text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The purpose of this note is to make a complete analysis of the gauge field fluctuations in the neighbourhood of the rotating ellipsoidal membrane solution of . We extend the previous treatment in  whereby only perturbations that do not modify the original $`SU(2)`$ ansatz to the case when perturbations are in the full $`SU(N)`$ algebra. The results indicate that in the case of $`SU(2)`$ most of the modes display the enhanced symmetry of the original solution, i.e. after the imposition of the constraint most of the additional degrees of freedom are zero-modes. All the other modes, for the totality of all possible gauge field perturbations in $`SU(N)`$, are completely stable and execute harmonic oscillations around the original trajectory.

The effective action of $`N`$ D0-branes for weak and slowly varying fields is the non-abelian SU(N) Yang-Mills action plus the Chern-Simons action (for the bosonic part). For weak fields the action is gotten by dimensionally reducing the action of 9+1 dimensional $`U(N)`$ Super Yang-Mills theory to 0+1 dimensions . Up to a constant term it is

$$S=T_0(2\pi l_s^2)^2𝑑tTr\left(\frac{1}{4}F_{\mu \nu }F^{\mu \nu }\right),$$
(1)
where $`F_{\mu \nu }`$ is the non-abelian $`U(N)`$ field strength in the adjoint representation and $`T_0=(g_sl_s)^1`$ is the D0-brane mass. To write this action in terms of coordinate matrices $`𝐗^i`$, one has to use the dictionary

$$A_i=\frac{1}{2\pi l_s^2}𝐗^i,F_{0i}=\frac{1}{2\pi l_s^2}\dot{𝐗}^i,F_{ij}=\frac{i}{(2\pi l_s^2)^2}[𝐗^i,𝐗^j]$$
(2)
with $`i,j=1,2,\mathrm{},9`$, giving

$$S=T_0𝑑tTr\left(\frac{1}{2}\dot{𝐗}^i\dot{𝐗}^i+\frac{1}{4}\frac{1}{(2\pi l_s^2)^2}[𝐗^i,𝐗^j][𝐗^i,𝐗^j]\right)$$
(3)
To derive this it is necessary to gauge the $`A_0`$ potential away, which is possible for a non-compact time. The equations of motion

$$\ddot{𝐗}^i=[𝐗^j,[𝐗^j,𝐗^i]]$$
(4)
should be taken together with the Gauss constraint,

$$[\dot{𝐗}^i,𝐗^i]=0$$
(5)
which is preserved by (4.

Introduce the $`N\times N`$ matrices $`𝐋_1,𝐋_2,𝐋_3`$ as the generators of the $`N`$ dimensional irreducible representation of $`SU(2)`$, with algebra

$$[𝐋_i,𝐋_j]=iϵ_{ijk}𝐋_k.$$
(6)
The rotating spherical membrane solution was constructed using this subalgebra of the $`SU(N)`$. It is also the only finite dimensional subalgebra of the group of diffeomorphisms of $`S^2`$, the Sdiff$`(S^2)`$. That is why the $`SU(2)`$ ansatz is in some sense unique: it is the only type of solution that carries over to the supermembrane without modification

$`𝐗^i(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝐋_iR\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)`$ (7)
$`\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^i(t)=𝐗^{i+3}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝐋_iR\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)`$ (8)
In what follows we will set $`R=1`$, with $`\omega `$ being determined through the equations of motion, and equal to $`\omega ^2=2R^2=2`$.

In order to treat the perturbations of the system within the full $`SU(N)`$ we will need a convenient basis, provided  by the spherical operators $`𝐘_m^l`$,

$`[𝐋_z,𝐘_m^l]`$ $`=`$ $`m𝐘_m^l\text{for }l=1,\mathrm{},N1`$
$`[𝐋_\pm ,𝐘_m^l]`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{(lm)(l\pm m+1)}𝐘_{m\pm 1}^l`$ (9)
It is immediately clear that these are not hermitian, neither they are anti-hermitian. For example, at $`l=1`$ these should coincide with the $`𝐋_i`$’s:

$`𝐘_0^1=𝐋_z,𝐘_{\pm 1}^1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}𝐋_\pm .`$ (10)
For $`l=2`$ these are the five linear independent symmetric traceless products of pairs of $`𝐋`$’s, and with correct normalization read:

$`𝐘_0^2`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}}(𝐋_x𝐋_x+𝐋_y𝐋_y𝐋_z𝐋_z)`$
$`𝐘_{\pm 1}^2`$ $`=`$ $`\pm \{𝐋_\pm ,𝐋_z\}`$
$`𝐘_{\pm 2}^2`$ $`=`$ $`(𝐋_x𝐋_x+𝐋_y𝐋_y2i\{𝐋_x,𝐋_y\})`$ (11)
The general explicit construction of the $`𝐘_m^l`$ is due to Schwinger, and was used to show the correspondence at $`N\mathrm{}`$ between the relativistic membrane and $`SU(N)`$ YM in . We will not use the explicit form of these matrices, as the defing relations (9) is all that is needed. The properties under Hermitian conjugation can be summed up as

$$𝐘_{l,m}^{}=(1)^m𝐘_{l,m}$$
(12)
## 2 Internal Perturbations

In this section perturbations will be considered that are parallel in space to one of the directions of the system. It is a generalization of our previous treatment, in , where perturbations of the same structure as the ansatz were considered. The case of completely transverse perturbations is considered in the next section. The details are rather technical, but completely straightforward.

Let us decompose the fluctuation fields in the basis defined by $`𝐘_m^l`$, where $`l`$ runs from $`1`$ to $`N1`$

$$\delta 𝐗^i=\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}𝐘_m^l\xi _m^i,\delta \stackrel{~}{𝐗}^i=\underset{m=l}{\overset{l}{}}𝐘_m^l\eta _m^ii=1,2,3.$$
(13)
The total number of modes is then $`_{l=1}^{N1}(2l+1)=N^21`$ as it should for $`SU(N)`$. We do not introduce an $`l`$ index on the $`\eta ,\xi `$ because it will be shown below, and also suggested in , that the fluctuations with different $`l`$ do not couple at linear order. The behaviour of linear perturbations is sufficient to establish the correct phase portrait of the dynamical system in the neighbourhood of a periodic trajectory.

Even though the basis is not Hermitian, the gauge field should still be real, and so we should impose

$$\xi _m^{}=(1)^m\xi _m\text{and}\eta _m^{}=(1)^m\eta _m\text{for all}m=l,\mathrm{},l.$$
(14)
The variational equations of motion are

$`\delta \ddot{𝐗}^i`$ $`=`$ $`[\delta 𝐗^j,[𝐗^j,𝐗^i]]+[𝐗^j,[\delta 𝐗^j,𝐗^i]]+[𝐗^j,[𝐗^j,\delta 𝐗^i]]+`$ (15)
$`[\delta \stackrel{~}{𝐗}^j,[\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^j,𝐗^i]]+[\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^j,[\delta \stackrel{~}{𝐗}^j,𝐗^i]]+[\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^j,[\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^j,\delta 𝐗^i]].`$
The linearized constraint equation looks like

$$\underset{i,m}{}[\delta \dot{𝐗^i},𝐗^i]+[\dot{𝐗^i},\delta 𝐗^i]+[\delta \dot{\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^i},\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^i]+[\dot{\stackrel{~}{𝐗}^i},\delta \stackrel{~}{𝐗}^i]=0$$
(16)
Using the commutation relations (9) we get for the constraint

$$\underset{i}{}𝐋_{nm}^i\left(\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\dot{\xi }_m^i+\omega \mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\xi _m^i+\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\dot{\eta }_m^i\omega \mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\eta _m^i\right)=0,$$
(17)
where $`𝐋_{nm}^i`$ are now the $`SU(2)`$ generators in the $`(2l+1)\times (2l+1)`$ representation. In the co-moving coordinates

$$u_m^i=\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\xi _m^i+\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\eta _m^i\text{and}v_m^i=\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\xi _m^i+\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\eta _m^i$$
(18)
the constraint looks simpler,

$$\underset{i,m}{}𝐋_{nm}^i\left(\dot{u}_m^i2\omega v_m^i\right)=0.$$
(19)
The variational equation of motion (15) after substituting the fields (13) is

$`{\displaystyle \underset{m}{}}𝐘_m^l\ddot{\xi }_m^i=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j,k,m}{}}`$ $`\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)iϵ_{ijk}[𝐘_m^l,𝐋_k]\xi _m^j`$ (20)
$`+\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\left[𝐋_j[𝐘_m^l,𝐋_i]\right]\xi _m^j`$
$`+\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)l(l+1)𝐘_m^l\xi _m^i`$
$`\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)iϵ_{ijk}[𝐘_m^l,𝐋_k]\eta _m^j`$
$`+\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\left[𝐋_j[𝐘_m^l,𝐋_i]\right]\eta _m^j`$
$`+\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)l(l+1)𝐘_m^l\eta _m^i`$
and in component form,

$$\ddot{\xi }_n^i=\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\left(iϵ_{ijk}𝐋_{nm}^k𝐋_{nn^{}}^j𝐋_{n^{}m}^i\right)\left(\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\xi _m^j+\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\eta _m^j\right)+l(l+1)\xi _n^i.$$
(21)
The decoupling of the modes with different $`l`$ is seen to be a direct consequence of (9), and more fundamentally, of the pure $`SU(2)`$ structure of the original background solution.

