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# Traveling Waves, Front Selection, and Exact Nontrivial Exponents in a Random Fragmentation Problem

## Abstract

We study a random bisection problem where an initial interval of length $`x`$ is cut into two random fragments at the first stage, then each of these two fragments is cut further, etc. We compute the probability $`P_n(x)`$ that at the $`n^{\mathrm{th}}`$ stage, each of $`2^n`$ fragments is shorter than 1. We show that $`P_n(x)`$ approaches a traveling wave form, and the front position $`x_n`$ increases as $`x_nn^\beta \rho ^n`$ for large $`n`$. We compute exactly the exponents $`\rho =1.261076\mathrm{}`$ and $`\beta =0.453025\mathrm{}`$ as roots of transcendental equations. We also solve the $`m`$section problem where each interval is broken into $`m`$ fragments. In particular, the generalized exponents grow as $`\rho _mm/(\mathrm{ln}m)`$ and $`\beta _m3/(2\mathrm{ln}m)`$ in the large $`m`$ limit. Our approach establishes an intriguing connection between extreme value statistics and traveling wave propagation in the context of the fragmentation problem.

PACS numbers: 02.50.-r, 05.40.-a, 64.60.-i

The statistics of extremes plays an important role in various branches of physics, statistics, and mathematics. For example, in physics of disordered systems, the statistics of extremely low energy states governs the thermodynamic behavior at low temperatures. The extreme-value statistics is well understood when random variables are independent and identically distributed. Much less is known when the random variables are correlated. In the replica language, this class of problems corresponds to full replica symmetry breaking. Thus it would be important to derive exact results for extreme value statistics for correlated random variables.

On the other hand, there is a wide variety of problems in physics, chemistry and biology, that allows for solutions with propagating traveling waves. The problem of front propagation into an unstable state dates back to the pioneering studies motivated by gene spreading in a population. Numerous traveling wave solutions were found in combustion and reaction diffusion systems; they also appear in the mean-field theory of directed polymers in random medium, calculations of Lyapunov exponents of random matrices, pattern formation, and many other problems. Usually in all these problems, the traveling wave has an exponentially decaying front that advances with a uniform velocity from a stable state to an unstable state as time increases. Out of a continuum of possible allowed velocities of the front, a unique value is usually selected. This velocity selection mechanism has been investigated by a variety of methods, and it was found that for “sufficiently steep” initial conditions, the minimal velocity is usually selected.

Is there a connection between these two sets of problems? In this paper, we give a positive answer to this question in the context of a random fragmentation problem. Our study indicates that there is perhaps a very general and deep connection between the two seemingly unrelated topics of extreme value statistics and propagating wave solutions. Besides, we give an exactly solvable example of extreme value statistics for correlated random variables.

The random bisection problem can be formulated as follows. An interval of length $`x`$ is cut into two halves of lengths $`x_1=rx`$ and $`x_2=(1r)x`$, respectively, where $`r`$ is the random number chosen from the uniform distribution over $`[0,1]`$. Next, each of these two fragments is cut again cut into two parts (with no correlations between the cuttings). After the $`n^{\mathrm{th}}`$ step, there are $`2^n`$ fragments whose lengths are correlated random variables (correlations are dynamically generated). Given the initial length $`x`$, what is the probability $`P_n(x,l)`$ that each of the $`2^n`$ fragments is shorter than $`l`$? In other words, what is the probability that the longest of these $`2^n`$ fragments would be shorter than $`l`$. The $`l`$ dependence is simple, $`P_n(x,l)=P_n(x/l)`$, so in the following we set $`l=1`$ without loss of generality.

Clearly, $`P_n(x)0`$ for $`x2^n`$. Moreover, there exists a threshold $`x_n`$ such that for large $`n`$, $`P_n(x)1`$ for $`xx_n`$ and $`P_n(x)0`$ for $`xx_n`$. The structure is that of an advancing front and the front position $`x_n`$ increases with $`n`$ as $`\rho ^n`$ for large $`n`$. This intriguing “phase transition” was noticed by several workers and finally rigorously proved by Devroye who also computed exactly the value of $`\rho =1.261076\mathrm{}`$. Recently, Hattori and Ochiai conjectured, based on numerical simulation, that the more precise asymptotic behavior of $`x_n`$ reads

$$x_nn^\beta \rho ^n,$$
(1)
and found numerically that $`\beta 0.407`$.

In this paper, we derive this asymptotic result by using methods of statistical physics. In particular, we re-derive the value of $`\rho `$ in a physically transparent way and compute the exponent $`\beta `$ exactly, which is a completely new result. We show that $`\beta =0.453025\mathrm{}`$ is nontrivial and is given by the root of a transcendental equation. Our technique consists of employing a scaling ansatz which reduces the problem to solving an equation that admits traveling wave solutions. We then select an appropriate solution by employing a well known front selection principle. Our technique also allows us to obtain exact results for a multisection problem where each interval is cut into $`m`$ random pieces at every stage. Once again, the distribution $`P_n(x)`$ follows the zero-one law, with the threshold value $`x_n(m)n^{\beta _m}[\rho _m]^n`$. As in the $`m=2`$ case, we compute the exponents $`\rho _m`$ and $`\beta _m`$ exactly for arbitrary $`m`$. For example, $`\rho _3=1.499118\mathrm{}`$ and $`\beta _3=0.429815\mathrm{}`$, and $`\rho _mm/\mathrm{ln}m`$ and $`\beta _m3/(2\mathrm{ln}m)`$ when $`m\mathrm{}`$. We also show that the variance of the front position $`x_n(m)`$ is always finite.

We first consider the $`m=2`$ case, i.e., the bisection problem. It is easy to see that $`P_n(x)`$ satisfies the exact recursion relation,

$$P_{n+1}(x)=\frac{1}{x}_0^x𝑑yP_n(y)P_n(xy),$$
(2)
with the initial condition, $`P_0(x)=\theta (1x)`$, where $`\theta (x)`$ is the Heaviside step function. The prefactor $`1/x`$ on the right hand side of Eq. (2) is the probability that the point where the interval is cut into two pieces is chosen randomly from the interval $`[0,x]`$. Taking the Laplace transform $`Q_n(s)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑xe^{sx}P_n(x)`$ of Eq. (2), we get,

$$\frac{dQ_{n+1}(s)}{ds}=Q_n^2(s).$$
(3)
Physically, one expects that as $`n`$ grows, $`P_n(x)`$ will be nonzero for $`x<x_n`$ and then will rapidly decay to zero for $`x>x_n`$ where $`x_n`$ is a threshold. An appropriate definition of $`x_n`$ would be,

$$x_n=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑xP_n(x).$$
(4)
Thus, it is natural to rewrite $`P_n(x)`$ in the scaling form, $`P_n(x)=f_n(x/x_n)`$. Thence, the Laplace transform reads $`Q_n(s)=x_nF_n(sx_n)`$ with $`F_n(z)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ye^{zy}f_n(y)`$. Substituting this form of $`Q_n(s)`$ into Eq. (3), we get

$$\frac{dF_{n+1}(z)}{dz}=\left(\frac{x_n}{x_{n+1}}\right)^2\left[F_n\left(\frac{zx_n}{x_{n+1}}\right)\right]^2.$$
(5)
Note that, by definition, $`Q_n(0)=x_n`$ implying $`F_n(0)=1`$ for all $`n`$. Additionally, $`f_n(0)=1`$ leads to $`F_n(0)z^1`$ as $`z\mathrm{}`$. For convenience, we make a further substitution, $`F_n(z)=(1H_n(z))/z`$, which recasts Eq. (5) into

$$z\frac{dH_{n+1}}{dz}=H_n^2\left(\frac{zx_n}{x_{n+1}}\right)2H_n\left(\frac{zx_n}{x_{n+1}}\right)+H_n(z),$$
(6)
with the boundary conditions $`H_n(0)=1`$ and $`H_n(z)0`$ as $`z\mathrm{}`$.

We first focus on the computing of $`\rho `$ in the asymptotic relation (1). To determine $`\rho `$, we seek a ‘stationary’, i.e., independent of $`n`$, solution of Eq. (6). Using $`x_nn^\beta \rho ^n`$ and taking the $`n\mathrm{}`$ limit, we find that the stationary solution satisfies

$$z\frac{dH(z)}{dz}=H^2\left(\frac{z}{\rho }\right)2H\left(\frac{z}{\rho }\right)+H(z),$$
(7)
where $`H(0)=1`$ and $`H(z)0`$ as $`z\mathrm{}`$. While we could not solve this non-local and nonlinear differential equation, we can determine the “eigenvalue” $`\rho `$ exactly through the asymptotic analysis. Indeed, in the large $`z`$ limit, $`H(z)`$ is small and thus one can neglect the nonlinear term in Eq. (7). The resulting linear equation admits a power law solution, $`H(z)=az^\mu `$, with

$$\rho =\left[\frac{1+\mu }{2}\right]^{\frac{1}{\mu }}.$$
(8)
Thus, a wide range of possible $`\mu `$’s is in principle allowed. However, usually a particular value is selected depending on the initial condition of the system. This is very similar to the problem of velocity selection in a large class of problems with wave propagation and it is well known that for a wide class of initial conditions, the extremum value is chosen. In the present case, the function on the right hand side of Eq. (8) has a unique maximum at $`\mu =\mu ^{}`$, which is a root of $`\mathrm{ln}(\frac{1+\mu ^{}}{2})=\mu ^{}/(1+\mu ^{})`$. Though we have not proved explicitly that the extremum value is indeed chosen, one can infer this conclusion from the general principle of front selection. Note also that $`\rho =\rho (\mu ^{})=1.261070\mathrm{}`$ can be written as $`\rho =e^\alpha `$ where $`\alpha `$ is a solution of $`\alpha =\mathrm{log}(2\alpha e)`$, in agreement with the result of Ref..

