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# Dust enshrouded star-forming activity in Arp 299Based on observations with ISO, an ESA project with instruments funded by ESA Member States (especially the PI countries: France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom) with the participation of ISAS and NASA.

## 1 Introduction

At a distance of 41 Mpc ($`v_{\mathrm{hel}}=3080\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, $`H_0=75\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$), Arp 299 (Mrk 171 = IC 694 + NGC 3690) is one of the nearest interacting galaxies. Because of its proximity, its spatial extent (8 kpc), and its high infrared (IR) luminosity111We use the standard definition of $`L_{\mathrm{IR}}(81000\mu \mathrm{m})=5.62\times 10^5D_{\mathrm{Mpc}}^2(13.48f_{12}+5.16f_{25}+2.58f_{60}+f_{100})L_{\mathrm{}}`$ (see Sanders & Mirabel 1996). ($`L_{\mathrm{IR}}=5.16\times 10^{11}L_{}`$), it is one of the prime candidates for exploring the effects of triggered star formation activity as the tidal forces during an interaction lead to instabilities in the galactic disks and rapidly funnel large quantities of gas into the dynamical centers of the galaxies (Mihos & Hernquist 1996; Sanders & Mirabel 1996). Similar to the prototypical interacting pair of galaxies NGC 4038/39, this system is dynamically young, as shown by the prominent 180 kpc ($`13^{}`$) long tidal tail (Hibbard & Yun 1999).

Arp 299 has been studied extensively at all wavelengths over the past thirty years (see the original work by Weedman 1972). Most notably though, the mid-infrared and radio work of Gehrz et al. (1983), the observations in the optical by Augarde & Lequeux (1985), in the near-infrared by Gallais (1991) and Wynn-Williams et al. (1991), along with the information on its molecular gas kinematics by Aalto et al. (1997) and Casoli et al. (1999) have provided ample evidence for the extreme characteristics of this system. More recently, the high spatial resolution images obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in the near-IR (Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000), as well as in the mid-IR using Keck (Soifer et al. 2001) have revealed numerous point-like sources that were undetected in the optical, and firmed up our understanding of the complex star-forming history of the galaxy (see Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000 , and references therein). Following the notation suggested by Gehrz et al. (1983), the system is usually described by the galaxy IC 694 (source A) to the east, the nuclear region of NGC 3690 (source B) to the south-west and two regions of emission (sources C and C) to the north-west. Source B in NGC 3690 has been further resolved into several components, among which B1 and B2 clearly dominate the global emission in the near- and mid-IR (see Fig. 1 for details). Interestingly it was also recently shown by Charmandaris et al. (2002) that despite its inconspicuous appearance in the optical, IC 694 contributes nearly half of the infrared ($`81000\mu `$m) luminosity of the system.

One of the recurrent questions though in all studies of Arp 299 is whether this galaxy is a pure starburst as was proposed by Weedman (1972) or whether some luminosity could be contributed by Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). The fact that it is one of the most X-ray luminous galaxies ($`L_{0.24.0\mathrm{keV}}10^{42}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, see Fabbiano et al. 1992; Zezas et al. 1998) along with the flatness of its radio continuum emission had given some indications that an enshrouded AGN could be lurking in one of the nuclei. Only recently though the hard X-ray ($`1040`$ keV) Beppo-SAX observations of Della Ceca et al. (2002) have provided unambiguous evidence that a deeply buried ($`N_\mathrm{H}=2.5\times 10^{24}\mathrm{cm}^2`$) AGN is located in one of the interacting components of the system. Furthermore, the same authors also demonstrated that the intrinsic AGN luminosity in both the UV and X-rays is almost an order of magnitude less than the infrared emission of the system calculated by Charmandaris et al. (2002), indicating that the bulk of the infrared emission of the galaxy is indeed due to massive star formation as proposed by Laurent et al. (2000). The poor spatial resolution of the Beppo-SAX can not pinpoint the exact location of the AGN. However, preliminary analysis of the Chandra data (Zezas et al. 2003), which provide sub-arcsecond resolution, suggests that the AGN might be located within source B1 of NGC 3690.

Motivated by this recent activity, we decided to analyze in detail our $`516\mu `$m ISOCAM (Cesarsky et al. 1996) spectrophotometric data on this system. Our observations provide good spatial resolution with unprecedent sensitivity and enable us to examine in detail the dust properties of the obscured nuclear regions of Arp 299. The observations and data reduction methods are described in Sect. 2, a brief description of the global mid-IR morphology of the system is presented in Sect. 3 and the analysis of the mid-IR spectra is shown in Sect. 4. In Sect. 5, we discuss the implications of our findings on the physical characteristics of the various infrared sources and our conclusions are summarized in Sect. 6.

## 2 Observations and Data Reduction

Arp 299 was part of the ISO guaranteed time program CAMACTIV (PI. I.F. Mirabel) which had, as a prime goal, the study of the mid-IR properties of more than 20 nearby active/interacting galaxies (Laurent et al. 2000). It has been observed with ISOCAM with the Continuously Variable Filter (CVF), resulting in a full coverage of the spectral range from 5 to 16 $`\mu `$m with a spectral resolution $`R40`$. The pixel size was 1.5″ giving a total field of view of $`48\mathrm{}\times 48\mathrm{}`$. The system was then fully mapped with an effective spatial resolution ranging from 3 to 4.5″. The data reduction and analysis were performed using the CAM Interactive Software (CIA)222The ISOCAM data presented in this paper were analyzed using “CIA”, a joint development by the ESA Astrophysics Division and the ISOCAM Consortium led by the ISOCAM PI, C. Cesarsky, Direction des Sciences de la Matière, C.E.A., France.. Dark subtraction was done using a model of the secular evolution of ISOCAM’s dark current. Cosmic rays were removed using a multi-resolution median filtering method while the memory effects of the detector were corrected using the so-called IAS transient correction algorithm which is based on an inversion method (Abergel et al. 1996). The flat field correction was performed using the library of calibration data. Finally, individual exposures were combined using shift techniques in order to correct the effect of jittering due to the satellite motions (amplitude $`1\mathrm{}`$). These methods and their consequences are discussed in detail in Starck et al. (1999). We estimate that the uncertainty of our mid-IR photometric measurements is $`20`$ %.

Experience with past ISOCAM observations has indicated that the overall pointing of ISO in the CVF mode is reliable. However, given the disturbed morphology of the system, we verified the relative astrometry by comparing and identifying the main features of our mid-IR images with those detected at other wavelengths after taking into account the shape of their spectral energy distribution (SED) as well as possible effects of absorption. For this purpose, we made an extensive use of the HST WFPC2 and NICMOS data of Alonso-Herrero et al. (2000), as well as the Keck 12 $`\mu `$m images obtained by Soifer et al. (2001). Although these mid-IR data are not as deep as our ISOCAM observations, their much higher spatial resolution clearly facilitated our efforts. Since one can not blindly rely on the astrometry information provided by the ISO telemetry, we based our identification on the nucleus of IC 694 (source A), which is sufficiently isolated and its position is well defined in both the HST near-IR images as well as in the Keck 12 $`\mu `$m maps. Finally the stability of the roll angle of the telescope during the observations and the apriori knowledge of the separation of the brighter mid-IR point sources enabled us to securely identify the position of the remaining components.

## 3 The Mid-IR morphology

As mentioned earlier, the comparison between our data and the high resolution Keck images of Soifer et al. (2001) allowed us to clearly locate the four components A, B, C and C as the dominant sources of emission in our ISOCAM images. These identifications further revealed that the centroid of our source B actually corresponds the position of B1. Even though the angular separation between B1 and B2 is only $`2\mathrm{}`$, well below our spatial resolution, the fact that B2 is only marginally detected in the maps of Soifer et al. (2001) leads us to believe that its contribution to the mid-IR emission of B is minimal longward of 7 $`\mu `$m. Thus the conclusions we will draw for source B actually reflect the characteristics of B1.

In an attempt to increase our sensitivity to faint emission features, we used the CVF dataset to construct broad band images at the two most commonly used ISOCAM filters centered at 7 and 15 $`\mu `$m. The resulting $`58.5\mu `$m and $`1218\mu `$m images, which correspond to the LW2 and LW3 filters, reach a 1$`\sigma `$-rms noise of 0.27 and 0.44 mJy arcsec-2 respectively. They are presented in Fig. 1, adapted from Charmandaris et al. (2002), with their contours overlaid on the NICMOS HST data obtained by Alonso-Herrero et al. (2000). The LW2 image is dominated by the contribution of the Unidentified Infrared Band (UIB) features and as a result traces mostly the contribution of photo-dissociation and quiescent star-forming regions. The LW3 image, on the other hand, mainly samples the thermal signature of hot dust from massive star-forming regions as well as emission from high excitation forbidden lines such as \[Neii\]$`12.8\mu `$m and \[Neiii\]$`15.6\mu `$m. A more detailed description on how the underlying mid-IR SED affects the LW2 and LW3 colors in active galaxies is presented in Laurent et al. (2000). The mid-IR fluxes of the various sources are reported in Table 1.

In addition to the four main components (A, B, C and C) detected in our mid-IR images, we note that there is considerable diffuse emission, in particular at 7 $`\mu `$m, in the region between IC 694 and NGC 3690 as well as around the nuclei of the galaxies. Our equivalent broad band images reveal that this diffuse component, which was undetected in the shallower ground based images, accounts for 44 % and 36 % of the total 7 and 15 $`\mu `$m fluxes originating from Arp 299. This diffuse emission is shown in Fig. 2 which displays normalized profiles at 7.1 $`\mu `$m (continuum) and 7.7 $`\mu `$m (UIB band) of sources A and B1 compared to the PSF profiles. Together with the profiles, images of the diffuse emission at these wavelengths are presented, obtained by subtraction of a synthetic image made of PSFs positioned at the locations of sources A, B1, C and C to the images of the system in the 7.7 $`\mu `$m UIB and in its continuum. If we derive an equivalent IRAS 12 $`\mu `$m flux assuming a power-law SED in the $`518\mu `$m range, we find that 60 % of the overall IRAS 12 $`\mu `$m flux is accounted for by the four sources, with A and B1 being the dominant ones (22 and 28 % of the total flux respectively).