The above can be conveniently rewritten as

$$\ddot{\xi }_n^i+l(l+1)\xi _n^i=\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\left(𝐋_{nn^{}}^j𝐋_{n^{}m}^i+iϵ_{jik}𝐋_{nm}^k\right)\left(\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\xi _m^j+\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\eta _m^j\right).$$
(22)
The equation for $`\eta `$ is gotten by exchanging cosines for sines and $`\xi `$ for $`\eta `$

$$\ddot{\eta }_n^i+l(l+1)\eta _n^i=\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\left(𝐋_{nn^{}}^j𝐋_{n^{}m}^i+iϵ_{jik}𝐋_{nm}^k\right)\left(\mathrm{cos}(\omega t)\xi _m^j+\mathrm{sin}(\omega t)\eta _m^j\right).$$
(23)
In the co-moving coordinates (18) the time dependency drops out, and the equation becomes a linear system with constant coefficients:

$`\ddot{u}_n^i+\left(l(l+1)2\right)u_n^i2\omega \dot{v}_n^i`$ $`=`$ $`\left(𝐋_{nn^{}}^j𝐋_{n^{}m}^i+iϵ_{jik}𝐋_{nm}^k\right)u_m^j,`$ (24)
$`\ddot{v}_n^i+\left(l(l+1)2\right)v_n^i+2\omega \dot{u}_n^i`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (25)
Thus we shall analyze the system of equations (19) (24), (25). In order to display explicitly the constant matrix structure of the equation, one has to write the $`rhs`$ of (24) as a matrix acting on a $`3(2l+1)`$ component vector

$$\left(\begin{array}{ccc}𝐋^1𝐋^1& 𝐋^2𝐋^1i𝐋^3& 𝐋^3𝐋^1+i𝐋^2\\ 𝐋^1𝐋^2+i𝐋^3& 𝐋^2𝐋^2& 𝐋^3𝐋^2i𝐋^1\\ 𝐋^1𝐋^3i𝐋^2& 𝐋^2𝐋^3+i𝐋^1& 𝐋^3𝐋^3\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}u^1\\ u^2\\ u^3\end{array}\right).$$
(26)
The eigenvalues $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ of this size $`3(2l+1)`$ block matrix, where each block is of size $`(2l+1)`$, are given in the table, together with their multiplicity

$$\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{\Lambda }& \text{multiplicity}\\ & \\ 2l2& 2l1\\ l(l+1)2& 2l+1\\ 2l& 2l+3\end{array}$$
(27)
One can check that the trace of the matrix matches with the *weighted* sum of the eigenvalues given above for arbitrary values of $`l`$. The proof will be published elsewhere.

Since the second equation (25) is completely diagonal with respect to $`i,l,m`$, we can now solve the complete system. Choose a fixed frequency ansatz

$$u_n^i(t)=e^{i\mathrm{\Omega }t}u_n^i,v_n^i(t)=e^{i\mathrm{\Omega }t}v_n^i.$$
(28)
The second equation (25) can be solved as

$$v_n^i=\frac{2\sqrt{2}i\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{l(l+1)2\mathrm{\Omega }^2}u_n^i,$$
(29)
and substituted back into the first equation (24),

$$\mathrm{\Omega }^2u_n^i+(l(l+1)2)u_n^i\frac{8\mathrm{\Omega }^2}{l(l+1)2\mathrm{\Omega }^2}u_n^i=\left(𝐋_{nn^{}}^j𝐋_{n^{}m}^i+iϵ_{jik}𝐋_{nm}^k\right)u_m^j.$$
(30)
In the basis in which the matrix on the $`rhs`$ is diagonalized, it can be replaced with its respective eigenvalue $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, resulting in an algebraic equation for the $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$

$$\left(l\left(l+1\right)2\mathrm{\Omega }^2\right)^28\mathrm{\Omega }^2=\mathrm{\Lambda }\left(l\left(l+1\right)2\mathrm{\Omega }^2\right).$$
(31)
Finally, this quadratic equation can be solved,

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{1,2}^2=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Lambda }+l(l+1)+2\pm \frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }^216\mathrm{\Lambda }+32l(l+1)}.$$
(32)
For the values of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, taken from table (27), the modes are:

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\mathrm{\Lambda }& \mathrm{\Omega }_1^2& \mathrm{\Omega }_2^2& \text{multiplicity}\\ & & & \\ l(l+1)2& 0& l^2+l+6& 2l+1\\ 2l& l^23l+2& l^2+3l+2& 2l+3\\ (2l+2)& l^2l& l^2+5l+6& 2l1\end{array}$$
(33)
Note that the number of zero modes changes from $`9`$ for the case $`l=1`$, and $`12`$ for $`l=2`$, to $`2l+1`$ for arbitrary $`l>2`$. This is connected with the fact that the original solution is based on an $`l=1`$ ansatz, and so the symmetries of the equations are manifested as zero-modes under $`l=1`$ perturbations. Thus, for $`SU(N)`$, the total number of zero modes is the sum for all $`l`$ up to $`N1`$

$$9+12+\underset{l=3}{\overset{N1}{}}(2l+1)=N^2+12$$
(34)
where $`l`$ runs up to $`N1`$.

Note that because the frequencies are real, we can indeed satisfy the gauge field reality conditions (14) by choosing initial vectors that satisfy reality. In addition the constraint conditions should be imposed, with the result that the $`2l+1`$ modes with frequency $`l^2+l+6`$ are projected out at each $`l`$.

## 3 Transverse perturbations

In addition to the already considered perturbations there are also those that are completely transverse to the system. That is the directions 789, if we had oriented the original system along 123456. The analysis is considerably simpler that the previous case. The perturbations

$$\delta 𝐗^k=\underset{m}{}𝐘_m^l\zeta _m^k\text{for}k=7,8,9$$
(35)
satisfy the simple harmonic equation

$$\ddot{\zeta }_m^k+l(l+1)\zeta _m^k=0.$$
(36)
This clearly has only positive frequencies and is therefore stable. For $`l=1`$ all the $`9`$ modes have the same frequency as the original solution, corresponding to infinitesimal global rotations of the system into the 789 hyperplane. The counting goes as follows, there are $`9\times 2=18`$ first order degrees of freedom here, which coincides with the dimensionality of the grassmanian manifold of embeddings of a 6-hyperplane into $`^9`$, i.e. $`\frac{SO(9)}{SO(6)\times SO(3)}`$.

## 4 Conclusion

From the results of the two previous sections it follows that, zero-modes notwithstanding, all the frequencies in the system are positive, and arbitrary small perturbation will remain bounded for all times. We have learned also of the paper  where the same problem is considered in the membrane language. However the authors of  in their approach to the same problem arrive at the Mathiew equation instead of the equations (24), (25), (19) and therefore to the opposite conclusion, namely that there exist solutions to the linearized perturbation equations which grow exponentially. We hope that the present work will contribute to the clarification of the question.

## 5 Appendix

Here we shall present stability analysis of the $`l=1`$ system made in and shall compare it with the general consideration in the main text. In addition we shall find new solutions. The Hamiltonian of the system is

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{6}{}}\dot{r}_i^2+\frac{1}{2}[(r_1^2+r_2^2)(r_3^2+r_4^2)+(r_3^2+r_4^2)(r_5^2+r_6^2)+(r_5^2+r_6^2)(r_1^2+r_2^2)]$$
(37)
where

$$𝐗^{i+1}=𝐋_{1+i/2}r_{i+1},𝐗^{i+2}=𝐋_{1+i/2}r_{i+2},i=0,2,4.$$

It is convenient to introduce new coordinates

$$\begin{array}{cc}r_1=\rho _1\mathrm{cos}\varphi _1,\hfill & r_2=\rho _1\mathrm{sin}\varphi _1,\hfill \\ r_3=\rho _2\mathrm{cos}\varphi _2,\hfill & r_4=\rho _2\mathrm{sin}\varphi _2,\hfill \\ r_5=\rho _3\mathrm{cos}\varphi _3,\hfill & r_6=\rho _3\mathrm{sin}\varphi _3,\hfill \end{array}$$

so that the Hamiltonian take the form:

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left[\dot{\rho }_i^2+\rho _i^2\dot{\varphi }^2\right]+\frac{1}{2}[\rho _1^2\rho _2^2+\rho _2^2\rho _3^2+\rho _3^2\rho _1^2].$$
(38)
The conservation integrals are:

$$\rho _1^2\dot{\varphi }_1=M_1,\rho _2^2\dot{\varphi }_2=M_2,\rho _3^2\dot{\varphi }_3=M_3,$$

and the effective Hamiltonian take the form:

$$H=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\left[\dot{\rho }_i^2+\frac{M_i^2}{\rho _i^2}\right]+\frac{1}{2}[\rho _1^2\rho _2^2+\rho _2^2\rho _3^2+\rho _3^2\rho _1^2].$$
(39)
The effective potential is equal to

$$U=\frac{1}{2}[\frac{M_1^2}{\rho _1^2}+\frac{M_2^2}{\rho _2^2}+\frac{M_3^2}{\rho _3^2}]+\frac{1}{2}[\rho _1^2\rho _2^2+\rho _2^2\rho _3^2+\rho _3^2\rho _1^2].$$

The equations of motion are :

$`\ddot{\rho _1}=\rho _1(\rho _2^2+\rho _3^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{M_1^2}{\rho _1^3}}`$ (40)
$`\ddot{\rho _2}=\rho _2(\rho _1^2+\rho _3^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{M_2^2}{\rho _2^3}}`$ (41)
$`\ddot{\rho _3}=\rho _3(\rho _1^2+\rho _2^2)+{\displaystyle \frac{M_3^2}{\rho _3^3}}`$ (42)
and the previous solution is $`\rho _i=R_i=Const,i=1,2,3`$ and $`\dot{\varphi }_i^2=\omega _i^2=M_i^2/R_i^4=R_{i+1}^2+R_{i+2}^2`$. Let us now consider the special case when all coordinate are equal to each other $`\rho _1=\rho _2=\rho _3=\rho (t)`$ and can depend on time, then

$$H=\frac{3}{2}[\dot{\rho }^2+\frac{M^2}{\rho ^2}+\rho ^4]$$

and corresponding equation can be integrated. The new solution is elliptic function $`\rho =\rho (t)`$

$$t=_{\rho _{min}}^{\rho (t)}\frac{d\rho }{\sqrt{2E/3\rho ^4M^2/\rho ^2}}$$

with period

$$T=2_{\rho _{min}}^{\rho _{max}}\frac{d\rho }{\sqrt{2E/3\rho ^4M^2/\rho ^2}},$$

where $`\rho _{min},\rho _{max}`$ are the solutions of the equation $`2E/3\rho ^4M^2/\rho ^2=0.`$