The exponent $`\beta `$ characterizes the next to leading asymptotic behavior of the front. Therefore, to compute $`\beta `$ we need to consider the full equation (6) rather than its $`n\mathrm{}`$ limit. A sub-leading asymptotic behavior of traveling fronts was originally analyzed by Bramson for a reaction-diffusion equation, and recently investigated in. Here we employ an approach of Ref.. For finite but large $`n`$, we make the following scaling ansatz for the function $`H_n(z)`$,

$$H_n(z)n^\alpha G\left(\frac{\mathrm{ln}z}{n^\alpha }\right)z^\mu ^{},$$
(9)
where the exponent $`\alpha `$ and the scaling function $`G(y)`$ are yet to be determined. The scaling function $`G(y)`$ must vanish as $`y\mathrm{}`$. Also, $`G(y)y`$ as $`y0`$ to ensure that for large $`n`$, $`H_n(z)z^\mu ^{}`$ and is independent of $`n`$. We substitute this scaling ansatz in Eq. (6) and use $`x_nn^\beta \rho ^n`$ where $`\rho `$ is already known exactly from Eq. (8). Using the exact value of $`\mu ^{}`$, we find that different leading order terms are comparable only with the special choice $`\alpha =1/2`$. In that case, the scaling function $`G(y)`$ satisfies an ordinary differential equation,

$$(\mathrm{ln}\rho )^2\frac{d^2G}{dy^2}+y\frac{dG}{dy}+(2\beta \mu ^{}1)G(y)=0,$$
(10)
with the boundary conditions $`G(y)y`$ for $`y0`$ and $`G(y)0`$ as $`y\mathrm{}`$. This therefore constitutes an eigenvalue problem where $`\beta `$ is the required eigenvalue. The exact solution of this differential equation that satisfies the boundary condition at $`y\mathrm{}`$ is given by,

$$G(y)=Ae^{\frac{y^2}{4\mathrm{ln}^2\rho }}D_{2(\beta \mu ^{}1)}\left(\frac{y}{\mathrm{ln}\rho }\right),$$
(11)
where $`A`$ is a constant and $`D_p(x)`$ is the parabolic cylinder function of order $`p`$ and argument $`x`$. From the known properties of cylinder functions, we find that the boundary condition, $`G(y)y`$ as $`y0`$, selects the eigenvalue $`2(\beta \mu ^{}1)=1`$. This is because only the parabolic cylinder function with index 1 vanishes linearly with $`x`$ as $`x0`$. Thus, the exponent $`\beta `$ is exactly determined in terms of the known $`\mu ^{}`$,

$$\beta =\frac{3}{2\mu ^{}}.$$
(12)
Using $`\mu ^{}=3.311070\mathrm{}`$, we get $`\beta =0.453025\mathrm{}`$. Our exact result slightly differs from the numerical value $`\beta 0.407`$ obtained in Ref.. An accurate numerical determination of $`\beta `$ is not simple as it is a sub-leading correction to the the leading asymptotic behavior.

The bisection problem can be straightforwardly generalized to the $`m`$-section problem where at each stage, every interval is cut into $`m`$ random pieces. The probability $`P_n(x)`$ that at the $`n^{\mathrm{th}}`$ stage each of $`m^n`$ fragments is shorter than 1 satisfies the exact recursion relation,

$`P_{n+1}(x)={\displaystyle \frac{(m1)!}{x^{m1}}}{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}`$ $`\mathrm{}`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{m}{}}}dy_jP_n(y_j)`$ (13)
$`\times `$ $`\delta \left({\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}}y_ix\right),`$ (14)
with the initial condition, $`P_0(x)=\theta (1x)`$. This equation can be easily derived as follows. At a given stage $`n`$, an interval of length $`x`$ is cut into $`m`$ fragments. Let $`z_1,\mathrm{},z_{m1}`$ denote the location of the points at which the interval is cut. The allowed range of values of the co-ordinates $`[z_1,\mathrm{},z_{m1}]`$ is the $`(m1)`$-dimensional simplex: $`xz_{m1}\mathrm{}z_10`$. The volume of this simplex is $`x^{m1}/(m1)!`$, and this explains the prefactor of Eq. (13). Finally, by changing co-ordinates to $`y_1=z_1,y_2=z_2z_1,\mathrm{},y_m=xz_{m1}`$, one obtains Eq. (13). Note also that for $`m=2`$, Eq. (13) reduces to Eq. (2). We now proceed exactly as in the $`m=2`$ case. The Laplace transform, $`Q_n(s)`$, satisfies the differential equation,

$$\frac{d^{m1}Q_{n+1}(s)}{ds^{m1}}=(1)^{m1}(m1)!\left[Q_n(s)\right]^m.$$
(15)
We again expect the threshold to grow as $`n^{\beta _m}(\rho _m)^n`$. To determine $`\rho _m`$, we assume that $`P_n`$ approaches the scaling form, $`P_n(x)=f(x/x_n(m))`$, in the large $`n`$ limit. Thence, $`Q_n(s)=x_n(m)F(sx_n(m))`$ where $`x_n(m)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑xP_n(x)`$ and $`F(z)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑ze^{zy}f(y)`$. By inserting the scaling form for $`Q_n(s)`$ and $`x_n(m)n^{\beta _m}(\rho _m)^n`$ into Eq. (15) we finally arrive at the non-local differential equation,

$$\frac{d^{m1}F(z)}{dz^{m1}}=\frac{(1)^{m1}(m1)!}{(\rho _m)^m}\left[F\left(\frac{z}{\rho _m}\right)\right]^m.$$
(16)
Substituting $`F=(1H(z))/z`$ and linearizing the resulting equation for $`H(z)`$ in the large $`z`$ limit, one finds a solution that behaves algebraically, $`H(z)z^{\mu _m}`$, in the large $`z`$ limit. A straightforward algebra then shows that $`\rho _m`$ depends on $`\mu _m`$ via

$$\rho _m=\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _m+m)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _m+1)\mathrm{\Gamma }(m+1)}\right]^{\frac{1}{\mu _m}},$$
(17)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(x)`$ is the usual Gamma function. Equation (17) is the generalization of Eq. (8) for the arbitrary $`m`$ case. Once again, the function on the right hand side has a unique maximum at $`\mu _m=\mu _m^{}`$ and this maximum is actually selected. In particular, $`\rho _3=\mathrm{exp}[\frac{(2b+3)}{(b+1)(b+2)}]`$ where $`b`$ is found from $`b(2b+3)=(b+1)(b+2)\mathrm{ln}[(b+1)(b+2)/6]`$. Solving this numerically, gives $`\rho _3=1.499118\mathrm{}`$ and $`\mu _3^{}=3.489870\mathrm{}`$.

The exponent $`\beta _m`$ can be determined exactly for arbitrary $`m`$. We do not repeat the calculation as it follows the same steps as for $`m=2`$ and the final result is given by the same expression (12), i.e., $`\beta _m=3/(2\mu _m^{})`$. For instance, $`\beta _3=0.429815\mathrm{}`$, and generally the exponent $`\beta _m`$ decreases with increasing $`m`$.

One can easily derive the asymptotic behavior of $`\rho _m`$ and $`\beta _m`$ for large $`m`$. Taking logarithms on both sides of Eq. (17) and differentiating with respect to $`\mu _m`$ we find, after straightforward algebra, that the maximum occurs at $`\mu _m^{}\mathrm{ln}m`$. In this calculation, we have used properties of Gamma function for large arguments: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(m+\mu _m)/\mathrm{\Gamma }(m+1)(m+1)^{\mu _m1}`$ for $`m\mu _m`$. Substituting $`\mu _m=\mathrm{ln}m`$ into Eqs. (17) and (12), we find that to leading order for large $`m`$,

$$\rho _m\frac{m}{\mathrm{ln}m}\mathrm{and}\beta _m\frac{3}{2\mathrm{ln}m}.$$
(18)
In this work, we have established a relationship between two seemingly disparate subjects – the statistics of extremes and traveling wave propagation. Specifically, we have shown that the probability density of the maximal fragment length, which is the derivative of the distribution $`P_n(x)`$, approaches the solitary traveling wave in the large $`n`$ limit. This traveling wave has a finite width which implies, in the context of the random binary search trees, that the variation of the height of a tree is finite. This result has long been anticipated on the basis of numerical experiments but remained intractable.

The present work admits several extensions. One could assume that an interval can be cut into fragments of relative lengths $`r`$ and $`1r`$ with the probability density $`\pi (r)`$ which is arbitrary apart from normalization and symmetry requirements, $`\pi (r)=\pi (1r)`$ and $`_0^1𝑑r\pi (r)=1`$. Besides the uniform probability density, $`\pi (r)=1`$, one could solve the random bisection problem for a number of other densities, e.g., for $`\pi (r)=6r(1r)`$. The basic result, Eq. (1), always holds but the exponents do depend on the probability density $`\pi (r)`$.

One could also modify the random bisection problem by deciding to cut only those intervals which are still longer than 1. This problem can be solved by employing similar techniques as the original one. The most interesting question is how does the total number of intervals $`N(x)`$, which are left after all intervals will be shorter than 1, depend on the initial length $`x`$. For the original random bisection problem with the uniform probability density, our solution implies $`N(x)x^\gamma (\mathrm{ln}x)^\delta `$ with $`\gamma =\mathrm{ln}2/\mathrm{ln}\rho 2.9881`$ and $`\delta =\beta \gamma 1.35368`$. For the modified version, we have found $`N(x)2x`$. Thus, the modified algorithm is much more effective if we want to minimize the total number of cuts.

Apart from the straightforward applications of our results to the random search tree problem in computer science, our results have possible implications in a number of topics of current interest in physics and chemistry. One obvious application is to the fracture of a rock, or to the beak-up of a polymer. Another possible application is to granular materials. Recent experiments have studied the propagation of stresses in a granular pile of glass beads subjected to a large vertical overload. Our model is closer to the situation when the vertical overload is localized. This force gets transmitted from the top layer to the bottom layer. If this external force greatly exceeds the weight of individual grains, $`Fw`$, and if fractions of force transmitted from a grain to its neighbours in the lower layer are random, then the model studied above gives the mean-field description of the force transmission. Within this approximation, the force chains starting from the top never intersect with each other thus maintaining the tree structure. Our results then imply that if the force from a grain in a given layer is always transmitted to $`m`$ grains in the next layer, than the granular material should contain at least $`\mathrm{ln}(F/F_{})/\mathrm{ln}\rho _m`$ layers to guarantee that the normal force supported by any grain at the bottom layer never exceeds $`F_{}`$.

PLK acknowledges support from NSF, ARO, and CNRS.


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# Monodromies of algebraic connections on the trivial bundle

## Version française abrégée

Soit $`U`$ une variété affine lisse sur $``$. Deligne a montré dans  qu’il y a une correspondence biunivoque entre les sytèmes locaux sur $`U`$ et les fibrés vectoriels algébriques à connexion plate, régulière singulière à l’infini. Si on supprime la condition de régularité à l’infini, alors il y a beaucoup de connexions plates algébriques à monodromie fixée. Dans , il prouve que si $`dimU=1`$, toute monodromie de rang 1 est sous-jacente à une connexion algébrique sur le fibré trivial. Dès lors, les singularités à l’infini peuvent être irrégulières.