All main components in the system are very bright in both filters and have extremely red colors. The 15 to 7 $`\mu `$m flux ratios LW3/LW2 range from 3 to 5.7 and they are quite high compared with what is typically found in normal galaxies where they vary from 0.7 to 1.2 (Roussel et al. 2001). Even in the case of the Antennae galaxies, Knot A, the brightest 15 $`\mu `$m region, exhibits a LW3/LW2 ratio of 2.6 (Mirabel et al. 1998), while the same indicator in the massive star-forming complex within the outer ring of the Cartwheel galaxy is 5.2 (Charmandaris et al. 1999). In the absence of an AGN-type activity, such high ratios in Arp 299 indicate a star-forming mechanism of a remarkably high efficiency (Gallais et al. 1999; Laurent et al. 2000), a result which has also been suggested by Lai et al. (1999) and Rouan et al. (1999) based on their near-IR adaptive optics observations. Using a gray body model to fit the mid- and far-IR SED of the system, Charmandaris et al. (2002) have estimated that the infrared luminosities of the three main components (A, B1+B2 and C+C) range from 0.44 to $`1.8\times 10^{11}L_{}`$. This implies that each of these sources is several times more luminous than most starburst galaxies observed in the local Universe such as the prototypical M 82.

Examining the individual sources in more detail, it is striking that, within the limits of our resolution, component A is dominated in the mid-IR by a strong nuclear source with a faint extension towards the southeast. This nuclear source is completely absent from the optical HST images and only becomes apparent in the original near-IR maps of Wynn-Williams et al. (1991). In the near-IR, this is interpreted as the emission from the old stellar population in the bulge of IC 694. However, the mid-IR spectrum (see Fig. 4) differs clearly from the one of a population of old stars, such as in elliptical galaxy, in which there is no emission or absorption band (Athey et al. 2002). It is rather similar to the one we encounter in star forming regions (Laurent et al. 2000). In the mid-IR, the dominant process is star formation which is not evidenced at shorter wavelengths (visible and near-IR) and it appears mainly concentrated in the nuclear region. At longer wavelengths, the emission of A dominates the global infrared emission of the system, making A the most luminous component of the system at $`38\mu `$m (Charmandaris et al. 2002). This implies that even though star formation does happen over an extended area of IC 694 – as evidenced by the dust lanes and star forming tidal streamers visible in the HST optical imagery of Malkan et al. (1998) – and does contribute in the mid-IR by creating an extended emission seen in Fig. 1, the bulk of the infrared flux originates from its nucleus.

The mid-IR structure of NGC 3690 is more complex. As discussed in detail by Alonso-Herrero et al. (2000), a large number of point-like sources can be seen in the near-IR, with B1 and B2 largely dominating the overall emission of the galaxy at these wavelengths. The spectral properties of these two main components though present a remarkable contrast. As the wavelength increases, B1 becomes progressively brighter while the contribution of B2 – clearly the most luminous source of NGC 3690 in the visible and in the J and H bands (Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000) – gently declines longward of 1.6 $`\mu `$m. Furthermore, the latter is barely detectable in the high resolution mid-IR images of Soifer et al. (2001), while B1 clearly unveils a very luminous core at 12 $`\mu `$m. The red colors of B1 and its differential extinction of $`A_\mathrm{V}=15`$ mag relative to B2 (Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000) are indicative of its much more obscured nature and reveal the presence of large concentrations of dust and gas in this area. As a side note, it is worth mentioning that B1 is completely invisible in the HST/FOC 220 nm UV map of the galaxy (see Fig. 3), and it is very faint at 300 nm (see Windhorst et al. 2002 Fig. 3.34a,b), an additional evidence of its high dust content.

Sources C and C are clearly resolved at 7 $`\mu `$m but the emission from C diminishes relatively to C at longer wavelengths (see Fig. 1). It has been proposed that source C could be the nucleus of a third galaxy in the interacting system, but this hypothesis is questioned by the location of this source on the \[J-H\]/\[H-K\] color-color diagram (Gallais 1991), far from the locus of the other nuclei. Recent CO observations (Aalto et al. 1997; Casoli et al. 1999) also suggest that C and C are dynamically linked and can be considered as star-forming complexes in the overlap region of NGC 3690 and IC 694.

## 4 Mid-IR spectral properties and absorption

In Fig. 4, we present the $`516\mu `$m spectra of the four main sources A, B1, C and C of Arp 299. They have been obtained with a $`4.5^{\prime \prime }\times 4.5^{\prime \prime }`$ aperture centered on the brightest spot of each component. A wavelength-dependent scaling factor has also been applied to correct for the extended flux of the PSF lying outside of the aperture used. We observe that the overall shape of each spectrum is similar, with the UIB features dominating the emission in the short wavelength range and with a warm continuum becoming visible longward of 10 $`\mu `$m. Our measurements are also consistent with the $`813\mu `$m spectroscopic observations already obtained by Dudley (1999).

A more thorough analysis though, reveals distinct underlying physical properties of each region. While the mid-IR SED of source C is typical of what is generally observed in starburst galaxies (e.g., Laurent et al. 2000), the spectra of sources A and C display very strong absorption in the 9.7 $`\mu `$m silicate band and a significant contribution of the thermal continuum at $`\lambda >12\mu `$m. Sources C and C also display a strong \[Neiii\] emission line, which as we discuss in section 5, is not as apparent in the other components. Finally, we note that the spectrum of source B1 is rather intriguing since it is dominated by an important hot dust continuum throughout the whole CVF spectral range, with only a minor contribution of the UIB features.

To provide a more quantitative insight into the properties of these sources, their $`516\mu `$m SEDs were carefully analyzed and compared with a library of simulated-CVF spectra. The latter were created with a two-component model described hereafter. The role of the first component is to take into account the presence of the UIB features, usually exhibiting a canonical SED as it has been observed in various star-forming galaxies (Dale et al. 2001; Roussel et al. 2001), so we used the average $`516\mu `$m SED of the M 51 galactic disk as a template spectrum. The second component, which reproduces the warm continuum observed in the long wavelength part of the CVF, was modeled using a black body with a temperature typically ranging from 150 to 300 K. We also considered the use of a power law with a spectral index varying from $`\alpha =1`$ to $`\alpha =2`$, as well as black bodies modified by an emissivity law (see also Sturm et al. 2000; Förster Schreiber et al. 2003). However, given the similar shape of the power law and black body functions at these wavelengths and temperature regimes as well as the limited wavelength coverage of our spectra, we found that we were unable to discriminate between one of the two particular spectral shapes. As a result, we will restrict our analysis using simple black body fits. Selective reddening was then applied independently towards these two components (similarly to the approach followed by Tran et al. 2001), and a variety of extinction laws (Mathis 1990; Dudley & Wynn-Williams 1997; Lutz 1999; Li & Draine 2001) were explored assuming either a uniformed dust screen geometry ($`F_{\lambda ,out}=F_{\lambda ,in}\times \mathrm{exp}^{\tau _\lambda }`$ , $`\tau _\lambda =A_\lambda /1.086`$) or a homogeneous mixture of dust grains and sources ($`F_{\lambda ,out}=F_{\lambda ,in}\times (1\mathrm{exp}^{\tau _\lambda })/\tau _\lambda `$ , $`\tau _\lambda =A_\lambda /1.086`$). Varying the fraction of the UIB and continuum emission to the total mid-IR flux, a collection of CVF spectra was subsequently created and $`\chi ^2`$–tested against our data to select the best simulated SED available in our library. Note that the strong ionic emission lines usually observed in starburst environments (Sturm et al. 2000) such as \[Neii\] at 12.8 $`\mu `$m and \[Neiii\] at 15.6 $`\mu `$m were not taken into account in our simulated CVF spectra as they are not included in our model. Moreover, at the spectral resolution of our CVF, \[Neii\] is blended with the 12.7 $`\mu `$m UIB feature. Therefore the $`1213.2\mu `$m and $`1516\mu `$m wavelength ranges were omitted in our $`\chi ^2`$ calculations.

In Fig. 4, we present the best fits we obtained for the four ISOCAM spectra, along with the decomposition into their two components. While the specific results which were derived for each source will be more thoroughly discussed in the next section, we highlight hereafter some general points of our findings, as well as a number of limitations related to our fitting procedures.

One of our most striking results is that our best fits indicate an elevated extinction for the underlying continuum emission of sources A, B1 and C and a very low extinction ($`A_\mathrm{V}<5`$ mag) of the template which contributes to the UIB feature emission. This may suggest not only a physically different origin but also a different spatial distribution for the two components observed in our spectra. Such a picture could actually be understood if we consider that the continuum emission originates from deeply dust-enshrouded regions while the UIBs are more diffuse and have a widespread and surface distribution. Since the UIBs mostly trace areas of photo-dissociation surrounding Hii regions, this would not be so surprising given the filamentary optical/near-IR emission (Malkan et al. 1998; Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000) and the extended gas streamers (Sargent & Scoville 1991; Casoli et al. 1999) which have been observed in the in-between regions of Arp 299.

A potential limitation in our approach was revealed by the degeneracy originating from the unknown geometry of the dust in the obscured regions. For all sources but B1, we found that both the screen and the mixed models can actually lead to similarly good overall fits to the observed spectrum in terms of the $`\chi ^2`$ minimization, even though the underlying assumptions for the geometry of the sources are different. For example, the continuum emission of source A can easily be reproduced either with a 230 K black body extinguished with $`A_\mathrm{V}=40`$ mag in a screen geometry (see Fig. 4), or with a much cooler component at $`T=160`$K with $`A_\mathrm{V}=140`$ mag assuming the mixed model. However, we wish to stress that the physical meaning of such single-temperature fits is rather uncertain since i) the observed spectrum is the result of no single grain population but a linear superposition of grains with a specific size distribution (see Dale et al. 2001), ii) the dust grains responsible for this warm continuum are not in thermal equilibrium, and iii) the presence of temperature gradients in the close vicinity of the mid-IR sources is quite likely. Therefore, a more meaningful approach would rather be to compare the four fitted spectra to each other after having primarily defined a given geometry for the dust obscuration (see Sect. 5 for such comparisons). Furthermore, we note that both the fraction of UIBs to the total mid-IR flux and their negligible extinction measured using our fitting procedure are roughly independent of the screen or mixed model assumption.