Let us now turn to a stability analysis of the solution $`\rho _1=\rho _2=\rho _3=R=Const`$ considered in the main text. The equations of variation are $`(M_i^2=2R^6)`$:

$`\delta \ddot{\rho _1}=2R^2(\delta \rho _1+\delta \rho _2+\delta \rho _3){\displaystyle \frac{3M_1^2}{R^4}}\delta \rho _1=R^2(8\delta \rho _1+2\delta \rho _2+2\delta \rho _3)`$ (43)
$`\delta \ddot{\rho _2}=2R^2(\delta \rho _1+\delta \rho _2+\delta \rho _3){\displaystyle \frac{3M_2^2}{R^4}}\delta \rho _2=R^2(2\delta \rho _1+8\delta \rho _2+2\delta \rho _3)`$ (44)
$`\delta \ddot{\rho _3}=2R^2(\delta \rho _1+\delta \rho _2+\delta \rho _3){\displaystyle \frac{3M_3^2}{R^4}}\delta \rho _3=R^2(2\delta \rho _1+2\delta \rho _2+8\delta \rho _3)`$ (45)
with three stable modes $`12,6,6`$. They coincide with the ones in (33). For the more general case when $`R_1R_2R_3`$ we have:

$`\delta \ddot{\rho _1}=4(R_2^2+R_3^2)\delta \rho _12R_1R_2\delta \rho _22R_1R_3\delta \rho _3`$ (46)
$`\delta \ddot{\rho _2}=2R_2R_1\delta \rho _14(R_1^2+R_3^2)\delta \rho _22R_2R_3\delta \rho _3`$ (47)
$`\delta \ddot{\rho _3}=2R_3R_1\delta \rho _12R_3R_2\delta \rho _24(R_1^2+R_2^2)\delta \rho _3,`$ (48)
which also has only positive modes .


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# First Structure Formation: A Simulation of Small Scale Structure at High Redshift

## 1 Introduction

The formation of the first stars in the universe, also known as Population III stars because of their lack of metals, is important for many reasons. These objects are responsible for the creation and dispersal of the first metals in the universe via Type II supernovae. The ultraviolet radiation from these first stars may also be partly responsible for the ionization of the intergalactic medium (Haiman, Rees, & Loeb (1997)). These first objects are also the building blocks for the creation of larger structures such as galaxies in the bottom-up model of hierarchical structure formation.

Various workers have studied the process of star formation in the early universe using numerical simulations of metal-free gas. Spherically symmetric simulations are useful because they are computationally less intensive than three dimensional calculations and so can include more physics, such as detailed chemistry and cooling and even radiative transfer (Haiman, Thoul & Loeb (1996); Omukai & Nishi (1998)). However, to follow the collapse of matter to stellar densities, one needs a fully three dimensional approach. Several groups have carried out such simulations including the relevant chemistry (Abel, Bryan, & Norman (2000); Bromm, Coppi & Larson (1999)).

These studies have focused on the evolution of individual density peaks, ignoring the effects of other matter in the universe. Tidal torques impart angular momentum to collapsing objects, affecting their subsequent evolution. Virialized halos can merge, changing the structure of objects. In this paper, we model a relatively large volume, $`1h^1`$Mpc (comoving), that contains a substantial number of halos, in order to understand the nature of the first objects that collapse on a more statistical level.

Since we are interested in the gravitational behavior of the matter, we can model the evolution with an N-body simulation. This is a valid approximation for a universe where collisionless cold dark matter dominates. In such a universe, the gas is coupled to the dark matter, so that gas falls into the potential wells of dark matter halos which may in turn lead to star formation. Thus, we can gain some understanding of the sites of the formation of the first stars via simulations of dark matter.

Thus far, numerical simulations with dark matter have focused on the problem of large scale structure formation (e.g. Efstathiou, et al. (1988); Katz, Hernquist, & Weinberg (1999); Kauffman, et al. (1999); Lacey & Cole (1994)). These simulations address the question of structure formation on the scale of galaxy clusters in order to understand the processes of galaxy formation and clustering. Here, we apply the analytic tools that these groups have developed to address the question of structure formation on a smaller scale.

This paper describes the properties of collapsed objects in a numerical simulation at high redshift and small scales in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe. These objects are some of the first non-linear structures in the universe. The non-linear evolution of the power spectrum has been addressed separately (Jang-Condell & Hernquist (2000)). In §2, we summarize the computational method used for the simulation; in §3, we describe the results of the simulation; and in §4 we summarize our results and discuss them in comparison to previous work with N-body simulations.

## 2 Method

In this simulation, we model the evolution of dark matter in a periodic cube of size $`1h^1`$Mpc per edge in comoving coordinates. We adopt a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology, with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.35`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.65`$, and $`h=0.65`$, where the Hubble constant is $`H_0=100h`$km/s/Mpc. The power spectrum is normalized to $`\sigma _8=0.9`$, where $`\sigma _8`$ is the rms density variation smoothed with a top-hat filter of radius $`8h^1`$Mpc. For the cosmological model we consider, this normalization is roughly consistent with both the local abundance of rich clusters (White, Efstathiou, & Frenk (1993)) and fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background as observed by COBE (Bennett, et al. (1996)).

Initial conditions were generated using the analytic fit to the CDM power spectrum derived by Efstathiou, Bond, & White (1992)

$$P(k)=|\delta _k|^2=\frac{Bk}{\{1+[ak+(bk)^{3/2}+(ck)^2]^\nu \}^{2/\nu }},$$
(1)
where $`a=6.4/\mathrm{\Gamma }h^1`$Mpc, $`b=3.0/\mathrm{\Gamma }h^1`$Mpc, $`c=1.7/\mathrm{\Gamma }h^1`$Mpc, $`\nu =1.13,`$ and $`B`$ is a normalization constant determined by $`\sigma _8`$. The shape parameter $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is set to $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Omega }_mh`$ for a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology. This power spectrum is extrapolated to a starting redshift of 100 assuming linear theory, and is then converted into spatial density fluctuations by first assigning random phases to the $`\delta _k`$ and then taking the Fourier transform. The spatial density fluctuations are converted into particle positions and velocities using the Zel’dovich approximation.

The code used for the simulation is PTreeSPH, a gravity treecode with smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) designed to run on a parallel supercomputer (Davé, Dubinski, & Hernquist 1997). The SPH part of the code was unused in this simulation since gas was not included. The code uses a Barnes-Hut (Barnes & Hut (1986), Hernquist (1987)) algorithm for computational efficiency in calculating gravitational forces and a spline kernel for gravitational softening (Hernquist & Katz (1989)). The softening length chosen for this simulation was $`1/20`$th of the mean interparticle separation, or $`1/2560`$th of the box size. The simulation box contains $`128^3`$ particles, implying that each particle represents $`4.6\times 10^4M_{\mathrm{}}`$ of dark matter. The simulation was run on a four-processor Beowulf-type cluster of PCs at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

## 3 Results

The particle distribution at the final output of redshift $`z=10`$ is shown in Fig. 1. The particles are displayed in projection along the $`x`$-axis and the colors indicate the particle densities. Already at this high redshift there is evidence of structure formation in the form of clumps and filaments of high particle density. The structures are similar to those seen in large scale simulations evolved to much lower redshift.

As we can see in Fig. 1, the centers of dense knots have densities of $`1000\overline{\rho }`$. Density evolves with redshift as $`a^3=(1+z)^3`$, so at $`z=10`$, $`1000\overline{\rho }=1000a^3\mathrm{\Omega }_b\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ is the baryon density of the universe in units of the critical density, and $`\rho _{\mathrm{crit}}`$ is the present day critical density. Constraints on light element production during big bang nucleosynthesis indicate that $`0.01\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^20.015`$ (e.g. Peacock (1999), §9.5). Thus,

$$1000\overline{\rho }3\times 10^{25}\mathrm{g}\mathrm{cm}^3$$
(2)
which is $`0.2\mathrm{cm}^3`$ in hydrogen atoms. This is comparable to the density of neutral hydrogen in the present day ISM, which is $`1\mathrm{cm}^3`$ (e.g. Spitzer (1978), §1.1). We can see that the densest regions in the simulation will be similar in density to the present-day ISM, and so are potential sites for star formation.

### 3.1 Finding halos

The particle distribution was analyzed using a program called skid to determine the positions, masses, and sizes of collapsed halos. A description of skid can be found at http://www-hpcc.astro.washington.edu/tools/SKID/.

The basic algorithm that skid uses is as follows:

1. Calculate densities, and consider only those above a user specified density threshold. These are called the moving particles.
2. Slide the moving particles along the density gradient toward higher density.
3. Continue moving particles until all the particles stop moving and are localized in high density regions of a user specified size (eps).
4. Group together these localized particles using the friends-of-friends method with a linking-length of eps.
5. Reject groups with less than a user specified minimum number of particles.
6. Particles which are not bound to their group are removed from the group.
7. Reject groups with less than minimum number of particles.

We used a density threshold of $`200\overline{\rho }`$, a linking-length (eps) of $`1/640`$th of the box size or 1/5 the mean interparticle spacing, and a minimum halo size of eight particles. Using the simulation output at a redshift of $`z=10`$, this resulted in 2881 halos, with the largest halo consisting of 8475 particles, corresponding to a mass of $`4\times 10^8M_{\mathrm{}}`$ and the smallest with eight particles, corresponding to $`4\times 10^5M_{\mathrm{}}`$. The density cutoff was chosen somewhat arbitrarily, and changing its value does not significantly affect the overall results presented in this paper. For example, changing the density threshold from $`200\overline{\rho }`$ to $`86\overline{\rho }`$ did not alter the ensemble properties of the halos. Some of the halos identified by skid were subsequently rejected from the sample for being unbound, as described in §3.3. We have analyzed various properties of these halos and describe our results below.

### 3.2 Mass function

The distribution of halos masses can be expressed in terms of the mass function, $`f(M)`$, where $`f(M)dM`$ is the number density of halos of with mass between $`M`$ and $`M+dM`$. An analytic prediction for the mass function can be obtained using the Press-Schechter formalism (Press & Schechter (1973)).