###### Théorème 1 (Deligne ).

Sur une courbe affine lisse complexe $`U`$, tout caractère $`\rho `$ du groupe fondamental $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$ est sous-jacent à une connexion algébrique sur le fibré trivial.

Idée de la preuve.– On identifie $`H_{dR}^1(U)=H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ (), ce qui associe à la classe de de Rham de $`\omega `$ dans $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(U,\mathrm{\Omega }_U^1)`$ son exponentielle $`\mathrm{exp}[\omega ]`$ dans $`H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})`$, qui correspond à la monodromie sous-jacente à la connexion $`(𝒪,d\omega )`$. L’annulation de $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ permet de conclure. c.q.f.d.

Nous donnons une version légr̀ement différente du théorème 1 dans le corollaire suivant.

###### Corollaire 2.

Soit $`U`$ une variété affine lisse complexe. Les conditions suivantes sont équivalentes.

* $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ n’a pas de torsion.
* Tout caractère $`\rho `$ du groupe fondamental $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$ est sous-jacent à une connexion algébrique sur le fibré trivial.
* Soit $``$ un fibré algébrique de rang 1 avec classe de Chern triviale dans $`H_{dR}^2(U)`$. Alors tout caractère $`\rho `$ du groupe fondamental $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$ est sous-jacent à une connexion algébrique sur $``$.

Dans le théorème suivant, nous donnons un exemple d’application.

###### Théorème 3.

Soit $`X`$ une variété projective lisse complexe et soit $`D`$ un diviseur ample supportant le groupe de Néron-Severi $`NS(X)`$ de $`X`$. Alors tout caractère $`\rho `$ du groupe fondamental $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$ est sous-jacent à une connexion algébrique sur le fibré trivial.

Nous renvoyons au diagramme (5) de Remark 1 dans §2 pour une visualisation des résultats précédents.

Soit $`U`$ de nouveau une courbe lisse affine complexe. Nous généralisons le théorème 1 aux représentations de rang supérieur. Nous partons de la décomposition d’une représentation $`\rho `$ à valeurs dans $`\mathrm{GL}(r)`$ comme produit tensoriel $`\chi \varphi `$, où $`\chi `$ est un caractère et $`\varphi `$ est une représentation à valeurs dans $`SL(r)`$.

Nous considérons la suite exacte

(1)
$$0\mu _r𝔾_m\times \mathrm{SL}(r)\stackrel{\pi }{}\mathrm{GL}(r)0,$$

$`\mu _r`$ est le groupe des racines $`r`$-ièmes de l’ unité, et où la première application est définie par $`\zeta (\zeta ,(1/\zeta )I)`$ et la seconde est simplement la multiplication d’une matrice par un scalaire.

Alors on a la suite exacte longue de cohomologie sur $`U_{\mathrm{an}}`$ (d’ensembles pointés)

(2)
$$\mathrm{}H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},𝔾_m\times \mathrm{SL}(r))\stackrel{\pi _{}}{}H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},\mathrm{GL}(r))\stackrel{\delta }{}H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},\mu _r)\mathrm{}$$

Le groupe $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},\mu _r)`$ est nul car on est en dimension 1. Donc $`\pi _{}`$ est surjective. Par conséquent, il suffit de prouver le théorème pour des représentations à déterminant trivial.

###### Proposition 4.

Toute représentation $`\rho :\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})SL(r,)`$ du groupe fondamental est sous-jacente à une connexion algébrique sur le fibré trivial.

Idée de la preuve.– Soit $`\rho :\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})SL(r,)`$ et soit $`(E,)`$ l’unique fibré à connexion régulière singulière à l’infini. Sur une courbe affine $`U`$, un fibré algébrique $`E`$ a une décomposition $`𝒪^{r1}`$ (cf. , ). Le déterminant $`det(E)=`$ a la connexion déterminant, qui est aussi régulière singulière à l’ infini. Comme $`\mathrm{det}\rho =1`$, on a $`(\mathrm{det}(E),\mathrm{det}())=(𝒪_U,d)`$, donc en particulier $`det(E)==𝒪`$. c.q.f.d.

Finalement, nous obtenons

###### Théorème 5.

Soit $`U`$ une courbe affine lisse complexe. Alors, toute représentation $`\rho :\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})GL(r,)`$ du groupe fondamental est sous-jacente à une connexion algébrique sur le fibré trivial.

## 1. Introduction

On a nonsingular projective algebraic variety $`X`$ over $``$, using the existence theorem of Cauchy-Kovalevski and Serre’s GAGA(), we have the Riemann-Hilbert correspondence: there exists a unique algebraic vector bundle with a connection for a given representation of the fundamental group $`\pi _1(X)`$ and vice versa.

On a noncomplete variety, the uniqueness no longer holds: there exist several vector bundles with connection for a monodromy. In , Deligne showed the existence and uniqueness with regularity condition at ininity.

Instead of regularity, in this article, we think about a restriction of the underlying vector bundle of the connection. In , Deligne showed one can realize any monodromy representation of the fundamental group of an affine curve $`U`$ as the underlying monodromy of a connection $`=d\omega `$ on the trivial bundle of rank 1 on $`U`$(ie. $`𝒪_U`$).

The main theorem(Theorem 5) generalizes Deligne’s result(Theorem 1): On an affine curve, to any monodromy representation of the fundamental group, there is a connection on trivial bundle with the prescribed underlying monodromy.

The aim of this note is to introduce Deligne’s result on rank 1 case in  and to generalize it in two directions: one is when $`U`$ is of higher dimension and the other is the similar to the higher rank representation of the fundamental group of the affine curve.

Acknowledgements. Theorem 1, on which this note relies, is essentially due to Pierre Deligne.(). I thank to Hélène Esnault for all the fruitful discussions on of my work and for sharing her time and ideas.

## 2. Rank 1 representations

###### Theorem 1 (Deligne ).

On a smooth affine curve $`U`$, to given rank 1 monodromy representation $`\rho `$ of $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$, there exists an algebraic connection $``$ on $`𝒪`$ with the underlying monodromy $`\rho `$.

Proof. From the exponential sequence, we have the following exact sequence of singular cohomology groups.

(3)
$$H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},)\stackrel{\mathrm{exp}}{}H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},),$$

where $`U_{\mathrm{an}}`$ denotes $`U`$ with the strong topology. We know $`H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})`$ is the group of isomorphism classes of rank 1 local systems on $`U_{\mathrm{an}}`$ and $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ vanishes by dimension reason.

Via the identification(cf. )

$$H_{dR}^{}(U):=^{}(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^{})=H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},),$$

the de Rham class of $`\omega `$ in $`H^0(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^1)`$ yields a class $`[\omega ]`$ in $`H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$, such that

$$\mathrm{exp}[\omega ]H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})=\mathrm{Hom}(\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}}),^{})$$

is the underlying monodromy of $`(𝒪,d\omega )`$.

On an affine variety, the higher coherent sheaf cohomology vanishes. Thus $`H^0(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^1)`$ generates $`H_{dR}^1(U)`$. Therefore $`H^0(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^1)`$ surjects onto $`\mathrm{Hom}(\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}}),^{})`$. This finishes the proof. q.e.d.

Without much difficulty, we generalize the theorem when $`dimU>1`$.

###### Corollary 2.

Let $`U`$ be an affine variety over $``$. Then the followings are equivalent:

* $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ is torsion-free.
* To any rank 1 representation $`\rho `$ of $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$, there exists an algebraic connection $``$ on $`𝒪`$ with underlying monodromy $`\rho `$.
* If a line bundle $``$ has vanishing Chern class in $`H_{dR}^2(U)`$. To any rank 1 representation $`\rho `$ of $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$ and , there exists an algebraic connection $``$ on $``$ with underlying monodromy $`\rho `$.

Proof.  1) $``$ 2) As in the proof of the theorem 1, one has the exact sequence arising from the exponential sequence(3). On an affine variety $`U`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(U,\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{closed}}^1)`$ generates $`H_{dR}^1(U)=H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$. Then $`\mathrm{exp}`$ in the exact sequence is surjective if and only if $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(U,\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{closed}}^1)H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})`$ is surjective or equivalently, $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ is torsion-free.

2) $``$ 3) Consider the complex of sheaves on the Zariski topology of $`U`$:

$$𝒞^{}:𝒪^{}\stackrel{d\mathrm{log}}{}\mathrm{\Omega }^1\mathrm{\Omega }^2\mathrm{}.$$

The first hypercohomology of $`𝒞^{}`$ is the group of isomorphism classes of line bundles with integrable connection, which will be denoted by $`\mathrm{Pic}^{}(U)`$. The filtration of $`𝒞`$ by its degree gives

(4)
$$\begin{array}{ccccc}^1(U,𝒞^{})& & H^1(U,𝒪^{})& & ^2(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^1)\\ & & & & & & \\ \mathrm{Pic}^{}(U)& & \mathrm{Pic}(U)& \stackrel{c}{}& H_{dR}^2(U),\end{array}$$

where $`c`$ denotes the first Chern class map and the last vertical map is an isomorphism since the kernel and the cokernel are $`H^1(U,𝒪)=H^2(U,𝒪)=0`$.

Since $`c()=0`$, from the exact sequence, there exists an integrable connection $`_0`$ on $``$. Let $`\rho _0`$ be the monodromy of $`(,_0)`$. As one can realize any monodromy on $`𝒪`$, one has an algebraic connection $`_1`$ with the monodromy $`\rho _0^1\rho `$ on $`𝒪`$. Twisting $`(,_0)`$ with $`(𝒪,_1)`$, one has the connection $`=_0_1`$ on $``$ with the desired monodromy $`\rho `$.

3) $``$ 2) Clear. q.e.d.

As a special case of the corollary, we have the following:

###### Theorem 3.

Let $`X`$ be a smooth projective variety over $``$ and $`D`$ be an ample divisor supporting the Néron-Severi group $`NS(X)`$ of $`X`$. Then to any monodromy $`\rho `$ in $`\mathrm{Hom}(\pi (U_{\mathrm{an}}),^{})`$, there exists an integrable algebraic connection $`=d\omega `$ on $`𝒪_U`$ with underlying monodromy $`\rho `$.