To investigate the hardness of the radiation field in the different regions of the system we can use the ratio of the ionic Neon lines \[Neii\]12.8 $`\mu `$m and \[Neiii\]15.6 $`\mu `$m. Even though we can easily measure the \[Neiii\] line, the spectral resolution of the CVF ($`R40`$) is just too low to distinguish the \[Neii\]12.8 $`\mu `$m line from the 12.7 $`\mu `$m PAH band. As a result we decided to use the \[Neii\] values of the system measured by Dudley (1999) who calculated the intensity of the \[Neii\] lines in all sources of Arp 299. His $`R60`$ spectrograph can almost resolve the \[Neii\] line, and the 5.5 ″ circular aperture he used is only $`25`$ % smaller than the aperture used to extract our ISOCAM/CVF spectra presented in Fig. 4. Our results are presented in Table 2. In principle, the values of \[Neii\] may still contain some contribution from the 12.7 $`\mu `$m PAH feature, thus making the \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] ratio a lower limit. However, this contribution must be small since the sum of line intensities measured by Dudley (1999) in the regions B1, C, and C is consistent with the high spectral resolution ISO/SWS measurements of Thornley et al. (2000). We note an inconsistency between the sum of our measurements on B1, C and C and the integrated measurement presented in Thornley et al. (2000). Whether their value underestimated or our overestimated is not easy to determine, and spectroscopic observations of this target with SIRTF will resolve this issue.

One of the great advantages of the ISOCAM/CVF observations is that we can extract narrower-band images ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda 1\mu `$m) of our target, effectively constructing two dimensional maps of specific spectral features. Several maps of selected spectral regions were created for Arp 299 and are displayed in Fig. 5. The first is the hot dust continuum at 5 $`\mu `$m, which could be due to either thermal emission from an AGN or the Rayleigh-Jeans tail of the photospheric emission from an old stellar population, or fluctuating small dust grains without aromatic features (Helou et al. 2000). The integrated emission of the 6.2 $`\mu `$m UIB is also presented, since it isolates the emission from the photo-dissociation regions of the merger and despite the fact that it is weaker than the 7.7 $`\mu `$m UIB it is much less affected by the depth of the 9.7 $`\mu `$m silicate band (see discussion in Laurent et al. 2000). We also mapped the total flux within the band of the silicate absorption at 9.7 $`\mu `$m, and that of the ionic \[Neiii\]15.6 $`\mu `$m emission line which is indicative of the hardness of the radiation field (e.g., Thornley et al. 2000). For the latter and the 6.2 $`\mu `$m UIB, we identified the corresponding spectral feature within each pixel of the CVF images, and carefully removed the underlying continuum so as to only keep the contribution of the given emission line (see Laurent et al. 2000 and Le Floc’h et al. 2001 for an illustration of the method). The dominant sources of mid-IR emission (A, B and C) are clearly apparent in all maps, even though their relative strength varies at each wavelength. However, the image of the ionic \[Neiii\]15.6 $`\mu `$m line remains indicative of the spatial distribution of this feature. The spectra of individual pixels are noisier than any integrated spectra and the determination of the continuum pixel-per-pixel can be altered by this noise. Moreover, especially in the case of source B1, the depression in the SED over $`16\mu `$m can lead to a bad estimation of the continuum and then to a bad determination of the flux in the line. So, integrated spectra on each main source are more reliable in term of relative flux. Even if C appears as the dominant source in the \[Neiii\]15.6 $`\mu `$m image of Fig. 5.d, B1 remains the brighest source in this line.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 The nuclear region of IC 694

In our mid-IR images, IC 694 (source A) appears as a bright source corresponding to the radio peak observed at 6 and 20 cm by Gehrz et al. (1983). As pointed out (see Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000; Charmandaris et al. 2002 and references therein), unlike the infrared view, images in the UV and visible do not reveal any clear optical counterpart at this position, while large quantities of high density molecular gas are concentrated within the central 500 pc (Sargent & Scoville 1991; Casoli et al. 1999). This gas fuels a massive starburst as evidenced by a supernova rate of 0.65 yr-1, nearly five times the combined rate observed in B and C (Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000). This large gas reservoir can easily explain the high extinction toward the nucleus. In the optical, a dust lane runs in the southeast/northwest direction and “patchy” emission from surface star forming regions is seen in an extended area around the nucleus (Malkan et al. 1998). Not surprisingly, those same regions contribute to the 6.2 $`\mu `$m UIB emission and, as we observe in Fig. 5b, the angular size of source A is considerably larger at this wavelength (see also Fig. 2 which shows this diffuse emission).

Our mid-IR spectrum of this source (see Fig. 4) reveals a strong continuum with a slope past 10 $`\mu `$m steeper than in any other component of the system. Moreover, the $`9.7\mu `$m silicate band appears saturated. The continuum emission from A can be fitted with a 230 K black body absorbed by $`A_\mathrm{V}40`$ mag assuming a uniform screen of dust. We also note that the longer wavelength part of the spectrum seems to decrease again past 15.5 $`\mu `$m. The same behavior can be seen in source B. Since we do know from multiple observations between 20 and 38 $`\mu `$m that the spectrum of A rises quickly making it the dominant source of the IR luminosity of the system (Charmandaris et al. 2002), it is reasonable to attribute this brief decrease in flux to the presence of the 18 $`\mu `$m silicate feature. Indeed, as shown by Dudley & Wynn-Williams (1997), the two silicate bands are proportional in strength/depth so, given the observed shape of the 9.7 $`\mu `$m feature, the 18 $`\mu `$m one would have to be strong too. Unfortunately given the limited wavelength coverage of the CVF and the fact that memory effects of the detector are more pronounced at the longer wavelengths which are observed at the beginning of the scan, we can not elaborate more on its actual strength. We will have to wait for the Infrared Spectrograph (IRS) aboard the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) which will provide complete wavelength coverage up to 40 $`\mu `$m to address this issue more accurately.

A unique aspect of IC 694 that separates it from all other areas in the galaxy is the weak \[Neiii\]15.6 $`\mu `$m emission. As we can see from Fig. 4a, even though a suspicious feature at $`15.6\mu `$m could be the \[Neiii\] line, its equivalent width is very small and makes it practically impossible to measure with our resolution. This can not be easily explained by advocating that the blue wing of the 18 $`\mu `$m silicate feature extends to the location of \[Neiii\] reducing the line flux. If simple extinction was the culprit then how could one detect the line in both regions B1 and C where even higher values of $`A_\mathrm{V}`$ are found? Furthermore, why does it seem that the spatial distribution of the faint \[Neiii\] avoids the nucleus but is associated with the dusty filaments to the southeast of source A?

The fact that the mid-IR neon lines of IC 694 have also been observed with ISO/SWS with superior spectral resolution by Thornley et al. (2000) can help us explore these questions. Using a considerably larger aperture ($`14\mathrm{}\times 27\mathrm{}`$) these authors easily detected both \[Neii\]12.8 $`\mu `$m and \[Neiii\]15.6 $`\mu `$m toward IC 694. They measured a \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] ratio of 0.29, a factor $`2.5`$ times lower than what was found for the whole of NGC 3690 (combined sources B and C). Modeling by Thornley et al. (2000) has shown that low values of the \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] ratio can be explained in terms of a larger age of the starburst, lower limit in the upper mass function cut off, higher metallicity, or a reduced ionization parameter $`U`$. Our observations are actually consistent with all these possibilities if we consider that IC 694 contains the larger fraction of molecular gas and cold dust and dominates the IR luminosity of Arp 299. This implies that the starburst in source A has been taking place for a longer period of time than in sources B and C since the former seems to be closer to dynamical equilibrium than the two sources in NGC 3690 which are even more disturbed and obviously still strongly interacting (Casoli et al. 1999). One could further speculate that the geometry in A is different from the single cluster case of Thornley et al. (2000). The spatial extent associated with the age of the starburst indicates that the distribution of the enshrouded stars is more random forming clusters resembling the mix gas/star cluster case. Furthermore, more generations of stars must have been created in IC 694, and passing through their AGB phase, they produced the dust we observe and also lead to a higher metallicity in the region. As we will discuss in the following section this is not the case for C which must harbor the youngest OB stars in the system (Soifer et al. 2001).

If the above scenario is correct then the reason why we detect \[Neiii\] in the southeast outskirts of source A, and not in the center, is simply due to the fact that these are the regions where young stars form along the tidal filaments (Malkan et al. 1998). In these filaments, the geometry is much more favorable so that “bubbles” in the interstellar medium form easier exposing the high ionization radiation of some underlying recently formed massive stars.

### 5.2 On the mid-IR properties of sources C and C

The shape of the mid-IR SED of these regions (see Fig. 4) is consistent with those of star-forming regions in other extragalactic sources, where a hot thermal continuum strongly affects the PAH emission. Furthermore, the values of the mid-IR diagnostic flux ratios LW3/LW2 (see Table 1) are similar to those found in regions dominated by young massive stars (see Laurent et al. 2000). As a result, our data provide further support to the conclusions of other authors (Soifer et al. 2001 and references therein) that C and C host extraordinary extra-nuclear starbursts.

Although it is probable that some emission from C could contribute to C because of their small angular separation, the fact that their measured absorptions are different indicates this is not a very likely event. Our modeling of the extinction suggests that the environments for both sources C and C are similar, with a higher extinction toward C. For both, as for source A, the observed spectrum can be reproduced by the simple superposition of a UIB contribution and a black body heated to $`230`$ K in order to account for the hot dust continuum which dominates above $`10\mu `$m. The estimated extinction for sources C and C is $`A_\mathrm{V}`$ of 10 and 50 mag respectively assuming a foreground screen geometry.