The Press-Schechter formalism states that the fraction of the universe condensed into objects of mass $`>M`$ is

$$F(>M)=1\mathrm{erf}\left(\frac{\delta _c}{\sqrt{2}\sigma (M)}\right)$$
(3)
where $`\sigma (M)`$ is the rms density fluctuation smoothed over spheres of mass $`M`$, and $`\delta _c`$ is the critical overdensity. The critical overdensity is defined as follows: an object of density $`\rho `$ in a universe of average density $`\overline{\rho }`$ is collapsed when

$$\delta =\frac{\rho \overline{\rho }}{\overline{\rho }}>\delta _c.$$
(4)
We take $`\delta _c=1.69`$, the canonical value. The mass function then becomes

$$f(M)dM=\left|\frac{dF}{dM}\right|\frac{\overline{\rho }}{M}dM=\sqrt{\frac{2}{\pi }}\frac{\delta _c}{\sigma }\overline{\rho }\left|\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\sigma }{d\mathrm{ln}M}\right|\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{\delta _c^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right)\frac{dM}{M^2}.$$
(5)
Figure 2 shows the actual mass function of halos in the simulation compared to the predictions of the Press-Schecter formalism. Halos with positive binding energy were omitted from the calculation of the mass function as explained in Section 3.3. The results are in remarkably close agreement with the Press-Schechter prediction.

### 3.3 Halo energies

When skid calculates halos from the particle distributions, it removes unbound particles from the halos, so in principle, each halo should be gravitationally bound. The binding energy of particle $`i`$ to the rest of the halo is

$$E_i=m_i\left[\frac{1}{2}v_i^2+\underset{ji}{}\mathrm{\Phi }_j(r_{ij})\right]$$
(6)
where $`m_i`$ and $`m_j`$ are the masses of particle $`i`$ and particle $`j`$ respectively, $`v_i`$ is the velocity of particle $`i`$ with respect to the halo center of mass velocity, and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_j(r_{ij})`$ is the gravitational potential between particles $`i`$ and $`j`$. The gravitational potential has the general form $`\mathrm{\Phi }_j(r_{ij})=Gm_jf(r_{ij})`$, which admits a softened potential for particles pairs with small $`r_{ij}`$ (Hernquist & Katz (1989)).

The requirement for binding is that $`E_i<0`$. The binding energy for the halo as a whole is the sum of its gravitational potential energy and its kinetic energy. Thus,

$$E=K+W=\frac{1}{2}\underset{i}{}m_iv_i^2\frac{1}{2}\underset{i}{}\underset{ij}{}Gm_im_jf(r_{ij}).$$
(7)
The factor of $`\frac{1}{2}`$ in the potential energy is to account for double-counting the interactions between pairs of particles. Equation (7) can be rewritten as

$$E=\underset{i}{}E_i+\frac{1}{2}\underset{i}{}\underset{ij}{}Gm_im_jf(r_{ij})=\underset{i}{}E_i+|W|$$
(8)
which is greater than the sum of the individual binding energies of the particles. In other words, it is possible to have a halo where each particle is bound to the sum of all the other particles, but the halo as a whole is unbound. So, after skid has calculated the halos, the total binding energy of each halo is checked, and discarded from the sample if it is unbound. Out of the total of 2881 halos, 380 were rejected in this way, leaving 2501 bound halos.

The distribution in size of the 380 unbound halos is plotted in Figure 3. Note that the unbound halos are all quite small, the largest containing only 25 particles. This shows that our method of using skid to calculate halos is fairly robust, failing only at small halo sizes, which are intrinsically unstable to small perturbations. In the analysis of the remaining halo properties, calculations are done either as a function of mass, or neglecting all halos with less than 50 particles. Thus, the removal of these halos from the sample will not significantly affect our results.

Figure 4 is a plot of the energies of the halos versus their masses. The absolute values of the potential energy are plotted as squares and the absolute values of the total binding energy are plotted as crosses. The energies all seem to follow a power law of $`EM^{5/3}`$, as indicated by the solid line. This relation can be obtained analytically by supposing that the halos are the result of the collapse of spheres of uniform density. This is a reasonable assumption since the universe was initially very nearly uniform in density. If the density is constant, then the mass of a sphere of radius $`r`$ is

$$M(r)=\frac{4\pi \rho }{3}r^3.$$
(9)
The equation for the gravitational potential energy energy of a uniform sphere of density $`\rho `$ and mass $`M`$ is

$`W`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^R}\mathrm{\Phi }(r)\rho d^3r`$ (10)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _0^R}{\displaystyle \frac{GM(r)}{r}}\rho \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\pi r^2dr`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3GM^2}{5R}}`$
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{5}}GM^{5/3}\left({\displaystyle \frac{4\pi \rho }{3}}\right)^{1/3}.`$
Assuming that the halo is virialized, we have

$$E=K+W=\frac{1}{2}W+W=\frac{1}{2}W.$$
(11)
Thus, the total energy should obey the same scaling.

The dotted line represents $`1/2`$ the energy of the solid line. The total energies of the halos are all below this line, indicating that $`E>\frac{1}{2}W`$ in general. This means that the halos have not yet become virialized. This is also shown in Fig. 5, which shows the ratio between the kinetic energy and the potential energy. The solid line marks $`K=\frac{1}{2}|W|`$, which would indicate a virialized halo. Nearly all the halos have too high a kinetic energy for virialization.

### 3.4 Gas temperature

Assuming that the matter in the universe is dominated by cold dark matter, then the gas should trace the distribution of the dark matter. In particular, gas should fall into the potential wells of the dark matter halos and become shock heated to the virial temperature of the halo. We can estimate this temperature by assuming that the mean-square velocity of the gas is the same as the dark matter.

For an ideal gas, the temperature is related to the mean-square velocity by

$$v^2=\frac{3kT}{\mu m_p},$$
(12)
where $`k`$ is Boltzmann’s constant, $`T`$ is the temperature in Kelvin, $`m_p`$ is the proton mass, and $`\mu `$ is the mean molecular weight. This temperature, as a function of $`\mu `$, is plotted versus mass for each halo in Fig. 6. The value of $`\mu `$ will depend on the composition and ionization state of the gas.

As discussed in section 3.3, the kinetic energy of the halo follows a power law of $`KM^{5/3}`$. Since $`K=\frac{1}{2}Mv^2`$, the temperature should follow the relation

$$TM^{2/3}.$$
(13)
This is indicated by the solid line in Fig. 6. The temperatures follow this power law relation fairly well.

### 3.5 Halo profiles

We calculated the density profiles of the thirty most massive halos. The spherically averaged density as a function of radius for these halos, with the potential minimum as the center, is plotted in Figs. 7 and 8. The potential minimum was chosen over the center of mass because the potential minimum is more likely to be at the point of highest density.

Possible analytic fits to dark matter halo profiles are those due to Hernquist (1990) and Navarro, Frenk & White (1997, henceforth NFW). Avila-Reese, et al. (1999) proposed the following general form for the fitting formulae:

$$\rho (r)=\frac{\rho _0}{\frac{r}{r_s}\left(1+\frac{r}{r_s}\right)^{\beta 1}}$$
(14)
where $`\rho _0`$ and $`r_s`$ are scalings for the density and radius, respectively, and $`\beta `$ is a power-law index parameter explained as follows. When $`\beta =4`$ this corresponds to a Hernquist profile, and when when $`\beta =3`$ this corresponds to an NFW profile. We can also allow $`\beta `$ to be a free parameter. The asymptotic behavior of the profiles is

$$\rho \{\begin{array}{cc}r^1,\hfill & r/r_s1\hfill \\ r^\beta ,\hfill & r/r_s1.\hfill \end{array}$$
(15)
Thus, $`\beta `$ parametrizes the profile shape at at radii much larger than the scale length.

The fits to the NFW and Hernquist profiles are indicated in Figs. 7 and 8 by dotted and short dashed lines, respectively. A third model, allowing $`\beta `$ to be a free parameter in the fit, is indicated by a long dashed line. This fitted $`\beta `$ is displayed at the bottom of each profile plot. The scale radius $`r_s`$ for each of these three profiles is indicated by filled, fat, and thin triangles, respectively.

All three profiles are good fits to the data, and are indistiguishable. This is because the power-law slopes for all the halos are fairly close to $`2`$. Since each profile is a smoothly varying function, the power-law slope also varies smoothly from $`1`$ to $`\beta `$. One can easily fit the part of the profile with power-law slope $`2`$ to each halo profile. Note also that $`\beta 3.5`$ in all cases, intermediate to the NFW and Hernquist profile expectations. The close agreement of the fits can also be explained by the relatively large values of $`r_s`$ with respect to the sizes of the halos. The halos are only a few scale radii in size, so we are well below the regime where the halo profiles behave as $`\rho r^\beta `$.

### 3.6 Spin parameter

The spin parameter of a bound object is defined as

$$\lambda =\frac{J|E|^{1/2}}{GM^{5/2}}$$
(16)
where $`J`$ is the angular momentum, $`E=K+W`$ is the binding energy, $`G`$ is the gravitational constant, and $`M`$ is the mass. This is a dimensionless parameter that quantifies the amount of rotational support an object has. A value of $`\lambda 1`$ corresponds to nearly full rotational support, and is typical of spiral galaxies, while $`\lambda 0.05`$ is typical of elliptical galaxies, which are supported by velocity dispersion. Figure 9 is a plot of spin parameter versus mass for the halos in the simulation.

Mo, Mao & White (1998) found that the distribution of spin parameters of dark matter halos in galaxy formation simulations approximates a log-normal distribution, that is

$$p(\lambda )d\lambda =\frac{1}{\sqrt{2\pi }\sigma }\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{\mathrm{ln}^2(\lambda /\overline{\lambda })}{2\sigma ^2}\right]\frac{d\lambda }{\lambda }.$$
(17)
with fitting parameters of $`\overline{\lambda }=0.05`$ and $`\sigma _\lambda =0.5`$. The log-normal distribution is also a good fit for the data presented in this paper, as shown in Fig. 10. The simulation data is displayed as squares, and the log-normal fit to it is the solid line. The fitting parameters are $`\overline{\lambda }=0.043`$ and $`\sigma _\lambda =0.53`$, which is consistent with the results of Mo, Mao & White (1998).