Proof. By the equivalence of the corollary 2, we have to show that $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ is torsion-free. But, in the exact sequence (3), torsion comes from $`H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})`$. Using the existence theorem in , one has a line bundle on $`X`$ with connection $`(,)`$ which is regular singular at $`D`$ with the underlying monodromy $`\rho `$. The image of $``$ maps into $`NS(X)`$, and thus a torsion element in $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ vanishes. Therefore $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},)`$ is torsion-free. q.e.d.
Remark 1. Using a commutative diagram, one can summarize the result in a simple form where all rows and columns are exact:

(5)
$$\begin{array}{ccccccccc}& & 0& & 0& & 0& & \\ & & & & & & & & \\ 0& & \frac{H^0(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^1)_{}}{d\mathrm{log}H^0(U,𝒪^{})}& & \frac{H^0(U,\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{closed}}^1)}{d\mathrm{log}H^0(U,𝒪^{})}& & H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},^{})& & 0\\ & & & & & & & & \\ 0& & \mathrm{Pic}^_0(U)& & \mathrm{Pic}^{}(U)& & \mathrm{Hom}(\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}}),^{})& & 0\\ & & & & & & & & \\ 0& & \mathrm{Pic}(U)& & \mathrm{Pic}(U)& & 0& & \\ & & & & & & & & \\ & & H_{dR}^2(U)& =& H_{dR}^2(U)& & & & \end{array}$$

In the diagram, $`\mathrm{Pic}^_0(U)`$ is the subgroup of $`\mathrm{Pic}^{}(U)`$ with respect to the trivial monodromy and $`H^0(U,\mathrm{\Omega }^1)_{}`$ is the global 1-forms with integral periods. When $`dimU=1`$, one has $`H_{dR}^2(U)=0`$. Thus, we have $`\mathrm{Pic}^{}(U)`$ and $`\mathrm{Pic}^_0(U)`$ as extensions of the $`\mathrm{Pic}(U)`$.

## 3. Higher rank case on curves

In this section, $`U`$ is again a smooth affine curve over $``$.

One has the short exact sequence:

(6)
$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill 0\mu _r𝔾_m\times \mathrm{SL}(r)& \stackrel{\pi }{}\mathrm{GL}(r)0,\hfill \\ \hfill \zeta (\zeta ,(1/\zeta )I)& \\ \hfill (\mathrm{},M)& \mathrm{}M\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`\mu _r`$ denotes the multiplicative group of $`r`$-th roots of unity. Because $`\mu _r`$ maps into the center of $`𝔾_m\times \mathrm{SL}(r)`$, we have long exact sequence of cohomologies on $`U_{\mathrm{an}}`$ (of pointed sets).

(7)
$$\mathrm{}H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},𝔾_m\times \mathrm{SL}(r))\stackrel{\pi _{}}{}H^1(U_{\mathrm{an}},\mathrm{GL}(r))\stackrel{\delta }{}H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},\mu _r)\mathrm{}$$

By dimension reason, $`H^2(U_{\mathrm{an}},\mu _r)`$ vanishes and one sees $`\pi _{}`$ surjective. Thus it suffices to solve the problem for $`SL`$-representations.

If $`A`$ is a Dedekind domain and $`M`$ is a projective $`A`$-module of finite rank $`r`$, one has $`MA^{r1}L`$ where $`r=rank(M)`$ and $`L\mathrm{Pic}(A)`$. As a special case, a vector bundle $`E`$ of $`rank(E)=r`$ on an affine curve $`U`$ is isomorphic to $`𝒪^{r1}`$, where $`=detE`$ is a line bundle on $`U`$ (cf. , )

###### Proposition 4.

Let $`U`$ be a smooth affine curve. To any $`\mathrm{SL}(r)`$-representation $`\rho `$ of $`\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}})`$, there exists an algebraic connection $``$ on the trivial bundle of rank $`r`$ with underlying monodromy $`\rho `$.

Proof. Let $`\rho `$ be a $`\mathrm{SL}(r)`$-representation and $`X=UD`$ be the smooth completion of $`U`$. Then there exists a vector bundle $`E`$ on $`X=UD`$ the smooth completion of $`U`$, with a connection $``$ which is regular singular,

$$:EE\mathrm{\Omega }^1(\mathrm{log}D),$$

such that the restriction on $`U`$ gives the monodromy $`\rho `$ (cf. ).

By the decomposition theorem, one has $`E|_U=𝒪_U^{r1}`$, where $`=det(E|_U)`$. On $`X`$,

$$det:det(E)det(E)\mathrm{\Omega }^1(\mathrm{log}D)$$

is regular at $`D`$ and has trivial monodromy since the representation is $`SL`$-valued. Using the uniqueness theorem in , we have

$$(det(E)|_U,det)=(𝒪_U,d).$$

In particular $`=𝒪_U`$ and $`E_U=𝒪_U^r`$. q.e.d.

After the proposition, we obtain the main theorem.

###### Theorem 5.

Let $`U`$ be a smooth affine curve over $``$. Then to any rank $`r`$ representation of the fundamental group $`\rho \mathrm{Hom}(\pi _1(U_{\mathrm{an}}),\mathrm{GL}(r))`$, there exists a connection on the trivial bundle of rank $`r`$ on an affine open set $`U`$ with underlying monodromy $`\rho `$.

Proof. Clear. q.e.d.


text:
# Afterglow Emission from Naked Gamma-Ray Bursts

## 1 Introduction

A majority of long duration GRBs (lasting 10s or more) detected by the Dutch-Italian satellite BeppoSAX have detectable $`X`$-ray afterglows. The afterglow properties of shorter duration bursts is unknown, and it is possible that these bursts go off far away from galactic centers, where the ISM density is low. Will such bursts produce observable afterglows ?

The purpose of this paper is to show that all bursts, irrespective of the ISM density, should have a detectable afterglow emission. During the GRB the radiation is received from a region of the fireball of angular size $`\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ along the line of sight to the center of explosion. Emission from higher latitudes, $`\theta >\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$, is received over a time interval that is long compared to the duration of the burst and, although this radiation is relativistically beamed away from the observer, it nevertheless has significant magnitude. We calculate this emission and apply it to GRBs going off in a very low density ISM (§2). We also consider a case where the density of the circum-burst medium drops off abruptly at some radius (§3).

## 2 High latitude emission from a relativistic shell

Consider a spherical shell moving with Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. The shell is shock-heated at some initial time and starts to radiate. The emissivity in fluid rest frame, $`ϵ_\nu ^{}^{}`$, is a function of shell radius $`r`$ and we assume that it is independent of the angle $`\theta `$ relative to the observer’s line of sight toward the center of the shell. We also assume that due to the radiative electron cooling and the adiabatic expansion of the shell (or some other process) the emissivity in the observed energy band drops to zero when the shell radius is $`r_c`$. One can show in this case that the observed peak flux at observer time $`tr_c/\mathrm{\Gamma }^2`$ decreases as $`t^2`$ and that the observed peak frequency decreases as $`t^1`$.

A simple physical explanation for these results is the following. The flux per unit frequency from a relativistic source moving at an angle $`\theta \mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ is smaller by a factor of $`(\theta \mathrm{\Gamma })^6`$ compared to the case where the source is moving directly toward the observer (assume flat spectrum for simplicity). Integrating over sources located on equal arrival time surface we find the flux ratio to be $`(\theta \mathrm{\Gamma })^4`$. The emission from angle $`\theta `$ arrives at a time which is larger than the photon arrival time from a source at $`\theta =0`$ by a factor of $`(\theta \mathrm{\Gamma })^2`$. Thus, the observer sees the flux falling off as $`t^2`$. The observed frequency ratio in the two cases, for a fixed source frequency, is $`(\theta \mathrm{\Gamma })^2t^1`$. A derivation for a more general case is given below.

The flux received at frequency $`\nu `$ from a shell moving with Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and velocity $`v`$ is given by

$$f_\nu (t)=\frac{1}{4\pi d^2}d^3r\frac{ϵ_\nu ^{}^{}(𝐫,t_{lab})}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1v\mu )^2},$$
(1)
where $`\mu =\mathrm{cos}\theta `$, $`\theta `$ is the angle between fluid velocity and the line of sight to the observer, and $`\nu ^{}=\nu \mathrm{\Gamma }(1v\mu )`$ & $`ϵ_\nu ^{}^{}`$ are the frequency and emissivity in the shell rest frame at radius $`r`$ and laboratory frame time $`t_{lab}=t_+r\mu `$. For a shell of thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ (in the lab frame) much smaller than $`r`$, the angular integration in the above equation can be carried out to yield

$$f_\nu =\frac{1}{2d^2}𝑑rr\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }rϵ_\nu ^{}^{}(r)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }^2(1v\stackrel{~}{\mu })^2},$$
(2)
where $`\stackrel{~}{\mu }(r)=(t_{lab}t)/r(t_{lab})`$.

Let us assume that the observed spectrum during the GRB phase, i.e. before the shell cools, is a power-law function of index $`\beta `$ between the observed energy band and the peak of the spectrum: $`ϵ_\nu ^{}^{}=ϵ^{}\nu ^\beta `$, and that, as $`\theta `$ is varied, the co-moving frame observing frequency does not pass through any breaks. In this case we can rewrite equation (2) as

$$f_\nu =\frac{\nu ^\beta }{2d^2}𝑑r\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }rϵ^{}r^{3\beta }}{\left[\mathrm{\Gamma }(t+r/vt_{lab})\right]^{2\beta }}.$$
(3)
As mentioned above, we consider the case where the injection of accelerated electrons stops at a certain radius $`r_c`$. This can happen either because the internal shock has finished traversing the shell or because the density of the ISM drops by a large factor. In both cases the electrons undergo adiabatic cooling beyond $`r_c`$ which leads to a sharp fall off of $`ϵ^{}`$ (see §3); for radiative electrons $`ϵ^{}`$ drops off even faster.