The hardness of the UV radiation field in these sources can be characterized by the \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] ratio. Source C presents a ratio of $`0.65`$ and C a ratio $`0.55`$333We must be careful considering \[Neiii\] in source C. We notice that the emission in this line is only marginally mapped at the C position (see Fig. 5). Because C and C are separated only by $`5^{\prime \prime }`$, the feature we observe in the C spectrum may be a relic of the extended wings of the PSF (FWHM $`4.5^{\prime \prime }`$) centered on source C., both greater than the one measured in component A (0.29 from Thornley et al. 2000). This would indicate that the UV radiation field, and consequently the fraction of young massive stars is higher in C and C than in A, leading to younger starbursts in these regions, in agreement with the conclusions of Soifer et al. (2001) as well as of Alonso-Herrero et al. (2000) who derived $`5`$Myr, 4 Myr and $`11`$Myr for C, C and A respectively (based on an evolutionary starburst model using parameters derived from their observations).

### 5.3 The nature of source B: Is there mid-IR evidence for an AGN?

As we mentioned earlier, B1 appears to be the brightest source of the system in the 5 to $`16\mu `$m spectral range and remains unresolved by our observations. While our spatial resolution is not sufficient to unambiguously resolve B1 and B2, the fact that the centroid of the source located at B position coincides very well with the 6 cm radio source observed by Gehrz et al. (1983) indicates reasonably that we actually map mainly the emission coming from B1. This is in agreement with higher spatial resolution ground-based observations from Soifer et al. (2001) who resolved B1 and B2 but showed that, despite the fact that B2 dominates the flux below $`2\mu `$m (see also Wynn-Williams et al. 1991; Gallais 1991), its emission decreases with increasing wavelength and it is actually $`35`$ times fainter than B1 at $`12.5\mu `$m. Consequently, all our conclusions on the mid-IR characteristics of source B=B1+B2 would actually reflect the properties of B1.

Until recently, most researchers had focussed on the starburst properties of this region, given the absence of any evidence for an active nucleus. Based on the H$`\alpha `$ (see Fig. 3 of Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000) and CO observations (Casoli et al. 1999; Aalto et al. 1997), it is clear that B1 contains a large amount of ionized gas, as well as cold molecular gas which could sustain massive star formation activity for more than $`10^8`$ years. Our observations though indicate that the physical characteristics of B1, as displayed by its spectrum, make it stand out in the mid-IR in two ways.

First, B1 displays the strongest continuum emission over the whole $`516\mu `$m range with only a weak contribution due to PAH emission (see Fig. 4). Using our model, we find that this continuum can be best fitted with a 300 K black body extinguished by $`A_\mathrm{V}60`$mag in a mixed-model geometry and accounts for 85 % of the total mid-IR emission of B1. Despite the high extinction derived from our model, B1 remains the brightest source of the system in the $`9.7\mu `$m silicate absorption band and its “hot continuum” at $`5\mu `$m is 118 mJy, almost 5 times higher than source A which dominates the global IR luminosity of the whole system.

Second, the \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] ratio of this source is at least 1.8 (see Table 2), a value considerably greater than the ratios measured in the Thornley et al. (2000) starburst sample which typically ranges from 0.05 to 1, with the only exception of the low metallicity systems NGC 5253 and II Zw 40 (with values of 3 and 12 respectively). Clearly, the radiative environment in B1 deviates from the one seen in classical starburst galaxies, and it appears to resemble more what is observed in young galactic Hii regions such as W 51 (Thornley et al. 2000). Sturm et al. (2002) reports measurements in the Neon lines for Seyfert galaxies which clearly indicate a higher ratio in pure Seyfert galaxies (usually $`>1`$ with a maximum of 2.8 in their sample) than in mixed Seyfert/starburst systems ($`<0.6`$ typically). On the other hand, the ratio \[Neiii\]/\[Oiv\] is usually low ($`<1.5`$) in Seyfert galaxies as computed from values reported by Sturm et al. (2002) while it is higher in starburst galaxies, ranging from 5 to $`>30`$ (see Verma et al. 2003). Assuming that C and C contributes to the flux measured in \[Oiv\] by Verma et al. (2003), B1 then presents a ratio \[Neiii\]/\[Oiv\] $`>13`$. Even if those ratios are not criteria used to discriminate Seyfert and starburst galaxies, the association of a high \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] with a high \[Neiii\]/\[Oiv\] in source B1 makes it of very intriguing origin.

The fact that no UV emission is detected from B1 is further evidence of the high obscuration in the region. In this context, the PAH features could be attributed to individual heating sources distributed around B1, in a diffuse component on the line of sight, in such a way that the filling factor of their corresponding Stromgren spheres is high and hence there is a smaller volume available for the photo-dissociation regions to contribute to the PAH flux (see Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000 , Fig. 7b).

However, hard UV photons can also be produced by an AGN. Based on a diagnostic diagram which compares the ratio of the continuum at $`1415\mu `$m to the continuum at $`5.16.8\mu `$m versus the ratio of the strength of the $`6.2\mu `$m feature to the continuum at $`5.16.8\mu `$m, Laurent et al. (2000) attempted to quantify the AGN/starburst contribution in the mid-IR. For source B1, their Fig. 6 suggests that almost 40 % of the mid-IR emission could originate from a very embedded AGN. The tell-tale sign would be the emission observed via the “hot continuum” at $`5\mu `$m as illustrated in our Fig. 5. Even though the mid-IR evidence was not strong enough to propose the presence of an AGN detection, their suggestion was in fact proven true beyond any doubt with the recent Beppo-Sax X-ray observations of Arp 299 by Della Ceca et al. (2002). These authors explained the hard X-ray emission and spectral shape/luminosity of the system with a buried Compton-thick AGN of intrinsic luminosity $`L_{0.5100\mathrm{keV}}1.9\times 10^{43}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1`$, completely absorbed in the visible and in the IR ($`A_\mathrm{V}>\mathrm{1\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ magnitudes). Their result, as well as further work based on Chandra data which places the AGN in B1 (Zezas et al. 2003), readily explains our inability to probe the center of B1 in the optical and the UV.

An interesting point which remains to be explored in the future is whether the AGN actually defines the location of a galactic nucleus in NGC 3690. The reason for this question is that B2 is the most extended source in the visible as seen in the HST WFPC2 ($`0.59\mu `$m) images and the brightest one in the near-infrared, while B1 remains unresolved or marginally resolved (Alonso-Herrero et al. 2000). Moreover, unlike B1, B2 does display a high CO index characteristic of a population of late-type stars (Satyapal et al. 1999). Based on its near-IR colors and its size at these wavelengths, B2 appears to be mainly composed of a mix of old stars, gas and dust. If this source is a relic of an older single isolated starburst region outside the nucleus traced by B1, it should have been spatially extended and of an extraordinary strength.

If, on the other hand, the nucleus of the galaxy is in B2, as suggested by the near-IR colors, then this would imply that B1 harbors not only massive star forming regions but also a “runaway” super-massive black hole (SMBH). Did this SMBH originate from a companion which was accreted in the system at an earlier stage and it is now accreting gas becoming visible as an AGN? We do observe a high concentration of gas outside – but close to – the B1 and B2 regions of NGC 3690 and their kinematics imply that they are tidally connected with streamers originating from IC 694 (Casoli et al. 1999). Alonso-Herrero et al. (2000) though derived a dynamical mass for B1 ($`M>4\times 10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$) similar to the one found in B2 ($`M6\times 10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$, from Shier et al. (1996)) which would be hard to explain if both of them had always been part of a single galaxy. Our mid-IR observations do not allow us to discriminate between the two interpretations. Only high spatial resolution information on the kinematics of those components will help us shed some light to these issues.

In any case, NGC 3690 has been the host of extraordinary star-forming events and exhibits a distinct mid-infrared spectral energy distribution unlike any other in other extragalactic objects, even unambiguous AGNs such as NGC 1068 (Le Floc’h et al. 2001) or Centaurus A (Mirabel et al. 1999).

## 6 Conclusions

Our mid-IR spectroscopy of Arp 299 over the range 5 to $`16\mu `$m has revealed new information on the properties of this intriguing interacting system. Based on our analysis, we conclude that:

1. Large quantities of dust are present in the system as indicated by the hot continuum observed above $`10\mu `$m in all sources and by the high extinction derived by our model. We find that, assuming a uniform foreground screen model, we can reproduce the mid-IR SED and the $`9.7\mu `$m silicate absorption band with an $`A_\mathrm{V}`$ of $`40`$ mag in the central region of IC 694 (source A), $`10`$ mag for source C, and $`50`$ mag for C, the dominant sources in the galactic disks overlap region. A best fit with an $`A_\mathrm{V}`$ of $`60`$ mag is derived in the central region of NGC 3690 (source B1) using a homogeneous mixture of dust with radiating sources.
2. The nuclear region of IC 694 harbors enshrouded massive star forming activity. No evidence for an active galactic nucleus is found in our mid-IR spectra.
3. We confirm that C and C are sites of recent starburst events based on the elevated values of the \[Neiii\]15.6$`\mu `$m flux and the high \[Neiii\]/\[Neii\] ratio, which is similar to those of classical young starbursts.
4. Source B is characterized by a unique mid-IR spectrum which is dominated by a hot dust continuum extending shortward of $`5\mu `$m, and which is the strongest of the Arp 299 system. Given the ample presence of dust and the strength of the radiation field, this continuum is consistent with the recent Chandra/Beppo-SAX results which favor the presence of a Compton thick AGN at this location.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the HST team and PIs of the proposals who provided the WFPC2 NICMOS and FOC images made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and obtained from data archives at the Space Telescope Science Institute. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under the NASA contract NAS 5-26555. VC would like to thank F. Casoli (Obs. de Paris) for useful discussions on the CO kinematics, A. Zezas (CfA/Harvard) for information on the Chandra results prior to publication and acknowledges the financial support of JPL contract 960803.