The smallest halos in the simulation contain only eight particles. For a halo with so few particles, the spin parameter is not a particularly meaningful quantity. Since the most numerous halos in the simulation are the smallest ones, the distribution of $`\lambda `$ calculated above may not be particularly meaningful either. We recalculated the distribution of $`\lambda `$ for halos containing at least $`50`$ particles to determine the effect of excluding small halos. This is plotted as diamonds in Fig. 10, and the log-normal fit to it is the dashed line. The fitting parameters for these 389 halos is $`\overline{\lambda }=0.033`$ and $`\sigma _\lambda =0.52`$, indicating that the larger halos have systematically smaller spin parameters than smaller halos.

### 3.7 Halo shapes

A typical dark matter halo is not actually spherical, but is triaxial due to anisotropy in its velocity dispersion. Thus, the shape of a halo can be quantified by finding its best fitting ellipsoid. The three axes of the best fitting ellipsoid will be referred to as the major, intermediate, and minor axes, in decreasing order of size.

#### 3.7.1 Method of calculating ellipsoids

The best-fitting ellipsoid can be found by using the moment of inertia tensor, which is defined as

$`𝐈`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\begin{array}{ccc}\underset{i}{}m_i(y_i^2+z_i^2)& \underset{i}{}m_ix_iy_i& \underset{i}{}m_ix_iz_i\\ \underset{i}{}m_iy_ix_i& \underset{i}{}m_i(x_i^2+z_i^2)& \underset{i}{}m_iy_iz_i\\ \underset{i}{}m_iz_ix_i& \underset{i}{}m_iz_iy_i& \underset{i}{}m_i(x_i^2+y_i^2)\end{array}\right]`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}m_i\left(\left[\begin{array}{ccc}r_i^2& 0& 0\\ 0& r_i^2& 0\\ 0& 0& r_i^2\end{array}\right]\left[\begin{array}{ccc}x_i^2& x_iy_i& x_iz_i\\ y_ix_i& y_i^2& y_iz_i\\ z_ix_i& z_iy_i& z_i^2\end{array}\right]\right)`$ (28)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}m_i(r_i^2\mathrm{𝟏}𝐫_i𝐫_i)`$ (29)
where $`r_i=\sqrt{x_i^2+y_i^2+z_i^2}`$ is the distance of the $`i`$th particle to the center of the distribution of particles. The moment of inertia $`I`$ about an axis through the center of the distribution in the direction of the unit vector $`𝐧`$ is given by

$$I=𝐧𝐈𝐧.$$
(30)
Another property of the moment of inertia tensor is that the angular momentum $`𝐋`$ can be expressed as

$$𝐋=𝐈\omega .$$
(31)
Thus, the eigenvectors correspond to the axes about which the angular velocity and angular momentum are aligned and the eigenvalues are the corresponding moments of inertia.

Consider an ellipsoid of constant density centered at the origin with its axes along the $`x`$-, $`y`$-, and $`z`$-axes defined by

$$\frac{x^2}{a^2}+\frac{y^2}{b^2}+\frac{z^2}{c^2}1.$$
(32)
By symmetry, the moment of inertia tensor is already diagonalized, and the diagonal elements are the eigenvalues. It can be shown (through some rather tedious integration) that the diagonal elements are

$`I_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{5}}(b^2+c^2)`$
$`I_2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{5}}(a^2+c^2)`$
$`I_3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{M}{5}}(a^2+b^2)`$
where $`M`$ is the total mass of the ellipsoid. Using equation (21), we now have

$$\frac{M}{5}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}(b^2+c^2)& 0& 0\\ 0& (a^2+c^2)& 0\\ 0& 0& (a^2+b^2)\end{array}\right]=\frac{M}{5}(a^2+b^2+c^2)\mathrm{𝟏}\underset{i}{}m_i𝐫_i𝐫_i$$
(34)
which reduces to

$$\underset{i}{}m_i𝐫_i𝐫_i=\frac{M}{5}\left[\begin{array}{ccc}a^2& 0& 0\\ 0& b^2& 0\\ 0& 0& c^2\end{array}\right].$$
(35)
Thus, the axes of the best fitting ellipsoid can found by calculating the tensor

$$M_{\alpha \beta }=\underset{i}{}m_ix_{\alpha ,i}x_{\beta ,i}$$
(36)
and finding its eigenvalues and eigenvectors.

The simplest way of determining the halo shape is to use the center of mass as the center of the distribution and to sum over all the particles in the halo to calculate the tensor $`M_{\alpha \beta }`$. However, some halos found by the skid program include satellite halos or consist of two or more groups connected by a thin bridge. The center of mass for these halos may not actually lie in the center of the halo. In addition, ellipsoids calculated about the center of mass have systematically higher axial ratios – that is, they are more spheroidal in shape. This can be explained by the fact that skid tends to calculate halos within a spherical volume, regardless of the intrinsic shape of the halo. Thus, the calculated shape of the halo is more rounded out, so to speak.

A better approximation is to use the potential minimum as the center of the distribution and to sum over the inner part of the halo. We used an iterative method to fit an ellipsoid to half the mass of the halo. The procedure begins by finding the sphere centered at the potential minimum that contains half the mass of the halo. These particles are used to calculate an initial guess for the ellipsoid axes. Keeping the orientation and axial ratios of the ellipsoid fixed, a new ellipsoid is calculated which contains half the mass of the halo. The particles within this ellipsoid are used to calculate a new $`M_{\alpha \beta }`$ and a new guess for the ellipsoid is calculated. This procedure is repeated until the values of the axes converge. Dubinski and Carlberg (1991) employed a similar method to calculate halo shapes, but using particles within a fixed distance of the halo center rather than a fixed fraction of the mass. In order to leave out halos that are too small to have their shapes accurately calculated, we chose a lower cutoff to the halo size of 50 particles. There were 389 halos of this size.

#### 3.7.2 Ellipticities and triaxiality

Using the iterative procedure described above, we calculated the magnitude and orientation of the principal axes of each halo. Henceforth, we shall refer to the lengths of the major, intermediate, and minor axes as $`a`$, $`b`$, and $`c`$, respectively. The ellipticities of the halos,

$`ϵ_1`$ $`=`$ $`1b/a,`$
$`ϵ_2`$ $`=`$ $`1c/b,`$
are useful measures of the shapes. A perfectly spherical halo would have $`a=b=c`$, hence $`ϵ_1=ϵ_2=0.`$ An oblate halo would have the larger two axes equal to each other ($`a=b`$), hence $`ϵ_1=0`$ and $`ϵ_2>0`$. A prolate halo would have the smaller two axes equal to each other ($`b=c`$), hence $`ϵ_1>0`$ and $`ϵ_2=0`$. In general, however, a halo will be triaxial, meaning that there are no equalities between axis lengths.

Figure 11 is a plot showing the ellipticities of the halos. The diagonal line shows the division between prolate and oblate halos – prolate halos lie below the line, and oblate halos lie above it. By this criterion, there are 212 prolate halos and 177 oblate halos. Warren et al. (1992) also found more prolate than oblate halos in their simulations of dark matter halos at zero redshift at galaxy size scales (the smallest mass they considered was $`3\times 10^9M_{\mathrm{}}`$). They found this result to be independent of the initial power spectrum used, so it is reassuring that we obtain the same results for our simulation, although we use a different power spectrum and mass range.

We can also compare the prolateness/oblateness of halos by use of the triaxiality parameter $`T`$, which is defined as

$$T=\frac{a^2b^2}{a^2c^2}.$$
(37)
A halo that is purely prolate has $`b=c`$, so $`T=1`$. A halo that is purely oblate has $`a=b`$, so $`T=0`$. The dotted lines in Fig. 11 represent contours of constant $`T`$.

Figure 12 is a plot of $`T`$ versus halo mass. There does not appear to be any strong correlation between mass and triaxiality. However, there is a tendency at all masses for the triaxiality to be close to $`1`$. Figure 13 shows the distribution of the triaxiality parameter for all halos with at least 50 particles. The halos tend toward high values of $`T`$, another indication that prolate halos dominate. These two figures are qualitatively similar to Figs. 9a and 8 in Warren et al. (1992), indicating that our results are similar to theirs, despite the difference in mass scales and redshift.

#### 3.7.3 Angular momentum misalignment

Now that we have calculated the axes of the best-fit ellipsoids of the halos, we can consider the orientation with respect to the angular momentum. Since the ellipsoids were fit using half the mass of the halo, we also recalculate the angular momenta using the positions and velocities of the same particles that were used to calculate the ellipsoids. We find the cosine of the angles between the angular momentum and each of the principal axes by taking dot products.

Figure 14 shows the distribution of these angle cosines. The dotted, dashed, and solid lines show the distribution of the angle cosines between the major, intermediate, and minor axes of the halo, respectively. As we can see in Fig. 14, the angular momentum tends to be aligned with the minor axis of halos. This is consistent with observations of elliptical galaxies which indicate that the angular momentum vector tends to align with the the minor axis (Franx, et al. (1991)).

Kinematically, the angular momentum should align with either the major or minor axis because particles in a triaxial potential admit tube orbits only about these axes. In other words, particles may only circulate about either the major or the minor axis, causing the angular momentum of the system as a whole to align with these axes (Binney & Tremaine (1994)). However, most halos do not show alignment with the major axis. In fact, many have their angular momentum perpendicular to their major axis.

In addition, there are a number of halos whose angular momentum is aligned with the intermediate axis, even though this configuration is kinematically unstable. Warren et al. (1992) also observe this in their dark matter simulations, and suggest that this is caused by a long time scale for the realignment of orbits.

## 4 Summary

The major conclusion of that paper is that this N-body simulation of small scale structure formation at high redshift is similar to N-body simulations of large scale structure formation at at low redshift. The details can be summarized as follows:

1. The mass function of the halos can be well approximated by the Press-Schechter formalism.
2. The profile of the halos can be modeled equally well by either the NFW and Hernquist profiles.
3. The shapes of the halos are generally triaxial, with a tendency toward prolateness.
4. The average spin parameter of the halos is about $`0.04`$.
5. The angular momentum tends to align with the minor axis most often, and favors alignment with the intermediate axis over the major axis.