The integrand in equation (3) is a rapidly increasing function of $`r`$, hence most of the contribution comes from $`rr_c`$, and the peak flux is given by

$$f_{\nu _p}(t)f_{\nu _p}(t_c)\left(\frac{2\tau }{t+\tau t_c}\right)^2,\tau \frac{r_c}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }_c^2},$$
(4)
where $`t_c=t(r_c)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_c\mathrm{\Gamma }(r_c)`$. The peak frequency $`\nu _p`$ of the observed flux decreases with time as

$$\nu _p(t)=\nu _p(t_c)\left(\frac{\tau }{t+\tau t_c}\right).$$
(5)
For a shell that is energized by the collision with another shell (i.e. internal shocks) and expands in vacuum, $`\tau `$ is also a measure of the duration $`\delta t`$ of the pulse emitted by the shell. For $`tt_c`$, equations (4) and (5) become

$$f_{\nu _p}(t)=f_{\nu _{p,c}}\left(\frac{\delta t}{t}\right)^2,\nu _p(t)=\nu _{p,c}\left(\frac{\delta t}{t}\right).$$
(6)
where $`f_{\nu _{p,c}}f_{\nu _p}(t_c)`$ and $`\nu _{p,c}\nu _p(t_c)`$. For power-law spectra, the observed flux at a frequency $`\nu `$ can be calculated from equations (3) & (6):

$$f_\nu (t)=f_{\nu _{p,c}}\left(\frac{\delta t}{t}\right)^{2\beta }\left(\frac{\nu }{\nu _{p,c}}\right)^\beta .$$
(7)
For a GRB consisting of $`N`$ pulses the high latitude afterglow flux is the sum of flux from each pulse given in equation (7). For an average peak amplitude of $`\overline{f}_{\nu _p}`$, the afterglow flux is approximately equal to $`\overline{f}_{\nu _p}N^{\beta 1}(t_G/t)^{2\beta }`$; where $`t_GN\delta t`$ is the duration of the GRB.

The low energy power-law index for GRBs is in the range of $`1`$ and 2 with the peak of the distribution at $`0`$, and the high energy index is between $`3`$ and $`0.3`$ with peak at $`1.2`$ (Preece et al. 2000). Thus the low energy light-curve for naked bursts is expected to fall-off as $`t^2`$, whereas the light-curve at high energy should decline as $`t^{3.2}`$. For synchrotron emission the spectral index below the peak is $`\beta =1/3`$ and the afterglow from high latitude emission is expected to decline like $`t^{5/3}`$ until the synchrotron peak passes through the observing band.

As an example, consider a naked GRB lasting for 10 seconds and with a mean flux of $`10^6\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and the spectral peak at a few hundred keV. At $`10^3`$ seconds after the burst the spectral peak is in the 2–10 keV band and the flux is $`10^{12}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ (see Figure 1). Assuming that the optical emission is not self-absorbed, the optical flux at $`t=300`$ s corresponds to $`R25`$.

The high latitude emission should be detectable by the SWIFT satellite as an $`X`$-ray afterglow following short duration GRBs, which are perhaps produced as a result of neutron star merger in a low density medium. Some of the early $`X`$-ray afterglows observed by BeppoSAX have a power-law decay of index of $`\mathrm{}>1.6`$, which could have had a contribution from the high latitude emission. In the few cases where an $`X`$-ray afterglow was continuously monitored for $`10^310^4`$ seconds after the main burst (i.e. GRB 910402 – Tkachenko et al. 2000, GRB 920723 – Burenin et al. 1999, and GRB 980923 – Giblin et al. 1999), the $`X`$-ray light-curve exhibited a decay significantly slower than what is expected from the high-latitude emission, implying that the emission from the external shock must have been dominant from very early times.

The ratio of the observed flux from the shocked ISM gas and the high latitude emission ($`Q`$) depends on burst parameters and, generally, on the density of the ISM. An important time time scale for this comparison is the shell deacceleration time $`t_{da}100E_{52}^{1/3}(1\eta )^{1/3}(\eta n_0\mathrm{\Gamma }_2^8)^{1/3}`$ sec; where $`E_{52}`$ is isotropic equivalent of energy in observed gamma-ray emission in units of $`10^{52}`$ erg, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_2=\mathrm{\Gamma }_0/100`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_0`$ is the initial Lorentz factor of ejecta, and $`\eta `$ is the efficiency factor for converting energy in explosion to the observed gamma-ray emission. We consider $`t_{da}`$ less than or greater than the GRB duration, $`t_G`$, separately below.

Let us first consider $`t_{da}\mathrm{}<t_G`$. For a ISM density ($`n_0`$) larger than $`10^2\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and for $`ϵ_B10^2`$, the soft $`X`$-ray domain is above the cooling frequency after the GRB, and in this case $`Q`$ is independent of $`n_0`$. For an electron energy index $`p=2`$, $`Q0.3(\nu _G/\nu )^{\beta +1}ϵ_e(t/\delta t_G)^{1\beta }(1\eta )\eta ^1`$, where $`\nu _G`$ is the observed peak of the GRB spectrum, $`\nu `$ is the frequency for the afterglow observation, and $`ϵ_e`$ is the energy fraction in electrons in external shock. For $`\nu _G/\nu =20`$, $`ϵ_e=0.1`$, $`\beta =0`$, and $`\eta =0.1`$, the emission from the external shock is larger by about a factor of 5 at the end of the GRB. This result has a weak dependence on $`p`$.

For $`t_{da}t_G`$, as is expected for low density ISM, and the observing frequency smaller than the cooling frequency, and for $`p=2`$ & $`\beta =1`$, we find $`Q8ϵ_B^{3/2}ϵ_eE_{52}^{1/4}n_0^{1/2}t_{da}^{1/4}(\nu _G/\nu )^2\nu _{10}^{1/2}(1\eta )^{5/4}\eta ^{5/4}`$; $`\nu _{10}`$ is frequency in units of 10 keV. As an example, for $`ϵ_e=0.1`$, $`ϵ_B=10^2`$, $`\eta =0.1`$, $`\nu _G/\nu =20`$, $`\nu _{10}=1`$, $`E_{52}=1`$ and $`t_{da}=100`$s, the two emissions are equal at the deacceleration time for $`n4\times 10^3\mathrm{cm}^3`$. For $`t_{da}t_G`$, $`\nu `$ greater than the cooling frequency, and $`\beta =1`$, $`Q=2ϵ_e(t/t_{da})^3(\nu _G/\nu )^2(1\eta )\eta ^1`$.

One should be able to separate out the contributions of the high latitude and shocked gas emissions by using the difference in their spectra and light-curve slopes: the $`X`$-ray spectra for shocked low density ISM is $`f_\nu t^{3(p1)/4}\nu ^{(p1)/2}`$ whereas the high-$`\theta `$ spectrum is the low energy part of the GRB spectrum, i.e. $`f_\nu t^{(2\beta )}\nu ^\beta `$ with $`1<\beta <2`$.

## 3 Fireball expansion into ISM with a density discontinuity

In this section we consider an external shock propagating in a ISM which consists of two regions of different densities. The model we consider consists of a fireball that shock the interstellar medium, producing a standard afterglow emission, and then at some radius $`r_{ad}`$ the density of the medium drops precipitously and the shell expands adiabatically so that the thermal energy of protons, electrons and magnetic field is converted back to the bulk kinetic energy of the shell. We follow the shell evolution and synchrotron radiation starting from the time of the free expansion of the shell.

The thermal Lorentz factor of particles, in an adiabatically expanding shell, decreases as $`\gamma _{th}V^{1/3}`$, and the bulk Lorentz factor of the shell ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$) increases with time as $`V^{1/3}`$; where $`V=\pi \theta _0^2r^2\mathrm{\Delta }r`$ is the co-moving volume of the shell, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }rr^{1/4}`$ is the co-moving shell thickness.

We consider the collimation angle $`\theta _0`$ of the ejecta to be constant in which case the thermal Lorentz factor decreases with $`r`$ as $`r^{3/4}`$, and the bulk Lorentz factor of the shell increases as $`r^{3/4}`$. Therefore the evolution of the thermal Lorentz factor is given by

$$\gamma _{th}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}\left(\frac{9}{8}\frac{t}{8t_{ad}}\right)^{3/2},$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}`$ and $`t_{ad}`$ are the bulk Lorentz factor and the observer time respectively at the onset of the free adiabatic expansion. The bulk Lorentz factor $`\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}^2/\gamma _{th}`$.

The magnetic field strength, assuming that it is tangled, decreases as $`V^{2/3}\gamma _{th}^2`$. Thus the peak synchrotron frequency, in the observer frame, scales as $`\gamma _{th}^3`$, and the peak flux $`f_{\nu _p}\gamma _{th}`$. The flux at a frequency greater than the synchrotron peak $`\nu _m`$ but smaller than the cooling frequency $`\nu _c`$ is given by

$$f_\nu \left(\frac{9}{8}\frac{t}{8t_{ad}}\right)^{3(3p1)/4},$$
(9)
and the power-law index $`\alpha =d\mathrm{ln}f_\nu /d\mathrm{ln}t`$ is

$$\alpha =\frac{3(3p1)(t/t_{ad})}{4(9t/t_{ad})}.$$
(10)
Therefore the afterglow light-curve steepens continuously; in the beginning of the adiabatic expansion $`\alpha =3(p1)/4`$ while at $`t=3t_{ad}`$, $`\alpha =3(3p1)/8`$, assuming that $`\nu _m<\nu <\nu _c`$. As the light-curve slope increases with time, the flux from higher latitudes takes over. For a shell interacting with a uniform circum-burst material at $`r<r_{ad}`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }r^{3/2}`$, and thus $`t_{ad}=r_{ad}/8\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}^2`$. For $`tt_{ad}`$ equation (4) gives

$$f_\nu (t)=16f_{\nu _{p,ad}}\left(\frac{t_{ad}}{t}\right)^{2\beta }\left(\frac{\nu }{\nu _{p,ad}}\right)^\beta ,$$
(11)
therefore the high latitude emission prevents $`\alpha `$ from becoming larger than $`(p+3)/2`$.

These results apply over a limited range of $`t`$. At late times the non-zero density of the ISM prevents the free expansion of the shell and the freshly shock-heated gas contributes to the observed flux. The free expansion of the shell is terminated when the mass of the swept-up low density gas is $`E/\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}^2`$, $`E`$ being the energy of the adiabatic shell. Thus the radius at which the free adiabatic expansion is terminated is $`r/r_{ad}(n_1/n_2)^{2/9}`$, where $`n_1`$ and $`n_2`$ are the densities of the high and low density ISM respectively. The time in the observer frame when the adiabatic expansion ends is

$$\frac{t_f}{t_{ad}}98\left(\frac{n_2}{n_1}\right)^{1/9}.$$
(12)
For $`n_2/n_1=`$ 0.1 (0.01) free expansion is terminated at $`t_f/t_{ad}=2.8`$ (4.2).