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# Year-scale morphological variation of the X-ray Crab Nebula

## 1. Introduction

The 5-month monitoring observations of Chandra and HST showed short-term (days to weeks) morphological variations of the Crab Nebula (Mori et al. 2002; Hester et al. 2002). A variable inner ring and wisps emerging from it visually revealed the existence of the termination shock of the pulsar wind and its downstream flow, respectively. In addition to such short-term, therefore more noticeable, variations, expansion of the outer torus on longer time scale (months) was also discovered. However, this seems to contradict with the fact that the angular extent of the torus is almost constant over 25 years (Mori et al. 2002); if the torus kept expanding at the observed rate, it would have become almost twice larger during this period. On the other hand, the southern jet did not show a strong variation of its overall structure. This differs from the highly variable jet of Vela (Pavlov et al. 2003), which is an another famous example of a variable PWN. Here we present long-term (years) morphological variations of the Crab Nebula which are newly discovered comparing Chandra observations over 3 years.

## 2. Observations

The Crab Nebula has been observed by several PIs with different objectives. The first observation was performed just after launch (Weisskopf et al. 2000) and the latest one was done 3.3 years after that to witness the transit of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, across the Crab Nebula (Mori et al. 2003, in preparation). In this paper, we used those two observations as well as one of the monitoring observations which were performed almost at the midpoint of the first and latest ones. Hereafter, we call them 1st, 2nd, and 3rd epoch observations. They are roughly spaced at 1.7 years interval. Table 1 summarizes these observations.

## 3. Result and Discussion

In contrast with short-term variations are seen at inner regions, the long-term variations are prominent at outer regions: the torus and the southern jet. In the following sections, we will discuss these variations separately.

### 3.1. The northeast of the torus

Figure 1 shows expanded views of the northeast of the torus. The brightness scales of these images are normalized to the bright region of the torus, not by exposure time, because of the differences of the observational configurations.

Images of the 1st and 2nd epoch observations are quite similar. The bright “thick” torus is encircled by circular structures at its northeastern end. As reported previously, these two structures appear to expand between the 1st and 2nd epoch observations (Mori et al. 2000; Mori 2002). In contrast with the similarity between the 1st and 2nd epoch images, the morphological transition from the 2nd to the 3rd epoch image is remarkable. The bright region of the torus appears to have became shrunken and “thin”, and the circular structures have decayed into several arcs.

Now it is clear that the torus is not steadily expanding; the overall extent is almost constant over decades, but the boundary of the torus varies with an angular scale of a few arcseconds and a time scale of years. It is as if we were seeing a top of a fountain. Greiveldinger & Aschenbach (1999) reported surface brightness variations of the Crab Nebula using $`ROSAT`$ HRI observations spanning 6 years. Although $`ROSAT`$ could not detect a morphological variation, they showed a monotonic increase of the surface brightness at the northeastern region of the torus. The brightness variation discovered by $`ROSAT`$ is most likely related to the morphological variation discovered by Chandra, suggesting that the time scale of the variation of the torus might be about a decade rather than a few years.

### 3.2. The southern jet

Figure 2 shows expanded views of the southern jet of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd epoch observations. Although the displacement of the jet is quite small, the series of images clearly shows the growth of its overall kinked-structure. The variability of the jet is reminiscent of northern variable jet of Vela (Pavlov et al. 2003). Table 2 compares the time scale of the variability and the width between the Crab and Vela Jets. The Crab jet is 10 times larger and varies 10 times slower than the Vela jet. If these variations are due to MHD instability, the time scale is proportional to the Alven crossing time, $`\tau r/\nu `$, where $`r`$ is the width of the jet and $`\nu `$ is the Alven velocity (Begelman 1998). Considering that the Alven velocity in an ultrarelativistic plasma like the Crab and Vela PWN is more or less the same, above equation applies to both the Crab and Vela jet. Therefore, it is suggested that a common mechanism is responsible for the variability of the Crab and Vela jet.

## References

Begelman, M. C. 1998, ApJ, 493, 291

Greiveldinger, C. & Aschenbach, B. 1999, ApJ, 510, 305

Hester, J. J. et al. 2002, ApJ, 577, 871

Kennel, C. F., & Coroniti, F. V. 1984, ApJ, 283, 694

Mori, K. et al. 2002, in Neutron Stars in Supernova Remnants, ed. P. O. Slane & B. M. Gaensler, p157

Mori, K. 2002, Ph. D. Thesis, Osaka University

Pavlov, G. G. et al. 2003, ApJ, 591, 1157

Weisskopf, M. et al. 2000, ApJ, 536, 81


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# Reconstructing the primordial power spectrum - a new algorithm

## 1 Introduction

The present cosmological concordance model has been shown to describe all present data surprisingly well with only about six parameters . From a physics point of view it is based on reasonable assumptions, such as general relativity and forms of matter with constant equations of state, albeit the physical nature of both the dark matter and the dark energy remains unknown. The initial perturbation spectrum appears to be almost purely adiabatic, Gaussian and scale invariant. Furthermore a general framework for producing such fluctuations in the early universe, namely inflation, is known and well established. As long as the universe remains deeply within the slow-roll regime during inflation, and the inflaton remains weakly coupled, Gaussian quantum fluctuations are produced which eventually become the adiabatic metric fluctuations observed for instance in the cosmic microwave background. However, there are many reasons to believe that there are deviations from this behaviour during the inflationary epoch, and countless physical mechanisms have been investigated. In the simplest models the deviations from scale invariance are caused by non-zero derivatives of the inflaton potential. Depending on the exact inflation model this can produce a tilt in the spectrum, and in general one can expand the produced spectrum of metric fluctuations in a Taylor series around the scale-invariant Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum

$$\mathrm{log}P(k)=\mathrm{log}P(k_0)+(n1)\mathrm{log}\frac{k}{k_0}+\frac{1}{2}\frac{dn}{d\mathrm{log}k}|_{k_0}\mathrm{log}^2\frac{k}{k_0}+\mathrm{}$$
(1)
where the different terms in the expansion are related to the derivatives of the potential.

Within this framework it has to be assumed that the universe does not deviate significantly from slow-roll in the sense that the power series above converges, and higher order terms are very small.

However, the present cosmological data shows some indication that the second order term is not small compared with the first order term , perhaps indicating that the above series expansion does not converge, and that slow-roll may not be a valid approximation.

If one does away with the assumption of slow-roll during the production of fluctuations then much more radical deviations from scale invariance can be achieved. If for instance there are phase transitions or resonant production of particles during inflation, then step-like features in the power spectrum can occur . It is in fact possible that such a feature is seen in the CMB data at the very largest scales, where the level of fluctuations is significantly smaller than expected.

On a different note it is also possible that effects from Planck scale physics can show up during inflationary slow-roll which occurs at much lower energies and perturb the spectrum of fluctuations , one possibility being a logarithmic modulation of the power spectrum. This can occur even if the slow-roll conditions are fulfilled.

It is of course possible to search for specific types of features predicted in a given type of model, such as steps, Gaussian peaks, or oscillations (see e.g. ). However, with such a plethora of different possibilities it would be highly desirable with a model-independent and robust method for searching for deviations from scale invariance in the power spectrum. Such a method should be able to naturally encompass the power-law spectra predicted by standard slow-roll, as well as the more radical features such as steps and bumps.

In the present paper we describe exactly such a method which is able to extract features in the underlying spectrum, using either CMB or large scale structure data. Furthermore it is very easy to implement in existing software for cosmological parameter estimation.

In section 2 we describe general features of likelihood analysis, as well as the present cosmological data. In sections 3 and 4 we describe the spectrum reconstruction algorithm and use it on present cosmological data to search for features. In section 5 we go on to test the algorithm against mock data from future CMB experiments such as the Planck Surveyor. In section 6 we test how systematic errors in the $`C_l`$ data can affect parameter estimation and spectrum recovery. To that end we insert a Gaussian feature directly into the mock CMB data and do likelihood analysis on this modified data. Finally section 7 contains a discussion and conclusion.

## 2 Likelihood analysis

For calculating the theoretical CMB and matter power spectra we use the publicly available CMBFAST package . As the set of cosmological parameters other than those related to the primordial spectrum we choose the minimum standard model with 4 parameters: $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, the matter density, the curvature parameter, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, the baryon density, $`H_0`$, the Hubble parameter, and $`\tau `$, the optical depth to reionization. We restrict the analysis to geometrically flat models $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_m+\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=1`$. When using large scale structure data we use the bias parameter, $`b`$, as a free parameter, which is a conservative, but well motivated choice.

In this numerical likelihood analysis we use the free parameters discussed above with certain priors determined from cosmological observations other than CMB and LSS. In flat models the matter density is restricted by observations of Type Ia supernovae to be $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.28\pm 0.14`$ . Furthermore, the HST Hubble key project has obtained a constraint on $`H_0`$ of $`72\pm 8\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$ . A summary of the priors can be found in table 1. The actual marginalization over parameters was performed using a simulated annealing procedure .

### 2.1 Cosmological data

Large scale structure – At present there are two large galaxy surveys of comparable size, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)  and the 2dFGRS (2 degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey) Once the SDSS is completed in 2005 it will be significantly larger and more accurate than the 2dFGRS. At present the two surveys are, however, comparable in precision and in the present paper we use data from the 2dFGRS.

Tegmark, Hamilton and Xu  have calculated a power spectrum, $`P(k)`$, from this data, which we use in the present work. The 2dFGRS data extends to very small scales where there are large effects of non-linearity. Since we only calculate linear power spectra, we use (in accordance with standard procedure) only data on scales larger than $`k=0.2h\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, where effects of non-linearity should be minimal (see for instance Ref.  for a discussion). Making this cut reduces the number of power spectrum data points to 18.

CMB – The CMB temperature fluctuations are conveniently described in terms of the spherical harmonics power spectrum $`C_l|a_{lm}|^2`$, where $`\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }T}{T}(\theta ,\varphi )=_{lm}a_{lm}Y_{lm}(\theta ,\varphi )`$. Since Thomson scattering polarizes light there are also power spectra coming from the polarization. The polarization can be divided into a curl-free $`(E)`$ and a curl $`(B)`$ component, yielding four independent power spectra: $`C_{T,l},C_{E,l},C_{B,l}`$ and the temperature $`E`$-polarization cross-correlation $`C_{TE,l}`$.

The WMAP experiment have reported data only on $`C_{T,l}`$ and $`C_{TE,l}`$, as described in Ref.

