains: to what extent are the (ten) physical degrees of freedom responsible for (the order of) the phase transitions?

A related issue was investigated in  using the SRC on general, non-regular triangulations of the four-torus. Also there, even with additional higher-order terms in the action, the phase transition is influenced by the local coordination numbers.

## 0.4 Correlation functions

One important feature of a physically relevant theory of quantum gravity should be the existence of a massless graviton. The gravitational weak-field propagator can be cast into a spin-zero and a spin-two part , with the latter written in terms of connected curvature-curvature correlations,

$$G_R(d)=\underset{tv_0}{}R_t\underset{t^{}v_d}{}R_t^{}_c.$$
(7)
The local operators should be measured at two vertices $`v_0`$ and $`v_d`$ separated by the geodesic distance $`d`$, which we take to be equal to the index distance along the main axes of the skeleton. This seems a reasonable approximation in the well-defined phase with its small average curvature. In general one expects for (7) at large distances the functional form

$$G_R(d)\frac{e^{md}}{d^a}.$$
(8)
A power law with $`a=2`$ and a vanishing effective mass $`m=0`$ would hint at Newtonian gravity with massless gravitons. Indeed this was found in  for SRC with higher-order curvature terms at some positive critical coupling. In contrast to that, fast decaying exponentials were reported for (7) and also for volume correlations in the case of SRC at $`\beta _c^+`$ .

We now compare SRC and GTM (on $`4^3\times 8`$ lattices) with $`Z_2`$RM (on $`8^4`$ lattice) . The gravitational couplings were chosen close to the negative critical coupling $`\beta _c^{}`$ where there is a chance for a continuous phase transition and thus a continuum limit. Figure 4 displays our Monte Carlo data for the two-point functions (7). We took only distances $`d2`$ into account because $`G_R(d=1)`$ is plagued by lattice artifacts due to contact terms. In order to test whether (7) obeys a power law we fixed $`a=2`$ and fitted the effective masses $`m`$, cf. table 1. For SRC $`m`$ remains rather constant towards the critical coupling whereas in the GTM the mass decreases for $`\beta \beta _c^{}`$. However for all fits the uncertainties in the mass parameters are large allowing even for $`m=0`$. For both the $`Z_2`$RM and the GTM, power-law fits to (8) are compatible with vanishing effective mass $`m`$. Also for SRC an algebraic decay is compatible but, due to the large uncertainties, obviously no definite conclusion can be drawn here.

## 0.5 Continuum limit at negative gravitational coupling

The Discrete Regge model $`Z_2`$RM – like full Regge theory – exhibits two phase transitions . One is located at a negative value and the other one at a positive value of the bare gravitational coupling. Although earlier work concentrated on the latter transition , there is no reason for favoring a positive value of $`\beta `$ over a negative one due to the Wick rotation problem mentioned in the Introduction. In the vicinity of the transition at positive $`\beta `$, histograms, e.g. of $`A_t\delta _t`$ , clearly show a two-peak structure, see figure 5. The two phases coexist and tunnelling from one phase to the other and back takes place. The system also exhibits a hysteresis; the transition occurs at a larger value of $`\beta `$ if the simulation is started from a configuration in the well-defined phase than it does if the calculation is started from a “frozen” configuration. Given all these pieces of evidence, we conjecture that the transition at $`\beta >0`$ is of first order.

To determine the order of the transition at negative $`\beta `$ we employed in Ref.  histogram techniques and used the Binder–Challa–Landau (BCL) cumulant criterion . The BCL cumulant is defined as $`B_L:=1\frac{E^4}{3E^2^2}`$, with $`E`$ being the action of the system under consideration. It was evaluated for $`A_t\delta _t`$ on different lattice sizes with $`L=3`$ to $`10`$ vertices per direction, simulating the system at several values of the bare coupling $`\beta `$ with high statistics (using always $`ϵ=0.0875`$ and $`\lambda =0`$). For the BCL cumulant a trend towards 2/3 was observed and all histograms showed a clear one-peak structure, cf. Ref. . In our recent Monte Carlo simulations  we typically generated $`\mathrm{200\hspace{0.17em}000}\mathrm{500\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ iterations, and recorded for every run the time series of the energy density $`e=E/N_0`$ and the magnetization density $`m=_l\sigma _l/N_0`$, where $`N_0=L^4`$ is the lattice size. To obtain results for the various observables $`𝒪`$ at values of the bare gravitational coupling $`\beta `$ in an interval around the simulation point $`\beta _0`$, the reweighting method  was applied. By this means we can compute the specific heat,

$$C(\beta )=\beta ^2N_0(e^2e^2),$$
(9)
and the (finite lattice) susceptibility,

$$\chi (\beta )=N_0(m^2|m|^2),$$
(10)
in a certain $`\beta `$-range around the simulation point. Figure 6 shows the finite-size scaling (FSS) of the maxima of the specific heat $`C_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and the susceptibility $`\chi _{\mathrm{max}}`$, respectively. While the behavior of $`C_{\mathrm{max}}`$ could still be explained as critical scaling with a negative exponent $`\alpha `$, the flattening of $`\chi _{\mathrm{max}}`$ as $`L`$ increases is quite unusual for a second-order transition and should rather be taken as an indication for a cross-over regime.

Another feature of the system can be seen in figure 7 depicting the critical gravitational coupling, as determined from the specific-heat maxima $`C_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and the susceptibility maxima $`\chi _{\mathrm{max}}`$. In the case of a second-order transition the extrapolations of all pseudo-transition points lead to one infinite-volume critical value. This seems to be violated in the four-dimensional Discrete Regge model and thus again favors the interpretation as a cross-over phenomenon over a true, thermodynamically defined phase transition.

## 0.6 Summary and conclusion

We explored the complete phase structure of three different formulations of lattice quantum gravity in four dimensions including the region of negative gravitational couplings . The qualitative resemblance of the results from simulations of the $`Z_2`$-Regge Model to those with continuously varying edge lengths is particularly remarkable. We computed two-point functions close to the critical bare gravitational coupling in the negative coupling regime. In the case of the Group Theoretical Model as well as for the $`Z_2`$-Regge Model we found some evidence for long-range correlations corresponding to massless gravitons. Eventually, if there is universality between SRC, GTM, and $`Z_2`$RM, the same results for physical quantities are to be expected in the continuum limit.

In the present analysis of the scaling of the maxima of the specific heat and susceptibility we found evidence for a cross-over regime in the four-dimensional Discrete Regge model of quantum gravity in the negative coupling region . If this can be substantiated by further investigations and also for the Regge theory with continuous link lengths, the existence of a continuum limit at negative bare gravitational coupling is questionable. This is of major concern for a continuum theory of quantum gravity with matter fields .

## 0.7 Acknowledgments

E.B. and W.J. were supported by the EU-Network HPRN-CT-1999-000161 “Discrete Random Geometries: From Solid State Physics to Quantum Gravity”.