The value of $`\alpha `$ reverts back to $`3(p1)/4`$ when the emission from shocked low-density ISM takes over. At the time when the adiabatic expansion of the shell ends the ratio of the flux from the low density shocked gas to the flux at $`t_{ad}`$ is $`(n_2/n_1)^{(7p)/12}`$. If the fractional energies in electrons, $`ϵ_e`$, and magnetic field, $`ϵ_B`$, are same for shock in the high and low density ISM then the flux at $`t_f`$ due to high latitude emission and the low density shocked gas are approximately equal for $`10^3<n_2/n_1<10^1`$. Since the observed flux for frequency between $`\nu _m`$ and $`\nu _c`$ is proportional to $`ϵ_e^{(p1)}ϵ_B^{(p+1)/4}`$, values of $`ϵ_e`$ & $`ϵ_B`$ for the shocked lower density medium smaller by a factor of 10 could reduce the flux from the low density shock gas so that the high-latitude emission dominates for $`20t_{ad}`$, and during this period the power-law index of the light-curve is $`\alpha =(p+3)/2`$; for $`\nu >\nu _c`$, $`\alpha =(p+4)/2`$.

The optical light-curve of the afterglow of GRB 000301C fell off as $`t^1`$ for the first three days and subsequently steepened to $`t^3`$ (Rhoads & Fruchter 2000). From simultaneous optical–IR observations Rhoads & Fruchter (2000) and Sagar et al. (2000) have found that $`\beta =0.9\pm 0.1`$ at $`t4`$ days. A possible explanation for the steep decay seen at late time in this afterglow is that the ISM density fell off at some radius111 The optical emission of the afterglow of GRB 000301C shows considerable variability prior to the steepening of the light-curve decline. This suggests that there are significant fluctuations in the ISM density, and so it is not altogether surprising that the external medium density drops to a small value at some radius. and the subsequently observed afterglow emission arose at $`\theta \mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$, yielding a power-law decaying light-curve of index $`\alpha =2\beta =2.9\pm 0.1`$, which is consistent with the data.

Figure 2 shows the observed $`R`$-band data for GRB 000301C and the theoretically calculated light-curve based on the model described here. The transition time for light-curve steepening is $`10t_{ad}`$, which is roughly consistent with the observations. It has been shown by Kumar & Panaitescu (2000) that the time-scale for light-curve steepening due to jet edge effects in a homogeneous ISM is roughly comparable. The late time power-law index according to the jet model is $`\alpha =12\beta =2.8\pm 0.2`$ for adiabatic electrons radiating at optical frequencies, which is also consistent with the data. The different relationship between $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ in these two models can be used to distinguish between them.

## 4 Conclusions

The main conclusion of this work is that gamma-ray bursts going off in vacuum – naked GRBs – should have $`X`$-ray afterglow emission detectable by the $`X`$-ray telescope aboard SWIFT satellite for about an hour after the GRB. This radiation originates at the high latitude, $`\theta \mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$, part of the gamma-ray emission surface. The flux in a fixed observer energy band below the peak falls off as $`t^{5/3}`$, while the peak flux decreases as $`t^2`$. The peak frequency of the observed flux falls-off as $`t^1`$.

For a burst going off in a non-zero density ISM the early afterglow flux, within the first hour, is the sum of emission from high latitude and the shocked ISM. The two can be distinguished based on the differences between their spectral and temporal slopes; the $`X`$-ray spectrum for the shocked ISM is $`\nu ^1`$, whereas for the high latitude radiation the spectrum should be the same as the GRB spectrum at low energies, i.e. $`\nu ^{0.3}`$. The measurement of the high latitude afterglow emission should help map the irregularities in the ejecta producing the GRB and their collimation before these are detected in the emission from the shocked ISM.

The radiation emitted from latitudes $`\theta \mathrm{}>\mathrm{\Gamma }^1`$ sets an upper bound on the steepness of the flux decline: we expect the observed $`\gamma `$-ray flux for each individual peak within the burst to fall off less rapidly than $`t^{(2\beta )}`$, where $`t`$ is measured from the peak of the pulse and $`\beta `$ is the spectral index ($`f_\nu \nu ^\beta `$). A more rapid flux decline would be an indication of either an extremely small jet opening-angle or a very inhomogeneous shell, as in the model suggested by Kumar & Piran (2000).

Another straightforward consequence of the high latitude emission is that the power-law decline for the afterglow light-curve can not be larger than about 3, even when the fireball expands into vacuum. The observed late time power-law index for the light-curve of GRB 000301C is about 3, which is larger by about 2 compared to the early time index. This large and rapid steepening of the light-curve could arise when the late time light-curve is dominated by emission from high latitudes.

We thank Bohdan Paczyński and Tsvi Piran for useful discussions.

REFERENCES

Bernabei, S. et al. 2000, GCN #599

Burenin, R. et al. 1999, A&AS, 138, 443

Bhargavi, S. & Cowsik, R. 2000, GCN #630

Castro-Tirado, A. et al. 2000, GCN #579

Fruchter, A. et al. 2000, GCN #602,#627,#701

Fynbo, J. et al. 2000, GCN #576

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Giblin, T. et al. 1999, ApJ, 524, L47

Halpern, J. et al. 2000, GCN #578,#582,#604

Kumar, P. and Panaitescu, A., 2000, ApJL, submitted (astro-ph/0003264)

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Preece, R.D., Briggs, M.S., Mallozzi, R.S., Pendleton, G.N., Paciesas, W.S., and Band, D.L., 2000, ApJS, 126, 19

Rhoads, J.E., and Fruchter, A.S., 2000, ApJ, submitted (astro-ph/0004057)

Sagar, R., Mohan, V., Pandey, S.B., Pandey, A.K., & Castro-Tirado, A.J., 2000, Bull. Astr. Soc. of India, submitted (astro-ph/0004223)

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Veillet, C. et al. 2000, GCN #588,#598,#610,#611


text:
# Muon Bremsstrahlung and Muonic Pair Production in Air Showers.

## 1 Introduction

The physics of ultra high energy cosmic rays plays an important role in our days. These primary particles can not be detected directly. When an ultra high energy astroparticle interacts with an atom of the Earth’s atmosphere, it produces a number of secondary particles that continue interacting and generating more secondary particles. This process is generally known as the air shower.

We have developed a set of programs to simulate air showers and manage all the output data. Such simulating system is known as AIRES(AIRshower Extended Simulations).

We started working on the topic of the electromagnetic processes in air showers some years ago. We analyzed the modification in the shower development due to the reduction of the electron bremsstrahlung and electron pair production by the LPM effect and the dielectric suppression . We also studied the influence of the geomagnetic field in an air shower .

The main goal of this work is to analyze two processes that take place in an air shower: muon bremsstrahlung and muonic pair production (electron and positron). At energies high enough, these processes become more important than ionization, and therefore these mechanisms account for virtually all the energy losses for high energy muons.

In order to study the modifications that these effects introduce in an air shower, we developed new procedures for such mechanisms and incorporated them in the AIRES air shower simulation system . The AIRES code has then been used as a realistic air shower simulator to generate the data used to make our analysis.

This work is organized as follows: we start in section 2 with a brief summary of the theory of the muon bremsstrahlung and muonic pair production; in section 3 we show the results of our simulations; finally we present our analysis and comments in the conclusion section.

## 2 Theory

### 2.1 Theory of the Muon Bremsstrahlung

The cross section for muon bremsstrahlung (MB) is calculated by the standard method of QED  similary as in the case of electron bremsstrahlung.

The first approach to the MB theory was due to Bethe and Heitler . They considered in their calculation the screening of the atomic electrons.

After this first formulation some corrections were introduced. Kelner, Kokoulin and Petrukhin  also included the bremsstrahlung with the atomic electrons. The nuclear form factor was investigated by Christy and Kusaka  for the first time and then by Erlykin . Petrukhin and Shestakov  found that the influence of the nuclear form factor is more important than the ones predicted by the previous papers. This last results have been confirmed by Andreev et al.  who also considered the excitation of the nucleus.

### 2.2 Theory of Muonic Pair Production

In the lowest significant order of perturbation theory the muonic pair production(MPP) is a process of 4th order in QED.

Racah  was the first to calculate the MPP cross section in the relativistic region without taking into accuont the atomic and the nuclear form factor. Thereafter, Kelner  included the correction due to the screening of the atomic electrons. The analytical expression for any degree of screening was introduced by Kokoulin and Petrukhin . Those authors also took into account  the correction due to the nuclear form factor. We wish to emphasize that the influence of the nuclear size is more important when the energy tranferred to the pair is large . This last case is important for the air showers and therefore the nuclear size effect needs to be taken into account in the simulations.

## 3 Air Showers Simulations

We have calculated the total cross section, and equivalently, the mean free path (MFP), for both MB and MPP processes.

Figure 1 shows the MFP in $`g/cm^2`$ for MB, MPP and muon-nucleon interaction as functions of the kinetic energy of the initial muon. The information in this figure can be compared with the depth of the atmosphere. The vertical depth of the atmosphere is about 1000 $`g/cm^2`$ while in the case of very inclined showers ($`85^{}`$ of zenith angle) is about 9000 $`g/cm^2`$. Therefore, the probabilities of MB and MPP will not be very large except in the case of large zenith angles.

The muonic component of the showers (number of muons divided by the number of electrons and gammas) at ground level becomes very important for zenith angles larger than $`60^{}`$ (see, for example, figure 2 in reference ); this is another reason to expect that the influence of both effects will be more appreciable under those conditions.

The MFP’s for MB and MPP diminish when the kinetic energy of the muon increases and therefore, the influence of both process will be more important for large energies.

Due to the fact that the MFP of muon-nucleus interaction 111We used the same parametrization of the total cross section used by GEANT is larger (more than one order of magnitude) than the corresponding for MB we do not take this effect into account in our calculations.

In order to analyze the influence of MB and MPP in the development of air showers initiated by ultra high astroparticles we have performed simulations using the AIRES program  with different initial conditions: primary particles (protons, irons, muons), primary energies ($`10^{18}`$, $`10^{19}`$ and $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV) and zenith angles.

To start with the analysis of the simulated data, let us consider the case of a single muon (eventually produced during the development of a given shower). This particle may generate a secondary shower if the processes of MB and MPP are taken into account. This effect is clearly illustrated in figure 2a where the longitudinal development of all charged particles is plotted versus the slant depth. In this case the initial particle is a muon of $`10^{14}`$ eV. When MB and MPP are not taken into account there is practically no production of new particles. On the other hand, when the effects are considered, it is possible to appreciate a secondary shower.