We have performed the likelihood analysis using the prescription given by the WMAP collaboration which includes the correlation between different $`C_l`$’s . Foreground contamination has already been subtracted from their published data.

In parts of the data analysis we also add other CMB data from the compilation by Wang et al.  which includes data at high $`l`$. Altogether this data set has 28 data points.

## 3 Reconstructing the power spectrum in bins

One method which has often been used to search for power spectrum features is to bin the spectrum into $`N`$ bins in $`k`$-space and then calculate what could be called a band amplitude in each of the bins . This is the crudest possible model and does not yield a continuous power spectrum. While there are models prediction such features they do not generally appear.

Another method is to do linear interpolation between the bin amplitudes. This was for instance done in the work by Bridle et al.  on the WMAP+2dF data (see also ). In this paper a parametrization was used where power at a given $`k`$ was

$$P(k)=\{\begin{array}{cc}\frac{(k_{i+1}k)b_i+(kk_i)b_{i+1}}{k_{i+1}k_i}\hfill & \text{for }k_i<k<k_{i+1}\hfill \\ b_n\hfill & \text{for }k>k_n\hfill \end{array},$$
(2)
where $`b_i`$ are the bin amplitudes and $`k_i`$ the bin positions.

However, this parametrization has the disadvantage that is does not fit a simple power-law spectrum. While the amplitude at each bin point can fit an overall power-law, the linear interpolation between bin points can only fit a simple power law if $`n=1`$.

The method we use for binning is therefore slightly different. We choose a $`k_{\mathrm{min}}`$ which is smaller than the minimum used in actual calculations (typically $`k_{\mathrm{min}}=10^5h`$/Mpc) and $`k_{\mathrm{max}}`$ so that it is higher than the largest value used (typically $`k_{\mathrm{max}}=1h`$/Mpc). From the number of bins $`N`$ we then calculate $`N+1`$ points in $`k`$-space which are logarithmically spaced, i.e.

$$k_i=k_{\mathrm{min}}\left(\frac{k_{\mathrm{max}}}{k_{\mathrm{min}}}\right)^{i/N},i=0,\mathrm{},N$$
(3)
At each of these points there is a power spectrum amplitude, $`A_i=\mathrm{log}(P(k_i))`$. From this set of $`N+1`$ points linear interpolation is done in logarithmic space

$$A(k)=\{\begin{array}{cc}A(k_0)\hfill & k<k_{\mathrm{min}}\hfill \\ A(k_i)+(\mathrm{log}(k)\mathrm{log}(k_i))\frac{A_{i+1}A_i}{\mathrm{log}(k_{i+1})\mathrm{log}(k_i)}\hfill & k_{\mathrm{min}}<k<k_{\mathrm{max}}\hfill \\ A(k_N)\hfill & k>k_{\mathrm{max}}\hfill \end{array}$$
(4)
This particular type of interpolation has the advantage that it has the simple power law spectrum as a special case. With this choice of binning there are $`N+1`$ free parameters (amplitudes) which can either be chosen using a Monte Carlo type algorithm or calculated on a grid. However, for large $`N`$ grid based methods become unfeasible.

The question is then how to judge whether adding more bins effectively improves the fit. $`\chi ^2`$ in itself is not a good measure of whether the agreement with data is improved by increasing the number of bins because the effective number of degrees of freedom of the system changes when the number of bins changes. Instead we use the Goodness-of-Fit (GoF), defined as the probability of $`\chi ^2`$ being larger than the obtained value by pure chance alone

$$\mathrm{GoF}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\nu /2)}_{\chi ^2/2}^{\mathrm{}}e^tt^{\nu /21}𝑑t,$$
(5)
where $`\nu `$ is the effective number of degrees of freedom.

As long as the GoF increases when $`N`$ increases then there is a preference in the data for a feature or slope of some kind. Therefore the algorithm should be run with increasing $`N`$ until the GoF no longer increases. When the spectrum reconstruction has converged the GoF will actually decrease with increasing $`N`$ because $`\nu `$ increases.

Note that we do not calculate error bars on the bin amplitudes for each $`N`$. Rather the analysis can effectively be seen as a likelihood analysis in terms of a single parameter $`N`$, where all other parameters are marginalized over. However, as described above it is slightly different from a normal likelihood analysis because the number of degrees of freedom, $`\nu `$, changes with $`N`$.

It should be noted here that there is a radically different method for reconstructing the primordial power spectrum from CMB observations which relies on the fact that for constant cosmological parameters, the $`C_l`$ spectrum can be inverted to find $`P(k)`$ . However, the weakness of the method is that since any reasonable likelihood calculation must vary the cosmological parameters to find the best fit, spurious features can occur in the extracted power spectrum. Another possibility is to replace the binning with some other weighing, such as using a wavelet method . In this latter case one estimates the amplitudes of a given number of basis functions. If these are chosen optimally then the method can be very powerful in picking up localized features in the power spectrum .

### 3.1 Application to present data

As a particular example we have used the binning method described here on current cosmological data.

We divide the likelihood analysis into two parts:
a) WMAP data only (referred to as WMAP only)
b) WMAP + Wang et al. + 2dFGRS data (referred to as ”all data”)
The results can be seen in Table 2, as well as in figures 1 and 2. From Table 2 we note that the GoF is quite poor for the WMAP data, a fact which is well known and ascribable to the fact that there are localized glitches in the power spectrum. While the physical meaning of these glitches is not yet fully understood it is likely that they have to do with the power spectrum reconstruction from the CMB maps, and not with any fundamental physics effect.

What is perhaps more interesting is that the application of the spectrum reconstruction algorithm does not lead to any significant improvement in the GoF. In most cases the $`\chi ^2`$ value is almost unchanged.

From figures 1 and 2 it is clear, however, that the data shows a slight preference for a negative running of the effective spectral index, i.e. the spectrum has an overall negative curvature. Exactly the same is also found in studies of the power spectrum within the slow roll approximation.

The spectrum reconstruction also finds that there is a dip in power around the scale of the lowest measurable multipoles. From the rough relation $`l2kcH_0^1`$ (which applies exactly only to the flat, pure CDM model), we find that there some indication in the data for a dip around $`k=0.001h`$/Mpc, corresponding to $`l510`$. This again corresponds quite well to what is found in other studies .

On the other hand, even though this seems like a pronounced effect in $`P(k)`$, the corresponding $`C_l`$ spectra shown in figure 3 are almost identical at low multipoles.

One might wonder why this is the case when the fit would obviously be better if power was significantly reduced on small scales. The answer is that it is not possible to lower the amplitude of the $`TT`$ spectrum at small multipoles by changing the underlying power spectrum without doing the same to the $`TE`$ spectrum. This on the other hand fits well with a high amplitude at low multipoles, something which is usually ascribed to a high optical depth. This effect on the two different spectra at low multipoles can be seen in figure 4

The end result is that the overall best fit with regards to the power spectrum is one where there is a small decrease in amplitude at low $`l`$, but not sufficiently large that the $`TE`$ spectrum becomes inconsistent with data.

## 4 The sliding bin method

In the previous section we discussed a model independent way of searching for power spectrum variations and used it on present cosmological data. However, the binning in $`k`$-space was chosen a priori, a fact which can render the method almost useless in some instances. One example is the possibility of a step-like feature in the power spectrum. Such an abrupt feature cannot be fitted by the algorithm presented in the previous section, unless the number of bins is taken to be very large.

Of course one could search for steps in the spectrum by doing a new, independent scan of parameter space using the step height and location as free parameters. This method was for instance used by Bridle et al.  to search for various kinds of spectral effects in the present cosmological data.

However, it is clearly desirable to have a robust and more general method for searching for spectral deviations. A natural step is to allow the binning in $`k`$ to be free variables. Here we propose one such method which is simple to implement and fits extremely well with Monte Carlo based algorithms such as MCMC  or simulated annealing .

The method goes as follows:

| a) | Choose the number of $`k`$-space bins. This must now be a power of 2 |
| --- | --- |
|  | (i.e. 2, 4, 8, 16, …). |
| b) As in the previous algorithm calculate $`N+1`$ amplitudes. |
| c) Choose the lowest and highest $`k`$ values as fixed numbers. These should be chosen |
|  | so that $`k_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is smaller than the minimum used in actual calculations and $`k_{\mathrm{max}}`$ |
|  | so that it is higher than the largest value used. |
| d) Start dividing up $`k`$-space. First choose one $`k`$-value, $`k_1`$, at random between |
|  | the starting points with a flat prior so that $`k_1=\alpha _1(k_{\mathrm{max}}k_{\mathrm{min}})+k_{\mathrm{min}}`$, |
|  | where $`\alpha _1[0,1]`$ is a random number provided by for instance the MCMC |
|  | algorithm. Next, choose a $`k_2`$ in the same way at random between $`k_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`k_1`$, |
|  | and a $`k_3`$ between $`k_1`$ and $`k_{\mathrm{max}}`$. |
| e) Continue this iterative procedure until $`N1`$ values have been chosen. |
|  | This requires $`\mathrm{log}(N)/\mathrm{log}(2)`$ steps of the type described in d). |
| f) Now sort all of the $`k`$-values in increasing order, including $`k_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`k_{\mathrm{max}}`$. This |
|  | yields $`N+1`$ $`k`$-values which correspond to the $`N+1`$ amplitudes generated in b) |

Even though the method at first may seem confusing because it relabels $`k`$-values, it in fact ensures that the $`N+1`$ tuple of $`k`$-values is always in increasing order, but with varying spacing. It is not important at all how the individual $`k`$-values are labelled while they are generated, as long as they are sorted in increasing order at the end.

Altogether there are now $`2N+2`$ numbers related to the binning and the amplitudes. $`2N`$ of these are random numbers, only the $`k_{\mathrm{min}}`$ and $`k_{\mathrm{max}}`$ are fixed numbers.

The $`2N`$ numbers can be generated for instance by a Monte Carlo based algorithm or they can be run on a grid. The algorithm is straightforward to incorporate into existing likelihood calculators such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo, it just introduces $`2N`$ new “cosmological parameters” into the analysis.