In fact, it would be surprising if the results were completely different from other N-body simulations, since they all model the gravitational collapse of objects from some primordial power spectrum of density fluctuations. The main difference is in the shape of the power spectrum, which changes as we go to smaller scales. This produces a corresponding change in the mass spectrum of objects that are collapsing.

The Press-Schechter formalism predicts how the mass spectrum of collapsed objects depends on the initial power spectrum. We find that the mass function matches the predictions of Press-Schechter remarkably well, even at the low mass end. This is consistent with previous work with N-body simulations at low redshift and large scales which have also shown good agreement with the Press-Schechter formalism (Efstathiou, et al. (1988); Kauffman & White (1993); Lacey & Cole (1994); Valageas, Lacey & Schaeffer (2000)).

The remaining halo properties described in this paper, including density profile, halo shape, and spin parameter, all are consistent with previous work with N-body simulations regardless of the power spectrum used. Some authors use scale invariant power spectra, but using a range of spectral indices: choices of $`2`$, $`1`$, and $`0`$ are typical (Cole & Lacey (1996); Warren, et al. (1992)). Some use a CDM spectrum or some variant (Mo, Mao, & White (1998)). Note that at the high redshifts studied in this paper, the dynamical evolution of a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM universe is the same as that of a pure CDM universe, since the matter density varies as $`(1+z)^3`$ while the vacuum energy density remains constant. However, the spectral index approaches $`3`$ on small scales, so we effectively choose a different power spectrum by considering small scales. Although the initial power spectrum used in this paper is different from previous work, the overall results on halo properties remains the same.

The shapes of the density profiles of the halos are consistent with both NFW and Hernquist profiles, which are based on studies of collapsed halos in cold dark matter simulations. Indeed, when the shape of the outer profile $`\beta `$ is allowed to be a free parameter, we find that $`3<\beta <4`$, intermediate to the NFW and Hernquist profiles.

The results for the spin parameter and shapes of halos are also consistent with large-scale structure simulations. The median and distribution of the spin parameter are both similar to the those found for large-scale simulations, i.e. $`\overline{\lambda }=0.043`$, with a log-normal distribution (Mo, Mao, & White (1998); Cole & Lacey (1996)). The predominance of prolate halo shapes also agrees with these other simulations (Warren, et al. (1992); Cole & Lacey (1996)), as well as the alignment of the angular momentum with the minor axis (Weil & Hernquist (1994); Warren, et al. (1992)). We also find that the angular momentum favors alignment with the intermediate axes over the major axis, as Warren et al. (1992) do.

We can infer from this simulation that dark matter halos on small scales at high redshift behave very similarly to halos on large scales at low redshift. This can help us understand high-redshift star formation by providing information on the dark matter environments in which the first stars formed. Further study using simulations such as this may shed light on the IMF of the first stars, and their subsequent fate. By adding additional physics to the simulation, such as gas physics and radiative transfer, we can study the nature of the first objects that formed in the universe.

This work was supported under an NSF Graduate Fellowship, by NASA Astrophysical Theory Grant NAG5-8727, and by NSF grants ACI96-19019 and AST-9803137.


text:
# Untitled Document

Dynamics of spin correlations
in the spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$ isotropic $`XY`$ chain
in a transverse field
O. Derzhko, T. Krokhmalskii, and J. Stolze

Institute for Condensed Matter Physics

1 Svientsitskii Str., L’viv–11, 79011, Ukraine

derzhko@icmp.lviv.ua krokhm@icmp.lviv.ua

Institut für Physik, Universität Dortmund

44221 Dortmund, Germany

stolze@physik.uni-dortmund.de

One of the simplest quantum spin systems is the spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$ $`XY`$ chain introduced by Lieb et al , who pointed out the relation between the spin model and noninteracting spinless fermions that makes many properties of the spin model amenable to analytic calculations. Dynamic spin correlations are of particular interest since they can be measured by neutron scattering or magnetic resonance techniques in a number of materials which are reasonably well described by different special cases of the spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$ $`XY`$ chain (e.g., CsH2PO4, PbHPO4, PrCl3, CsCuCl3 etc). Unfortunately, the calculation of dynamic spin correlations can be nontrivial even in the simple case of the $`XY`$ chain, and the complete wavevector and frequency dependences of the dynamic structure factors or the dynamic susceptibilities have been obtained only recently using a numerical approach . In what follows we present the results for the time–dependent two–spin correlation functions of the spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$ isotropic $`XY`$ chain in a transverse field obtained numerically and apply these findings to discuss the temperature dependence of the spin–spin relaxation time in PrCl3  which was not known heretofore due to lack of information about the correlation functions for the spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$ isotropic $`XY`$ chain.

We consider $`N`$ spins one–half governed by the following Hamiltonian

$$H=\mathrm{\Omega }\underset{n=1}{\overset{N}{}}+J\underset{n=1}{\overset{N1}{}}\left(s_n^xs_{n+1}^x+s_n^ys_{n+1}^y\right)$$

where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the transverse field and $`J`$ is the exchange interaction. Using the numerical approach explained in detail in Ref.  we compute the time–dependent two–spin correlation functions $`s_j^\alpha (t)s_{j+n}^\beta `$, $`\alpha \beta =xx,xy,zz`$. Here the angular brackets stand for the canonical thermodynamic average with the inverse temperature $`\beta =1/k_BT`$. In figure A

we show the numerical results for the time dependence of the real part of the $`xx`$ autocorrelation function for $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$, $`J=1`$ at different temperatures. In our numerical computations we take $`N=400`$, $`j=51`$. Downward and upward triangles, circles, and squares correspond to $`\beta =5,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.1},`$ and $`0.00001`$, respectively. We also plot the exact analytical result for infinite temperature $`\beta =0`$  by a solid curve. Dot–dashed, short–dashed, long–dashed, and dotted curves correspond to the asymptotic result  for $`\beta =5,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1},\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.1},`$ and $`0.00001`$, respectively. From figure A one can see an excellent agreement between the numerical and analytical results (only the slopes of asymptotics should be compared with numerical results). At finite temperatures $`s_j^x(t)s_j^x`$ decays exponentially (the logarithms of the asymptotic results have the same slopes as the logarithms of the computed correlation functions); with increasing temperature one observes Gaussian decay over a time interval of increasing length (the plotted data for $`\beta =0.00001`$ show that the correlation function at this temperature does not reach its asymptotic regime within the time range displayed in the figure A).

The time–dependent two–spin correlation functions yield the dynamic structure factors or the dynamic susceptibilities that can be measured in materials which are reasonably well described by the spin–$`\frac{1}{2}`$ $`XY`$ chain. As an application of our study on the time dependence of the spin correlations we reconsider the theoretical prediction for the temperature dependence of the spin–spin relaxation time in PrCl3 . The Pr–Pr interaction in this compound as derived from measurements of static quantities can be reasonably well described by the model considered here with the exchange interaction $`J/k_B=2.85`$ K and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$. The spin–spin relaxation time $`T_2`$ is related to the $`xx`$ time–dependent autocorrelation function

$$\frac{1}{T_2}_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\text{d}ts_j^x(t)s_j^x.$$

In figure B

we show the result of our long–chain calculation of the dependence of $`T_2`$ on temperature. $`T_2`$ is an increasing function of temperature and crosses over to a constant at about 1 K. The plateau in the temperature dependence of $`T_2`$ can be understood from the results presented in figure A. For the time range during which $`s_j^x(t)s_j^x`$ contributes appreciably to the integral, it does not depend on temperature for sufficiently high temperatures. As one can see in figure A the data for $`\beta 1`$ coincide in the region where $`s_j^x(t)s_j^x`$ has non–negligible values; the differences between high and infinite temperatures occur only at long times, where $`s_j^x(t)s_j^x`$ is already very small.

Qualitatively, our result for the temperature dependence is similar to that of an earlier short–chain calculation  and to the behaviour observed experimentally . However, there are significant discrepancies in the value of the crossover temperature. The short–chain calculations yields a crossover at less than 2.5 K; additional approximations (coarse–graining in the frequency $`\omega `$) were necessary to extrapolate from $`N=10,\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}12}`$ to $`N=\mathrm{}`$ . The experimental crossover temperature of 6 K is still much higher. This indicates (as already suspected earlier ) that while the static thermal behaviour of PrCl3 may be describable by the isotropic $`XY`$ chain with $`J/k_B=2.85`$ K, the dynamics is probably more complicated.


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# An estimate of a lower bound on the masses of mirror baryons

## Abstract

We consider the most favorable conditions to indirectly observe the mixing of ordinary and mirror hadrons in non-leptonic and weak radiative decays of hyperons. This allows us to set a lower bound on the masses of mirror baryons. This bound turns out to be impressively high, of the order of $`10^6`$GeV.

In this paper we shall obtain a lower bound on the masses of mirror hadrons under what are probably the most favorable conditions to indirectly observe such hadrons in low energy physics. Lee and Yang in their pioneering paper  about parity violation in nature discussed in detail the existence of mirror matter as a possible framework to help us understand such violation. Ever since, mirror matter has been discussed at different levels, including extensions of the minimal standard model . Not only hadrons and leptons (or quarks and leptons) might have mirror partners but the electroweak gauge bosons too would have mirror partners. The photon might be accompanied by a massless paraphoton, which however could not couple to ordinary fermions . Extensions of the standard model doubling the electroweak gauge group and the fermion content have been discussed in detail in the literature . Such extensions might provide a solution to the problem of strong violation of $`CP`$. Of all the possibilities considered the most attractive one and still in the spirit of Ref. , which we shall refer to as manifest mirror symmetry, is the one in which both ordinary matter (hadrons and leptons) and mirror matter (mirror hadrons and leptons) share the same strong and electromagnetic interactions. Other alternatives, even if they keep the same particle content, are intuitively less attractive.