In figure 2b the longitudinal development of the muon fractional energy (muon energy/primary energy) is plotted. When the effects are not taken into account the muon practically does not loss energy during all its path, while if the effects are considered, the muon energy loss is significant.

We have also studied the modifications in the global observables of the shower, for example when the primary particle is a proton.

We have plotted in figures 3 and 4 different obsevables for $`3\times 10^{20}`$ eV proton shower with zenith angle $`85^{}`$, taking and not taking into a account the effects of MB and MPP. Figure 3 represents the longitudinal development of electrons and positrons ($`e^{+/}`$) versus the slant depth. The number of $`e^{+/}`$ increase when the effects are taken into account. The differences between the two cases are clearly noticeable in the tail of the showers.

The longitudinal development in energy of muons is plotted in figure 4. In this case the difference is about 15% at the tail. The energy of muons diminishes when the effects are considered.

For the longitudinal development of muons versus the slant depth the difference between the cases taking and not taking into account the effects is less significant, about 2 % (not plotted here).

The modification in the shower development due to the MB and MPP diminishes for small zenith angle of the primary particle. We did not find significant modification of the shower development for zenith angles smaller than $`45^{}`$.

## 4 Conclusions

Due to MB and MPP, a high energy muon in the shower can generate a secondary shower. This practically does not occur if the mentioned mechanisms are not taken into account.

The influence of MB and MPP in the total development of the air showers is more important for primary particle of large zenith angles. Below zenith angles of 45 degrees we do not observe any significant difference between the cases where these effects are or not taken into account.

The MB and MPP do not generate visible modifications in the position of the maximum development of the shower. The modification that we observe affect the shower development well past its maximum (tail of the shower).

We are performing more simulations in order to make a complete study of the influence of MB and MPP in an air shower .

## 5 Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by CONICET, Agencia Nacional de Programación Científica and FOMEC program, Argentina.


text:
# The angular power spectra of polarized Galactic synchrotron

## 1 Introduction and main results

The purpose of this work is to compute the angular power spectra of synchrotron emission from the Galaxy, and in particular of its polarized component. Synchrotron radiation is expected to dominate the linearly polarized component of the sky background in a wide frequency range up to a few tens of GHz. It is important for the knowledge of the Galactic structure, and also because it will be a major contaminant in forthcoming measurements of the polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), planned from ground (Keating et al., 1998; Sironi et al., 1997; Pisano, 1999; Hedman, 1999) and from space (Wright, 1999; Cortiglioni et al., 1999; De Zotti et al., 1999).

Separation of the various contributions to the total background in the “cosmological window” (say, $`5090`$ GHz) promises to be a delicate job, and its success will rely on sensible assumptions about the spectral and spatial properties of Galactic foregrounds (e.g., Tegmark et al. 2000, Prunet et al. 2000). In this connection we observe that at frequencies of tens of GHz the dominant contribution to the angular spectrum may be a Galactic foreground (synchrotron or dust), the integrated background of unresolved extragalactic sources, the primordial anisotropy of CMB or a non-primordial anisotropy (for instance arising from the gravitational lens effect) depending on the range of the spherical-harmonic index $`l`$. Therefore the cosmological window should be understood as a bidimensional region of the ($`\nu `$, $`l`$) plane, which is furthermore different for anisotropy and polarization. For this reason angular power spectra, which provide a standard tool for CMB analysis, are becoming relatively commonplace also for foregrounds, although in the latter case they provide an incomplete description because of the strong phase coherence of Galactic emission. Intensity (or temperature) power spectra of foregrounds are reasonably approximated by power laws, $`C_I\mathrm{}\mathrm{}^{\alpha _I}`$, with slopes steeper than CMB. For the latter the scale-invariant adiabatic-wave spectrum predicts $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{CMB}}2`$ on large scales and power excess at $`10^2\begin{array}{c}<\\ \end{array}\mathrm{}\begin{array}{c}<\\ \end{array}10^3`$ because of several acoustic peaks. Both the large-scale behaviour and the first acoustic peak appear to be confirmed by experiment (Barreiro, 1999, de Bernardis et al. 2000, Hanany et al. 2000). For synchrotron, values $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{syn}}2.5÷3`$ have been derived from the 408-MHz maps of Haslam et al. (1981) by Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996) and Bouchet et al. (1996), and $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{syn}}3`$ from the 1420-MHz northern sky survey (Reich & Reich, 1986) by Bouchet & Gispert (1999). However, the analysis of Tenerife patch at the same frequencies provides a nearly scale-invariant spectrum, $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{syn}}2,`$ except near the resolution limit of the maps (Lasenby, 1997). For dust emission Gautier et al. (1992) gave $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{dust}}3`$ down to the IRAS resolution of a few arc minutes, and a similar result was found for DIRBE (Wright, 1998); from the combined DIRBE and IRAS maps Schlegel et al. (1998) derive $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{dust}}2.5`$. The situation is less clear for free-free emission: While Kogut et al. (1996) find $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{FF}}3`$ correlating COBE-DMR with DIRBE, Veeraraghavan & Davies (1997) derive $`\alpha _I^{\mathrm{FF}}2.3`$ at 53 GHz from H$`\alpha `$ maps but with a much lower normalization. The discrepancy supports the case for dust emission in the cosmological window, the mechanism of rotational excitation of small grains having been proposed by Draine & Lazarian (1998).

Angular spectra of polarized emission have been measured so far neither for CMB nor for Galactic foregrounds. Theoretical modeling for CMB gives (for the electric-parity polarization excited by density waves in the standard-model) $`\alpha _E^{\mathrm{CMB}}`$ rather close to zero, which means much smaller spatial correlations at large angular scales than for temperature fluctuations. A corresponding excess of small-scale structure (in comparison to temperature fluctuations) is found by Prunet et al. (1998) for polarized dust emission in modeling based on the HI maps of the Leiden-Dwingloo survey \[see also Sethi et al. (1998) and Prunet & Lazarian (1999)\]: Their results are $`\alpha _E^{\mathrm{dust}}1.3`$ and $`\alpha _B^{\mathrm{dust}}1.4`$ for the electric and magnetic parity spectra, respectively. The angular power spectrum is therefore steeper for Galactic dust than for CMB.

Now an important question should be posed: can this result be generalized to other foregrounds? If so, the separation of CMB polarization signals would be easier. The present work considers the polarization spectra of Galactic synchrotron, and can be regarded as complementary to that of Prunet et al. (1998) since polarized free-free emission should not be dominant at any frequency. Our approach is the analysis of low-frequency maps. Unfortunately no full-sky survey is available for the polarized component of synchrotron, the largest coverage being provided by Brouw & Spoelstra (1976) at the expense of a quite sparse sampling. Here we make use of the Parkes survey of the southern Galactic plane (Duncan et al., 1995, 1997) which, although limited to a relatively small window of $`0.39`$ sr, provides uniformly covered maps, not suffering from undersampling. Its frequency of 2.4 GHz probably allows a reasonable extrapolation to the cosmological window, thanks to the limited effects expected from Faraday rotation. The typical values of 5–10 rad m-2 for the rotation measure (RM) reported by Spoelstra (1984) and Wieringa et al (1993) allow to estimate a negligible depolarization of few percent at 2.4 GHz.

The main result of this paper is that the synchrotron polarization spectra up to $`\mathrm{}10^3`$ are approximated very well by power laws with slope coefficients $`\alpha _E\alpha _B1.4`$, a result very close to that of Prunet et al. (1998). The intensity spectrum is also found to have a moderate slope, close to that of polarization spectra, unless we use alternative maps (available at the Parkes WEB site111http://www.atnf.csiro.au/database/astro\_data/2.4Gh\_Southern) where Galactic-plane sources have been removed; therefore this result should not be extrapolated to the whole sky. In the last section of this paper we provide reasons, suggesting that the slopes of polarization spectra are likely to apply to the whole sky. We show that if this assumption is correct, synchrotron emission cannot be a problem for CMB polarization measurements in the cosmological window. Otherwise, a value $`1.4`$ can be used as a lower limit to $`\alpha _E`$ and $`\alpha _B`$; then the slope differences with respect to the CMB polarization spectra would still be larger, and the CMB polarized signal would prevail even more strongly in the cosmological window.

## 2 Angular spectra in the Parkes survey

Figure 1 shows the sky coverage of the Parkes 2.417 GHz survey and other available surveys as well. The Parkes survey covers a strip, 127 long and at least 10 wide, with a FWHM resolution of $`10^{}.4`$. Maps are available at the Parkes WEB site for the total intensity $`I`$ both before and after subtraction of structures with size $`2^{}`$, and for the Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`U`$ with no source subtraction.

Because of the limited sky coverage, spherical-harmonic spectra are suitably obtained from a standard Fourier analysis according to the technique developed by Seljak (1997) for the CMB polarization and applied by Prunet et al. (1998) to the polarized dust foreground. After the Fourier components of Stokes parameters $`I(𝐥)`$, $`Q(𝐥)`$ and $`U(𝐥)`$ are computed on a map covering a solid angle $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the estimators for the power spectra of intensity $`C_I\mathrm{}`$ and total polarization $`C_P\mathrm{}`$ can be readily computed by means of the equations

$`C_I\mathrm{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{N_{\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐥}{}}\left[I(𝐥)I^{}(𝐥)\right]w_I^1\right\}b^2(\mathrm{}),`$ (1)
$`C_P\mathrm{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{N_{\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐥}{}}\left[Q(𝐥)Q^{}(𝐥)+U(𝐥)U^{}(𝐥)\right]2w_P^1\right\}b^2(\mathrm{}),`$ (2)
where the sums are performed over the $`N_{\mathrm{}}`$ modes with wavevector magnitude around $`\mathrm{}`$, $`b(\mathrm{})`$ is the window function and $`w_{I,P}^1=\mathrm{\Omega }\sigma _{I,P}^2/N_{\mathrm{pixel}}`$ is the pixel-independent measure of noise with $`\sigma _{I,P}`$ the pixel noise. The electric and magnetic parity of polarization can also be separately computed by means of

$`C_E\mathrm{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{N_{\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐥}{}}\left|Q(𝐥)\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi _𝐥)+U(𝐥)\mathrm{sin}(2\varphi _𝐥)\right|^2w_P^1\right\}b^2(\mathrm{}),`$ (3)
$`C_B\mathrm{}`$ $`=`$ $`\left\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }}{N_{\mathrm{}}}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝐥}{}}\left|Q(𝐥)\mathrm{sin}(2\varphi _𝐥)+U(𝐥)\mathrm{cos}(2\varphi _𝐥)\right|^2w_P^1\right\}b^2(\mathrm{}),`$ (4)
with $`\varphi _𝐥`$ the direction angle of $`𝐥.`$