By this method it is for instance possible in principle to sample a step-like feature perfectly with $`N=4`$ (but not with N=2).

Apart from sliding bins the method is completely identical to that described in the previous section. However, it has the very big advantage of being able to detect narrow features of almost any shape and location in the primordial power spectrum.

### 4.1 Application to present data

The results of likelihood analyses with $`N=2,4,`$ and 8 are shown in Table 3. From this it is clear that when applied to the present cosmological data the algorithm does not perform significantly better than the crude binning algorithm of the previous section. This is not surprising since there are no detectable features of any significance in the present data. For a given $`N`$ the obtained $`\chi ^2`$ is in each case slightly better than what is obtained with the fixed bins method of the previous section. However, the Goodness-of-Fit is actually worse because there are $`2N`$ free parameters in the sliding bins method and only $`N+1`$ in the fixed bins method.

Figures 5 and 6 show the reconstructed spectra. As in the case of the algorithm with fixed binning there is indication of an overall bending of the spectrum, corresponding to a negative curvature. Furthermore there is indication of a dip in power at large scales. For the WMAP-only data the dip is at $`k=0.0010.002h`$/Mpc, corresponding roughly to $`l10`$, whereas for all data combined the dip occurs at a scale corresponding to roughly $`l=24`$.

However, as with the fixed binning algorithm there is no statistical evidence for features in the spectrum. The GoF is constant or decreases when $`N`$ increases, which indicates that there are no significant features hidden.

One other important feature should be noted, namely that there is apparently a rather large change in the derived power spectrum on large scales when including other data sets than WMAP. At first this may appear confusing because the other data sets are relevant only on smaller scales. However, the simulated annealing algorithm used is very powerful for finding the global extremum of a function, but it is not an MCMC type algorithm, i.e. it does not provide an estimate of the distribution of the function. Therefore no error bars are plotted in these figures. One should instead think of the analysis as a 1-parameter likelihood analysis, with $`N`$ being the free parameter. The actual spectra plotted in the figures are the best fit models only. Close to the horizon scale the error bars on the extracted spectrum are large and therefore the features appear more dramatic than they really are. Instead one should look at the Goodness-of-fit as a function of $`N`$, in which case there is no really significant evidence for features.

Even though the sliding bin method does not perform better than the fixed bin method for the present data, it performs extremely well when there are localized features in the spectrum, as will be demonstrated in the next section.

## 5 Testing the algorithm on mock CMB data

We have simulated a data set from the future Planck mission using the following very simple prescription: We assume it to be cosmic variance (as opposed to foreground) limited up to some maximum $`l`$-value, $`l_{\mathrm{max}}`$, which we take to be 2000. For the sake of simplicity we shall work only with the temperature power spectrum, $`C_{T,l}`$, in the present analysis. In fact the Planck detectors will be able to measure polarization as well as temperature anisotropies, but our simplification of using only $`C_{T,l}`$ will not have a significant qualitative impact on our conclusions. For a cosmic variance limited full sky experiment the uncertainty in the measurement of a given $`C_l`$ is simply

$$\frac{\sigma (C_l)}{C_l}=\sqrt{\frac{2}{2l+1}}.$$
(6)
It should be noted that taking the data to be cosmic variance limited corresponds to the best possible case. In reality it is likely that foreground effects will be significant, especially at high $`l`$. Therefore, our estimate of the precision with which the oscillation parameters can be measured is probably on the optimistic side.

As the underlying cosmological model for all cases in this and the next section we choose a standard $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=0.04`$, $`H_0=70\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{Mpc}^1`$, and $`\tau =0`$.

### 5.1 A step in the spectrum

As a test case we use a primordial power spectrum which has a step at $`k=0.05h`$/Mpc,

$$P(k)=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{for }k<0.05h\text{/Mpc}\hfill \\ 1.3\hfill & \text{for }k>0.05h\text{/Mpc}\hfill \end{array}$$
(7)
In Table 4 we show the best fit $`\chi ^2`$ obtained for $`N=2,4,`$ and 8. In this case the GoF increases dramatically with increasing $`N`$, indicating that there is a feature in the spectrum. From Figure 7 it can also be seen that the step is faithfully recovered by the algorithm. For $`N=4`$ it is located at the correct place in $`k`$-space, but is not quite sharp enough. For $`N=8`$ the step feature is recovered almost perfectly, except for a transient effect right at the edge. Such an effect is not surprising because the algorithm has to reproduce a discontinuity.

### 5.2 A Gaussian feature

The next case is a Gaussian suppression of the spectrum around $`k=0.05h`$/Mpc,

$$P(k)=1\alpha \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(\mathrm{log}(k)\mathrm{log}(k_b))^2}{\beta ^2}\right),$$
(8)
where we have taken $`k_b=0.05h`$/Mpc, $`\alpha =0.7`$, $`\beta ^2=0.1`$.

In Table 5 the best fit $`\chi ^2`$ and GoF are shown, again for $`N=2,4,`$ and 8. Figure 8 shows the recovered spectra.

Not surprisingly the best fit even for $`N=8`$ is not tremendously good because it is inherently difficult to mimic a continuous feature in the spectrum by a sequence of lines.

However, the recovered $`\chi ^2`$ and the reconstructed spectrum is much better than what a crude binning algorithm can do on the same data . Furthermore the shape of the underlying spectrum is recovered nicely and unbiased. Finally, in figure 9 we show CMB spectra of the underlying theoretical spectra discussed in sections 5.1 and 5.2.

## 6 Glitches in the CMB spectrum

As a last application we study what happens to spectrum estimation in the event where there are significant, but completely unphysical bumps on the $`C_l`$ spectrum. To do this we have generated a mock CMB data in the same manner as in the previous section for a completely scale invariant model ($`n=1`$), but on top of that we have added a Gaussian feature, so that the final $`C_l`$ in given in terms of the original $`C_l`$ as

$$C_{l,\mathrm{new}}=C_{l,\mathrm{old}}(1+0.2\mathrm{exp}((l350)^2/5^5))$$
(9)
In figure 10 we show the two sets of mock CMB data. The left spectrum has the added Gaussian feature, while the right one is the original unperturbed mock spectrum.

The question is then to what extent the estimation, both of the spectrum and of the cosmological parameters, is perturbed by this feature.

In Table 6 it can be seen that the true, underlying parameters are not retrieved in the case with $`N=2`$. However, already for $`N=4`$ the cosmological parameters are estimated correctly. On the other hand, from figure 11 it can be seen that the extracted power spectrum is no longer the fully scale invariant $`n=1`$ Harrison-Zeldovich spectrum of the input model. Rather, the best fit model now shows a distinct bending. This shows that errors in the $`C_l`$ construction from the map in the form of bumps or glitches can lead to a biasing of the power spectrum estimation. Although the feature in the $`C_l`$ spectrum which is used here is significantly larger than the ones seen in the WMAP data (as can be seen from the fact that the $`N=2`$ model gives an exceedingly bad fit) it is quite possible to bias power spectrum estimation and make an underlying scale invariant spectrum look like it is bending.

The fact that the other cosmological parameters can be extracted with great precision is not too surprising. The reason is that parameters such as $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, $`H_0`$, and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ all produce wide non-localized features in the spectrum. Therefore it is quite impossible to mimic a narrow Gaussian feature by a linear combination of changes in the underlying cosmological parameters.

### 6.1 A glitch at low $`l`$

Finally we have also tested the effect of having a glitch at lower $`l`$ in order to see whether that produces similar effects. We have added a glitch of the same magnitude and width as above, but at $`l=40`$.

From figure 12 it can be seen that in this case the reconstructed spectrum also shows features. The main effect is at $`k0.001h`$/Mpc, corresponding to roughly $`l40`$, but here again there are features at larger scales as well. In general narrow features in the $`C_l`$ spectrum will not show up as narrow features in the reconstructed $`P(k)`$.

## 7 Discussion

We have developed an efficient and model-independent method for reconstructing the primordial power spectrum from cosmological observations of both CMB and large scale structure. This method has the major advantage that it can locate even narrow features in the spectrum very accurately. Furthermore the algorithm is very easy to implement in current likelihood calculators which are Monte Carlo based, although it can also be used in grid based algorithms.

We then tested the algorithm on current cosmological data and found, in accordance with numerous other studies, no significant evidence for any features in the primordial spectrum of fluctuations, $`P(k)`$. There is a slight preference for an overall negative curvature of the spectrum, corresponding to a negative running of the spectral index. However, the statistical significance is very low. Furthermore there is an indication of a break in the power spectrum at the very largest observable scales, corresponding to the dip in power at low $`l`$ seen by WMAP. Again, however, the statistical significance of this feature is very low.

In order to test the efficiency and robustness of the algorithm we then went on to use it on mock data from a future high-precision experiment such as the Planck Surveyor. Two cases were investigated, one with a step-like feature imposed, and one with a Gaussian suppression of the power spectrum. In both cases the algorithm was able to recover the true, underlying power spectrum very efficiently and with no biasing, something which would for instance be extremely difficult for algorithms with fixed bins.

Finally we tested the algorithm on a mock CMB spectrum, where a noise feature of Gaussian shape was imposed after the data was generated. The reason is that such glitches are seen in the present WMAP data, and it is of interest to know whether the true power spectrum, as well as other cosmological parameters can be safely recovered even if there are such spurious features present.

Running the algorithm we found that the cosmological parameters of the underlying model could be recovered safely, but that the extracted primordial spectrum no longer resembled to scale-invariant spectrum used to generate the data. Rather it showed a distinct bending. This means that care should be taken when extracting information on the primordial power spectrum, including such parameters as the running of the spectral index, from power spectra which show spurious, localized features in $`l`$-space.

## Acknowledgments

We acknowledge use of the publicly available CMBFAST package written by Uros Seljak and Matthias Zaldarriaga  and the use of computing resources at DCSC (Danish Center for Scientific Computing).


text:
# On automorphisms of the symmetrized bidisc

## Abstract.

We characterize the group $`\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$ for the symmetrized bidisc $`𝔾_2:=\{(\lambda _1+\lambda _2,\lambda _1\lambda _2):|\lambda _1|,|\lambda _2|<1\}^2`$.