Manifest mirror symmetry opens the possibility that mirror hadrons become observable in low energy physics through their mixing with ordinary hadrons. The reason for this is that, since they share strong and electromagnetic interactions with ordinary hadrons, even if the mixing angles are very small they still could lead to observable effects that might compete with weak interactions process. In previous papers  we studied how such mixing might mimic non-leptonic and weak radiative decays of hyperons (NLDH and WRDH, respectively). This mechanism, which we referred to as a priori mixing, might explain the $`|\mathrm{\Delta }I|=1/2`$ rule observed in such decays, in case (for some as yet unknown reason) the enhancement of the $`W`$-boson contributions to NLDH and WRDH could not be produced within the minimal standard model. We remind the reader that despite the effort invested in this direction no final answer to this problem has been produced so far, although of course the possibility of obtaining it remains quite open. If this last were to be the case then the data on NLDH and WRDH should be saturated by the $`W`$-boson predictions and then the competing a priori mixing contributions should be suppressed necessarily by reducing the mixing angles. It is this situation that will allow us to set a lower bound to the mass of mirror hadrons in the manifest case.

Unfortunately, the mixing of ordinary and mirror hadrons cannot be derived reliably starting at the quark level with a model, such as the one discussed by Barr, Chang, and Senjanović in Ref. , due to our current inability to perform QCD calculations in the non-perturbative regime of low energy physics. One is therefore forced to introduce an ansatz to derive these a priori mixing, as discussed in detail in Ref. . Nevertheless, at least for illustration purposes, mixing at the quark level can be shown to lead to such an ansatz .

We shall not repeat the details of the ansatz of Ref. . Instead, we shall discuss in more detail how the mixing angles between ordinary and mirror hadrons appear in the physical hadrons (mass eigenstates) when the mass matrices of hadrons are diagonalized. To be specific and to keep our analysis simple, we shall discuss only the proton and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$ system. This will be sufficient for our purposes.

In this system the rotation matrix $`R`$ to get the physical ordinary $`p_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{ph}}^+`$ and mirror $`\widehat{p}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mathrm{ph}}^+`$ is a $`4\times 4`$ matrix. It can be split into the product of two $`4\times 4`$ matrices, $`R=R^1R^0`$. $`R^0`$ contains the large Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa  angles and $`R^1`$ contains the necessarily small mixing angles that will connect both the ordinary and mirror hadrons. $`R^0`$ is block diagonal and it contains two non-zero $`2\times 2`$ submatrices on its diagonal. The upper-left block actually contains only the Cabibbo angle and operates to yield the flavor and parity eigenstates $`p_\mathrm{s}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{s}^+`$. If no mirror hadrons exist at all this would be reduced to two dimensions and the result would be

$$\left(\begin{array}{cc}\overline{p}_\mathrm{s}& \overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{}^{+}{}_{\mathrm{s}}{}^{}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cc}m_p^0& 0\\ 0& m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}p_\mathrm{s}\\ \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{s}^+\end{array}\right)$$
(1)
The lower-right block operates analogously to yield the mirror flavor and parity eigenstates $`p_\mathrm{p}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{p}^+`$ in a similar $`2\times 2`$ matrix. So, in 4 dimensions the result of applying $`R^0`$ is

$$\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\overline{p}_\mathrm{s}& \overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{}^{+}{}_{\mathrm{s}}{}^{}& \overline{p}_\mathrm{p}& \overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{}^{+}{}_{\mathrm{p}}{}^{}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccc}m_p^0& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& \widehat{m}_p^0& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& \widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}p_\mathrm{s}\\ \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{s}^+\\ p_\mathrm{p}\\ \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{p}^+\end{array}\right)$$
(2)
The indices s and p stand for positive and negative parity, respectively, and strong flavor is identified by the particle symbol. The case (2) contemplates ordinary and mirror matter still disconnected. When both worlds are connected then the initial $`4\times 4`$ mass matrix contains two $`2\times 2`$ off-diagonal submatrices. In this case the action of $`R^0`$ yields

$$\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\overline{p}_\mathrm{s}& \overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{s}^+& \overline{p}_\mathrm{p}& \overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_\mathrm{p}^+\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccc}m_p^0& 0& \mathrm{\Delta }_{11}& \mathrm{\Delta }_{12}\\ 0& m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0& \mathrm{\Delta }_{21}& \mathrm{\Delta }_{22}\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_{11}& \mathrm{\Delta }_{21}& \widehat{m}_p^0& 0\\ \mathrm{\Delta }_{12}& \mathrm{\Delta }_{22}& 0& \widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}p_\mathrm{s}\\ \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{s}^+\\ p_\mathrm{p}\\ \mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{p}^+\end{array}\right)$$
(3)
instead of (2). We are neglecting CP violation and therefore the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$ can be taken as real numbers. Notice that the zero entries in the two diagonal submatrices still remain***This is a very important point. The CKM rotations cannot lead to flavor and parity violation in strong and electromagnetic interactions. So, for example, when these rotations are performed at the hadron level, as initially proposed by Cabibbo, it is indispensable that the matrix containing magnetic form factors remains diagonal along with the mass matrix. This is possible because CKM rotations connect one kind of matter with itself only and flavor and parity eigenstates can be defined after CKM rotations ($`p_\mathrm{s}`$, etc.). This is not the case for $`R^1`$ and the reason is that it only connects worlds of different kind.. However, $`R^0`$ does affect the two off-diagonal $`2\times 2`$ submatrices in the initial mass matrix. The effect of $`R^0`$ on them is already incorporated in the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$. The role of the rotation $`R^1`$ is to finally diagonalize the full $`4\times 4`$ mass matrix of Eq. (3) and it is this final step that leads to the physical $`p`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^+`$, which contain flavor and parity mixing.

$`R^1`$ is in principle a complicated matrix with many angles. However, one expects that the connection between the ordinary and the mirror worlds be very small, because the mirror world would be far away (that is, with very heavy masses). Therefore, one must necessarily require the inequality

$$\widehat{m}_p^0,\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij},m_p^0,m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0$$
(4)
This allows us then to keep $`R^1`$ to first order in the angles, namely,

$$(R^1)_{ij}\delta _{ij}+ϵ_{ij}$$
(5)
where $`ϵ_{ij}=ϵ_{ji}`$, $`\delta _{ij}`$ is the Kronecker delta, and $`i,j=1,\mathrm{},4`$. There are only six relevant angles in $`R^1`$.

The action of $`R^1`$ upon the matrix $`M`$ in the sandwich of (3) leads to a diagonal matrix $`M_D`$, i. e., $`R^1MR_{}^{1}{}_{}{}^{}=M_D`$, sandwiched between the physical states and whose eigenvalues are the physical masses, namely,

$$\left(\begin{array}{cccc}\overline{p}_{\mathrm{ph}}& \overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mathrm{ph}}^+& \overline{\widehat{p}}_{\mathrm{ph}}& \overline{\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mathrm{ph}}^+}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{cccc}m_p& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& \widehat{m}_p& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& \widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{c}p_{\mathrm{ph}}\\ \mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{ph}}^+\\ \widehat{p}_{\mathrm{ph}}\\ \widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mathrm{ph}}^+\end{array}\right)$$
(6)
where

$$p_{\mathrm{ph}}=p_\mathrm{s}+ϵ_{12}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{s}^++ϵ_{13}p_\mathrm{p}+ϵ_{14}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{p}^+$$
(8)
$$\mathrm{\Sigma }_{\mathrm{ph}}^+=\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{s}^+ϵ_{12}p_\mathrm{s}+ϵ_{23}p_\mathrm{p}+ϵ_{24}\mathrm{\Sigma }_\mathrm{p}^+$$
(9)
and analogous expressions for $`\widehat{p}_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ and $`\widehat{\mathrm{\Sigma }}_{\mathrm{ph}}^+`$. This diagonalization yields 16 equations. Keeping the lowest relevant order in each equation, remembering that $`\widehat{m}_p^0`$ and $`\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0`$ are order zero and $`ϵ_{ij}`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$, $`m_p^0`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0`$ are first order, one obtains $`m_pm_p^0`$, $`m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0`$, $`\widehat{m}_p\widehat{m}_p^0`$, $`\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0`$, and

$$m_p^0ϵ_{12}+m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{12}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}ϵ_{13}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{22}ϵ_{14}+(\mathrm{\Delta }_{11}+\widehat{m}_p^0ϵ_{13})ϵ_{23}+(\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}+\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{14})ϵ_{24}=0$$
(11)
$$m_p^0ϵ_{12}+m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{12}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{11}ϵ_{23}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}ϵ_{24}+(\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}+\widehat{m}_p^0ϵ_{23})ϵ_{13}+(\mathrm{\Delta }_{22}+\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{24})ϵ_{14}=0$$
(12)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{11}+\widehat{m}_p^0ϵ_{13}=0$$
(13)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}+\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{14}=0$$
(14)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}+\widehat{m}_p^0ϵ_{23}=0$$
(15)
$$\mathrm{\Delta }_{22}+\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{24}=0$$
(16)
$$\widehat{m}_p^0ϵ_{34}+\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}^0ϵ_{34}=0$$
(17)
Eq. (12) is just a rearrangement of Eq. (11), this rearrangement will be useful for a later discussion. The remaining five equations just repeat Eqs. (1317). From all these equations and still to lowest order, one obtains

$$|ϵ_{12}|=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{11}ϵ_{23}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}ϵ_{24}}{m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}m_p}\right|$$
(19)
$$|ϵ_{12}|=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{22}ϵ_{14}+\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}ϵ_{13}}{m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}m_p}\right|$$
(20)
$$|ϵ_{13}|=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{11}}{\widehat{m}_p}\right|$$
(21)
$$|ϵ_{14}|=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}}{\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}}\right|$$
(22)
$$|ϵ_{23}|=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{21}}{\widehat{m}_p}\right|$$
(23)
$$|ϵ_{24}|=\left|\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_{22}}{\widehat{m}_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}}\right|$$
(24)
and $`ϵ_{34}0`$. The ordering of these equations corresponds to the ordering of Eqs. (An estimate of a lower bound on the masses of mirror baryons).