For the Parkes survey the window function can be approximated by a Gaussian, $`b(\mathrm{})=\mathrm{exp}\left[\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)\sigma _\mathrm{b}^2/2\right]`$ with $`\sigma _\mathrm{b}=4^{}.4`$ . The polarization noise is not constant, being 11 mJy beam area-1 for most of the sky coverage but as low as 6 mJy beam area-1 in some regions. We chose to extract from the survey constant-noise square patches of $`10^{}\times 10^{}`$ (i.e., $`150\times 150`$ pixels). We thereby obtained 12 independent submaps (the first one being centered at $`l=360^{}`$ and moving toward decreasing Galactic longitudes), and on each of them we performed the Fourier analysis and derived a set of four spectra $`C_X\mathrm{}`$ (with $`X=I`$, $`P`$, $`E`$ and $`B`$) by means of Eqs. (1)-(4) (the $`P`$ spectrum was in fact redundant, but we computed it for all of the submaps for checks of consistency). A potential problem with the Fourier analysis, when it is applied to small maps, arises from border effects, which may give spurious contributions to the spectra. A solution to this problem is considered by Hobson & Magueijo (1996), who suggest to modulate the signal by some function vanishing at the borders (apodization). We carried out our analysis both with appropriate cosine functions and with no modulation. The differences turned out to be small in the range $`\mathrm{}\begin{array}{c}<\\ \end{array}1000`$, except for the intensity maps with source subtraction. In Figures 3-5 we explicitly report the results obtained with the cosine modulation up to $`\mathrm{}=1100`$, which is close to the resolution limit of the survey. In order to test the reliability of the computed spectra, we also built up simulated maps for CMB, using angular spectra computed by means of CMBFAST (Seljak & Zaldarriaga, 1996) and HEALPix package222http://www.tac.dk/ healpix, and performed the Fourier analysis on them within the Parkes survey window. The results shown in Figure 2 prove that the method is quite reliable: The output spectrum differs from the input one only for some smoothing of the sharpest features, which is particularly evident for low values of $`\mathrm{}`$. Smoother spectra – such as those expected for synchrotron – are less affected by the procedure. The results for all of the 12 submaps also are mutually consistent in the CMB case.

The spectra obtained from synchrotron submaps, however, show large variations in the normalization; this fact is certainly not unexpected, due to the phase coherence of Galactic structure. Figure 3 shows the results for $`C_I\mathrm{}`$ (with no source subtraction) and $`C_E\mathrm{}`$ from the individual submaps; the results for magnetic parity polarization are similar to those for electric parity (the intensity spectra after source removal, however, are much steeper than those reported in the Figure, as we will discuss below).

The normalization variations for intensity and polarization cover different ranges (spanning more than 3 and about 2 orders of magnitude, respectively), and they are not strictly correlated since the polarization degree is far from being constant. The slopes of the curves up to $`\mathrm{}10^3,`$ however, are much more mutually consistent than normalization. Visual inspection of Fig. 3 shows a couple of low-emission regions (submaps 9 and 12, placed at $`l<280^{}`$) with particularly flat intensity curves at $`\mathrm{}\begin{array}{c}>\\ \end{array}10^2`$, but this feature does not appear in polarized emission. Clearly most of the curves are reasonably approximated by power laws, but when we fit the data with functions $`C_X\mathrm{}=A_X\mathrm{}^{\alpha _X}`$, the logarithmic slopes vary with both the chosen submap and the range of $`\mathrm{}`$. In Table 1 we report angular-spectrum best-fit slopes for all of the submaps with no source subtraction. Columns 2 to 4 (primed quantities) refer to the range $`\mathrm{}500`$, and the remaining (unprimed quantities) to $`\mathrm{}800`$. Only for two submaps and for $`\mathrm{}500`$ the intensity spectra are steeper than $`\alpha _I=2`$; more often they are only moderately steeper than polarization spectra, or even hardly distinguishable from them (as far as slopes are concerned).

We then have to combine the results from the 12 submaps in some way. A simple method is to compute weighted averages of the best-fit parameters; this implies weighting with statistical errors, with no regard to the strength of the emission in the submaps. Table 2 gives the mean parameters (including the normalization factors, denoted by $`A_X`$ and $`A_X^{}`$) obtained in this way, as well as the statistical errors; they are collected in the Table rows referring to averaging “method 1”. According to such results, the slope of the intensity spectrum slightly decreases for increasing $`\mathrm{}`$ and can be hardly distinguished from that of polarization spectra at large $`\mathrm{}`$:

$$\alpha _I\alpha _E\alpha _B1.4÷1.5,(\mathrm{}=36÷800,\mathrm{method}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}).$$
(5)
Similar results are found with the simpler treatment with no signal cosine modulation; the differences with respect to the results in the Table are $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha _X\pm 0.1`$.

It can be argued that because of the averaging method, the slopes given by Eq. (5) may be not representative of the full Parkes survey, since low-emission and high-emission subwindows are considered on equal footing. An alternative approach is averaging the spectra of the 12 subwindows: Figure 4 reports the mean spectra, and includes magnetic parity and the intensity spectrum after source subtraction. We thereby performed best fits as above also on such mean spectra. This procedure, referred to as averaging “method 2” in Table 2, clearly gives stronger weights to high-emission submaps. The results are quite different for the normalization factors (and especially for intensity), but no large variation is found for the slope factors. The slope of the intensity spectrum however is slightly increased now, due to the scarce weight given to the nearly flat spectra of a couple of low-intensity submaps, the larger value being found in the smaller range $`\mathrm{}=36÷500`$; no clear change however is found for polarization:

$$\alpha _I^{}1.8,\alpha _E^{}\alpha _B^{}1.4÷1.5,(\mathrm{}=36÷500,\mathrm{method}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}).$$
(6)
As shown by Fig. 5, the fitting functions with the parameters found in the larger range ($`\mathrm{}800`$) describe very well the polarization spectra, whereas a modest discrepancy appears for the intensity spectrum at $`\mathrm{}100`$.

We also tried with a further procedure, renormalizing the spectra of the 12 submaps to a same mean intensity value and then constructing mean curves. The parameters of such mean curves are referred to as averaging “method 3” in the Table, and show slightly smaller slopes. For the range $`\mathrm{}=36÷800`$

$$\alpha _I\alpha _E\alpha _B1.4,(\mathrm{}=36÷800,\mathrm{method}\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}3}).$$
(7)
A quite different result is found for the intensity maps with source subtraction. The slope is now much higher, $`\alpha _I5`$. At large $`\mathrm{}`$ the signal is very small, and it would be overcome by border effects in the absence of apodization even for $`\mathrm{}<10^3`$.

## 3 Discussion

The most attractive conclusion we can draw from the present work regards the angular spectrum slope of the polarized synchrotron emission up to $`\mathrm{}10^3`$. Since this slope substantially differs from that of polarized CMB, provided it can be extrapolated to the cosmological window the separation of cosmological and Galactic signals becomes easier. In particular, at a given frequency CMB polarization is expected to prevail better at smaller scales; this result is derived from Galactic-plane maps with no source subtraction. It is interesting to observe that essentially the same slope, $`\alpha _E\alpha _B1.4,`$ was found by Prunet et al. (1998) for polarized dust emission. We may speculate that this coincidence may be due to the similarity of polarizing/depolarizing mechanisms inscribed in the Galactic structure.

On the other hand, our results on the total intensity spectrum might look somewhat intriguing at first sight. The original Parkes maps with no source subtraction support only a moderate slope, close to that of polarization spectra. This contrasts sharply with the results of Tegmark & Efstathiou (1996), Bouchet et al. (1996) and Bouchet & Gispert (1999); the discrepancy is much smaller with the analysis of Lasenby (1997) on the Tenerife patch. Removal of sources up to $`2^{}`$ wide, however, gives a much larger slope, beyond the more familiar result $`\alpha _I3`$. This fact can be readily interpreted, observing that in the Parkes survey the intensity angular spectrum at large $`\mathrm{}`$ is dominated by Galactic-plane sources. An obvious consequence is that no real contradiction exists with previous work, since such results as $`\alpha _I1.4÷1.8`$ cannot be extrapolated outside the Galactic plane.

We then should ask, which values of $`\alpha _X`$ would be appropriate for the whole sky. Clearly the subtraction of $`2^{}`$ sources as described at the Parkes WEB site is a quite radical procedure, cutting out high-order harmonics very efficiently. It is then easy to infer that the full-sky $`\alpha _I`$ must lie somewhere between 1.4 and 5; however the existing support for the value $`\alpha _I3`$ is not very strong, in view of the results of Lasenby (1997), supporting $`\alpha _I2.`$ On the other hand, we believe that our results on the polarization slope can be extrapolated out of the Galactic plane with some confidence. The inspection of Fig. 3 shows that for polarization no systematic differences of slope exist between high and low emission submaps. As already remarked, the overall normalization (rms signal) has much weaker variations than for intensity spectra. Thus the role of Galactic-plane sources is less important. Also, the agreement with Prunet et al. (1998) is impressive.

Assuming that the polarization angular spectra are correct for the full sky, we can try to extrapolate them to frequencies higher that 2.4 GHz and compare them to CMB spectra. Figure 6 shows such extrapolations to 22, 32 and 60 GHz, where the average Parkes survey normalization and a synchrotron spectral index of 3 are assumed. Obviously this procedure is expected to overrate the synchrotron full-sky spectra. The comparison of synchrotron and CMB angular spectra shows that for $`\mathrm{}>10^2`$ the latter prevail at 60 GHz in spite of the above Galactic-plane normalization.

Finally, we may ask how this conclusion should be changed if the polarization slopes of Table 2 cannot apply to a full-sky survey. According to the reasoning expounded for intensity spectra, we can state that values $`1.4`$ can at least be used as lower limits to $`\alpha _E`$ and $`\alpha _B`$. Then the slope differences with respect to the CMB polarization spectra would still increase in comparison with the scenario described by Fig. 6, and the CMB signal would prevail even more strongly in the cosmological window.

## Acknowledgments

We thank S. Bonometto and all the people of the SPOrt collaboration team for help and encouragement. M. Tucci wishes to thank D. Scott for stimulating discussions. We acknowledge use of the CMBFAST code and the HEALPix package. This work is supported by the Italian Space Agency (ASI).