###### Key words and phrases:

symmetrized bidisc, automorphism  Both authors were supported in part by KBN grant no. 5 P03A 033 21 and by DFG grant no. 227/8-1.

Let $`E`$ be the unit disc. Put

$$\pi :^2^2,\pi (\lambda _1,\lambda _2):=(\lambda _1+\lambda _2,\lambda _1\lambda _2),$$

$$𝔾_2:=\pi (E^2)=\{(\lambda _1+\lambda _2,\lambda _1\lambda _2):\lambda _1,\lambda _2E\},$$

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_2:=\{\pi (\lambda ,\lambda ):\lambda E\}=\{(2\lambda ,\lambda ^2):\lambda E\},$$

$$h_a(\lambda ):=\frac{\lambda a}{1\overline{a}\lambda },aE,\lambda \{1/\overline{a}\}.$$

The domain $`𝔾_2`$ is called the symmetrized bidisc. It has been recently studied by many authors, e.g. \[Agl-You 2001\], \[Agl-You 2003\], \[Cos 2003\], \[Pfl-Zwo 2003\]. The domain $`𝔾_2`$ is the first known bounded pseudoconvex domain for which the Carathéodory and Lempert functions coincide, but which cannot be exhausted by domains biholomorphic to convex domains; cf. \[Cos 2003\], see also \[Jar-Pfl 2004\] for details.

###### Remark 1.

If $`f𝒪(E^2)`$ is symmetric, then the relation $`F(\pi (\lambda _1,\lambda _2))=f(\lambda _1,\lambda _2)`$ defines a function $`F𝒪(𝔾_2)`$. In particular, if $`h𝒪(E,E)`$, then the relation $`H_h(\pi (\lambda _1,\lambda _2))=\pi (h(\lambda _1),h(\lambda _2))`$ defines a holomorphic mapping $`H_h:𝔾_2𝔾_2`$ with $`H_h(\mathrm{\Sigma }_2)\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$.

If $`h\mathrm{Aut}(E)`$, then $`H_h\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$, $`H_h^1=H_{h^1}`$, and $`H_h(\mathrm{\Sigma }_2)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$. In particular, if $`h(\lambda ):=\tau \lambda `$ for some $`\tau E`$, then we get the “rotation” $`R_\tau (s,p):=H_h(s,p)=(\tau s,\tau ^2p)`$.

###### Remark 2.

For any point $`(s_0,p_0)=(2a,a^2)\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ we get $`H_{h_a}(s_0,p_0)=(0,0)`$. Consequently, the group $`\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$ acts transitively on $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$.

###### Theorem.

$$\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)=\{H_h:h\mathrm{Aut}(E)\}.$$

A description of $`\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$ is also announced in \[Agl-You 2003\] for a future paper. Since they write “we shall identify the automorphisms of $`𝔾_2`$ and this will enable us to show that $`𝔾_2`$ is inhomogeneous”, it seems that their method will be different from the one in this note.

###### Proof.

First observe that $`\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$ does not act transitively on $`𝔾_2`$.

Otherwise, by the Cartan classification theorem (cf. \[Akh 1990\], \[Fuks 1965\]), $`𝔾_2`$ would be biholomorphic to the unit Euclidean ball $`𝔹_2`$ or to the unit bidisc $`E^2`$. In the case where $`𝔾_2𝔹_2`$ we get a contradiction with the Remmert–Stein theorem (cf. \[Nar 1971\], p. 71) saying that there are no proper holomorphic mappings $`E^2𝔹_2`$. In the case where $`𝔾_2E^2`$ we get a contradiction with the characterization of proper holomorphic mappings $`F:E^2E^2`$ (cf. \[Nar 1971\], p. 76), which says that any such a mapping has the form $`F(z_1,z_2)=(F_1(z_1),F_2(z_2))`$ (up to a permutation of the variables). See also \[Cos 2003\].

Next observe that $`F(\mathrm{\Sigma }_2)=\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ for every $`F\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$.

Indeed, let $`V:=\{F(0,0):F\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)\}`$. By W. Kaup’s theorem, $`V`$ is a connected complex submanifold of $`𝔾_2`$ (cf. \[KaupW 1970\]). We already know that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_2V`$ (Remark 2). Since $`\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$ does not act transitively, we have $`V𝔾_2`$. Thus $`V=\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$.

Take a point $`(s_0,p_0)=H_h(0,0)\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$ with $`h\mathrm{Aut}(E)`$ (Remark 2). Then for every $`F\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$, we get $`F(s_0,p_0)=(FH_h)(0,0)V=\mathrm{\Sigma }_2`$.

By Remark 2, we only need to show that every automorphism $`F\mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$ with $`F(0,0)=(0,0)`$ is equal to a “rotation” $`R_\tau `$. Fix such an $`F=(S,P)`$.

First observe that $`F|_{\mathrm{\Sigma }_2}\mathrm{Aut}(\mathrm{\Sigma }_2)`$. Hence $`F(2\lambda ,\lambda ^2)=(2\alpha \lambda ,\alpha ^2\lambda ^2)`$ for some $`\alpha E`$. Taking $`R_{1/\alpha }F`$ instead of $`F`$, we may assume that $`\alpha =1`$. In particular, $`F^{}(0,0)\left[\begin{array}{c}2\\ 0\end{array}\right]=\left[\begin{array}{c}2\\ 0\end{array}\right]`$ and, therefore, $`F^{}(0,0)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& b\\ 0& d\end{array}\right]`$.

For $`\tau E`$ put $`G_\tau :=F^1R_{1/\tau }FR_\tau \mathrm{Aut}(𝔾_2)`$. Obviously, $`G_\tau (0,0)=(0,0)`$. Moreover, $`G_\tau ^{}(0,0)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& b(\tau 1)\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right]`$. Let $`G_\tau ^n:𝔾_2𝔾_2`$ be the $`n`$–th iterate of $`G_\tau `$. We have $`(G_\tau ^n)^{}(0,0)=\left[\begin{array}{cc}1& nb(\tau 1)\\ 0& 1\end{array}\right]`$. Using the Cauchy inequalities, we get

$$|nb(\tau 1)|\mathrm{const},n,\tau E,$$

which implies that $`b=0`$, i.e. $`F^{}(0,0)`$ is diagonal.

We have $`G_\tau ^{}(0,0)=\mathrm{id}`$. Hence, by the Cartan theorem (cf. \[Nar 1971\], p. 66), $`G_\tau =\mathrm{id}`$. Consequently, $`R_\tau F=FR_\tau `$, i.e.

$$(\tau S(s,p),\tau ^2P(s,p))=(S(\tau s,\tau ^2p),P(\tau s,\tau ^2p)),(s,p)𝔾_2,\tau E.$$

Hence $`F(s,p)=(s,p+Cs^2)`$. Since $`F(2\lambda ,\lambda ^2)=(2\lambda ,\lambda ^2)`$, we have $`(2\lambda ,\lambda ^2+4C\lambda ^2)=(2\lambda ,\lambda ^2)`$, which immediately implies that $`C=0`$, i.e. $`F=\mathrm{id}`$. ∎


text:
# On the Influence of Uncertainties in Chemical Reaction Rates on Results of the Astrochemical Modelling

## 1 Scatter in the model abundances

To study the influence of uncertainties in reaction rates on the model abundances we calculated $`10^4`$ variants of each species abundance. Figure 1 shows the scatter for some representative species.

We divided all species into 6 sensitivity groups according to the value of the scatter in their model abundances computed with varied rate constants.

Distribution of the species within these groups depends on adopted physical conditions (see fig. 1). Scatter in logarithmic abundances of simple molecules lies within $`0.51`$ dex. Figure 2 shows how the species are distributed by the number of atoms in different sensitivity groups. It is clear that the scatter in abundances significantly increases with the number of atoms in the molecule.

As an example we considered two molecules, HCN and C2S, which in the gas-phase chemistry reach maximum of their abundance at about $`10^4`$ years and, hence, considered to be characteristic representatives of the “early” chemistry. For example, high abundances of HC3N and other cyanopolyynes in the dark cloud TMC-1 are considered to prove that this object is chemically young (Hirahara etal. 1992).

Our calculations show that in the dark cloud model HC3N and C2S molecules belong to the sensitivity group 4, while more complex cyanopolyynes (HC5N, etc.) fall in the groups 5 and 6.

Left panel of fig.3 displays time dependence of the HC3N abundance calculated with the sets of constants providing maximal, minimal and 2 intermediate equilibrium abundances. It is clear that variations of the equilibrium HC3N abundance are accompanied by noticeable changes of the time when the maximal abundance is achieved (from 7$``$104 to 3$``$105 yr). The right panel displays corresponding dependence for C2S. The peak in the C2S abundance time dependence is more flat and shifts less. Anyhow, quantitative estimates of the molecular cloud ages on the basis of molecular abundances and their ratios (as suggested in, e.g., in Stahler 1984) are subject to this additional uncertainty.

## 2 Correlation between the species abundance and reaction rate constant

Because of nonlinearity of the rate equations it is impossible to sort out analytically the reactions which rate uncertainty greatly affects the total uncertainty of a species abundance. We propose a simple statistical method to resolve the issue. The method is based on investigation of correlations between the species abundance and rate constants of the reactions and allows to estimate how the increased precision of the reaction rate constant will decrease the uncertainty in the species abundance.

Figure 4 shows distribution of HCO+ abundances in the plane “rate coefficient – abundance”. The left panel represents the coverage of the plane for reaction with the large correlation coefficient H2 \+ C.R.P. $``$ H2+ \+ e- ($`r=0.84`$) and the right panel – that for reaction with the small coefficient C + NH $``$ CH + N ($`r=0.01`$). Additional modelling makes possible to predict improvement of the abundance estimate for the case when rates of several reactions are going to be remeasured.

Acknowledgements. AIV and AMS were supported by the grants of INTAS, RFBR and Russian Ministry of Education. DSW was supported by the RFBR grants 01-02-16206 and 02-02-04008 and by the President of the RF grant MK-348.2003.02.