We shall need absolute values only. The angles $`ϵ_{12}`$, $`ϵ_{14}`$, and $`ϵ_{23}`$ may give observable effects in NLDH and WRDH. Their values were obtained in Refs.  and , assuming that the mixings of Eqs. (An estimate of a lower bound on the masses of mirror baryons) give contributions that saturate the corresponding NLDH and WRDH available data. These are the most favorable conditions to observe the mixing with mirror hadrons. The contributions of the $`W`$-boson were assumed not to be enhanced, i. e., its $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ contributions were assumed to be at the same level of its $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=3/2`$ contributions and, accordingly, were neglected.

The magnitudes of the angles obtained are

$$|ϵ_{12}|=(4.9\pm 2.0)\times 10^6$$
(25)
$$|ϵ_{14}|=(0.22\pm 0.09)\times 10^6$$
(26)
$$|ϵ_{23}|=(0.26\pm 0.09)\times 10^6$$
(27)
In these last two references these angles were identified as $`\sigma `$, $`\delta `$, and $`\delta ^{}`$, respectively.

Notice that $`|ϵ_{12}|`$ is an order of magnitude larger than $`|ϵ_{14}|`$ and $`|ϵ_{23}|`$. The angles $`|ϵ_{13}|`$ and $`|ϵ_{24}|`$ have not been determined. However, we expect them to be at most of the same order of magnitude as the first three. To obtain a lower bound on mirror baryon masses we must assume that $`|ϵ_{13}|`$ and/or $`|ϵ_{24}|`$ are of the order of magnitude of $`|ϵ_{12}|`$ namely, $`|ϵ_{13}||ϵ_{12}|`$ and/or $`|ϵ_{24}||ϵ_{12}|`$. Looking back at Eqs. (19) and (20) we may conclude then that

$$\frac{|\mathrm{\Delta }_{ab}|}{m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}m_p}1$$
(28)
where the pair of indices $`ab`$, take the values 12 or 21. To get Eq. (28) notice that the first summands in Eqs. (19) and (20) involve the smaller angles $`|ϵ_{14}|`$ and $`|ϵ_{23}|`$ of Eqs. (26) and (27). If these summands were to dominate the numerators of Eqs. (19) and (20) then the indices $`ab`$ would take the values 11 or 22 and the right hand side of (28) would become 10. This option leads to a higher lower bound and we discard it, accordingly.

Using the value of the mass difference $`m_{\mathrm{\Sigma }^+}m_p0.25\mathrm{GeV}`$, Eq. (28) gives $`|\mathrm{\Delta }_{12}|0.25\mathrm{GeV}`$. Substituting this into Eq. (22) and using the central value of Eq. (27) we obtain an order of magnitude lower bound for $`\widehat{m}_p`$,

$$\widehat{m}_p𝒪(10^6\mathrm{GeV}).$$
(29)
From Eq. (23) a similar bound is obtained.

At this point it is important to emphasize in what sense Eq. (29) is to be understood as a lower bound. So far, it is possible to assume that the $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}`$ of Eq. (28) may become smaller, to the extent $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}0`$. Then the mirror and the ordinary baryons become decoupled. Of course, once decoupled one cannot set any sort of lower bound on mirror baryon masses using information of the ordinary baryon world. This situation corresponds to requiring that mirror matter does not give observable effects in our ordinary matter world. Eq. (29) is to be understood in the opposite sense. That is, what values of the masses of mirror baryons would lead to observable effects in our world?. This clearly requires $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{ij}0`$ as used above and then Eq. (29) tells us that a value of below the bound of Eq. (29) may lead to effects in NLDH and WRDH which exceed the level experimentally observed for these decays, even the equality sign exceeds the level predicted by the $`W`$ boson when the observed enhancement of its $`\mathrm{\Delta }I=1/2`$ contributions is assumed to arise within the minimal standard model. It is in this sense that Eq. (29) represents a lower bound.

To our knowledge this is the only available lower bound on the mass of mirror hadrons. Other bounds on mirror matter refer to the values of their mixing angle with ordinary matter. Such bounds, from precision tests of the standard model, were thoroughly discussed by Langacker, Luo, and Mann in Ref. , but no attempt was made there to get bounds on masses of mirror fermions. The bounds for the mixing angles obtained there are around $`3\times 10^2`$, which are much too high compared with Eqs. (25)–(27).

Besides the (rather trivial) way to avoid the lower bound of Eq. (29) that we just discussed, one other way to avoid it is by relaxing the manifest mirror symmetry assumption that we made. Our bound depends crucially on the assumption that mirror matter shares the same strong and electromagnetic (e.m.) interactions with ordinary matter. The question arises then if it is possible to keep such manifest mirror symmetry while making mirror matter much heavier than ordinary matter. We cannot give a rigorous answer to this question. However, symmetry breaking scenarios are conceivable that allow breaking mirror symmetry without affecting the strong and e.m. effective couplings in the mirror sector. The model of Ref.  provides useful guidance in this respect. This model is conceived at the quark level. But, as we discussed in Ref.  our phenomenological group-theoretic ansatz of Ref.  can be qualitatively derived from a quark level approach. Using the model of Ref.  one can show that after breaking mirror (in this case left-right) symmetry one can reconstruct the e.m. current operator of physical quarks as a proper flavor-conserving four-vector which couples to ordinary and mirror physical matter with common charges. Also, since the QCD interactions are described by the same $`\mathrm{SU}(3)_\mathrm{C}`$ in direct product with the electroweak sector, the strong interactions of mirror physical hadrons remain the same ones of ordinary hadrons, after mirror matter was made much heavier. Therefore, the answer to the previous question is qualitatively in the affirmative.

The lower bound of Eq. (29) is impressively high. It means that producing mirror matter on earth is way far into the future. Even if one is willing to abandon the manifest mirror symmetry assumption (and allowing mirror masses to become smaller) would not help, because the coupling through strong and e.m. interactions to ordinary matter would be greatly reduced and, since machines on earth would be made out of ordinary matter, it would still be very difficult to produce mirror matter with them. Also, the bound of Eq. (29) means that mirror matter may not be a very good candidate for dark matter in the universe , although there always exists the possibility of detecting it in cosmic rays. Whatever the real situation may be, the possibility exists that mirror matter may give unwanted effects in low energy physics if it is too light, and this is what makes (29) a lower bound.

We would like to thank CONACyT (Mexico) for partial support.


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# Photometric Constraints on Chemical Evolution Models of Irregular Galaxies

## 1. Introduction

Irregular galaxies are metal poor systems whose oxygen deficiency can be explained by an IMF with a larger fraction of low-mass stars relative to the solar vicinity IMF, but similar to that found in globular clusters (Carigi, Colín, & Peimbert 1999, CCP; Carigi & Peimbert 2001, CP). In both papers, the chemical evolution of three irregular galaxies and an average galaxy called “typical irregular galaxy” are discussed by models for three ages: $`10^8`$, $`10^9`$, and $`10^{10}`$ yr and different factors $`r`$ that indicate the relative excess of sub-stellar objects ($`m<0.1`$ M$`_{}`$). The lack of abundance determinations for other elements besides O, or an estimation of gas mass fraction, prevented the authors to discriminate which of these models ($`r`$, age) is most appropriate.

This work explores whether existing photometric data for these galaxies and predictions from population synthesis models (Carigi & Bruzual 2000) can indicate the chemical history of these irregular galaxies, under the CCP and CP chemical evolution models.

## 2. Results and Discussion

Carigi & Bruzual (2000) adopt IMF (or factor $`r`$) and $`Z(t)`$ from closed-box models with continuous or bursting star formation rates.

($`UB`$) and ($`BV`$) colors evolved according to different spectral evolution models and color data suggest that both, NGC 1560 and NGC 2366 have been forming stars for the last 10 Gyr. The case I Zw 18 is different, its observed colors are consistent with an age between $`10^8`$ and $`10^9`$ yr, certainly lower than for NGC 1560 and NGC 2366.

For the Typical Irregular Galaxy the $`(UB)`$ color is bluer for a given $`(BV)`$ than expected from continuous star formation models. This may also indicate that star formation in these systems occurs in bursts. After each burst of star formation, a galaxy becomes bluer (especially in $`(UB)`$) due to the increase in the number of massive main sequence. CCP models with bursting SFR can explain the bluest galaxies in the sample, as well as the O abundance of this system.

We compares observed colors of several Local Group dwarf irregular galaxies, with models for NGC 1560, the best known galaxy in our sample. Again, observed colors are consistent with the predictions from chemical evolution models $`10^9`$ and $`10^{10}`$ yr old, although some galaxies show $`(BV)`$ colors redder than expected.

## 3. Conclusions

In this work we have explored the color behavior of stellar populations that evolve according to chemical evolution models. Our main conclusions are:

$``$ At a given age, the color predicted for a typical irregular galaxy is independent of the fraction of sub-stellar objects. Therefore, color data helps to discriminate model age but not $`r`$.

$``$ Based on available photometric data, models with fast chemical enrichment (age less than $`10^9`$ yr) are discarded for most irregular galaxies. These populations are too young to reach the observed colors. The exception is I Zw 18, whose favored age is between $`10^8`$ and $`10^9`$ yr.

$``$ Although the age of the dominant stellar population in these galaxies is unknown, photometric models can be used to arrange these systems on an age sequence based on observed colors. We have found a tendency of unknown origin for the $`(BV)`$ color to be matched by stellar populations of higher $`Z`$ than the $`(UB)`$ color, at constant age. Equivalently, $`(UB)`$ implies younger ages, at a given metallicity, than $`(BV)`$.

$``$ At a given age, color and abundance ratios are almost independent of the fraction of sub-stellar objects.

## References

Carigi, L. & Bruzual, G. 2000, in preparation

Carigi, L., Colín, P., & Peimbert, M. 1999, ApJ, 514, 787 (CCP)

Carigi, L. & Peimbert, M. 2001, submitted Rev. Mex. Astron. Astrofis. (CP)


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# FIRES at the VLT: Measuring the Rest-Frame V-Band Luminosity of Galaxies from z∼3 to Now

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