text:
# Fermi co-ordinates and relativistic effects in non-inertial frames

## 1 Introduction

In this paper I review some recent results which have led to progress in the understanding of relativistic effects seen by local observers arbitrarily moving in flat or curved space-time. Some technical details given in the cited papers are omitted here, but some conceptual details are explained in a slightly different and perhaps more illuminating way. I discuss only classical effects, not quantum effects, because quantum physics in non-inertial frames and curved space-time is not yet completely understood.

The proper co-ordinates of an observer determined by his trajectory in space-time are the so-called Fermi co-ordinates and they should be used in order to describe physical effects seen by him. The main point of this paper is the fact that two observers at different positions belong to different Fermi frames even if there is no relative motion between them. As I discuss later, this fact was not recognized in many previous papers, which led to several misinterpretations and paradoxes. As I show in the paper, the correct interpretation of Fermi co-ordinates leads to several results which demonstrate that acceleration and rotation are less important than it was previously thought, because it appears that for many instantaneous physical effects only the instantaneous position and velocity are relevant.

## 2 Fermi co-ordinates

In physics, all dynamical equations of motion are certain differential equations that describe certain quantities as functions of space-time points. Space-time points are parametrized by their co-ordinates. It is convenient to write the equations of motion (as well as other related equations) in a form which is manifestly covariant with respect to general co-ordinate transformations. When one solves the equations, one must use some specific co-ordinates. The covariance provides that one can use any co-ordinates he wants, because later he can easily transform the results to any other co-ordinates. Therefore, it is convenient to choose co-ordinates that simplify the technicalities of the physical problem considered.

The general covariance is often interpreted as a statement that “physics does not depend on the co-ordinates chosen”. However, this is not so. The choice of co-ordinates is more than a matter of convenience. The main purpose of theoretical physics is to predict what will be observed under given circumstances. The main lesson we have learned from Lorentz co-ordinates is the fact that what an observer observes (time intervals, space intervals, components of a tensor, …) depends on how the observer moves. Lorentz co-ordinates are proper co-ordinates of an observer that moves inertially in flat space-time. Fermi co-ordinates are the generalization of Lorentz co-ordinates to arbitrary motion in arbitrary space-time. If one is interested in how a physical system looks like to a specific observer, one must transform the results to the corresponding Fermi co-ordinates.

Fermi co-ordinates are determined by the (time-like) trajectory of the observer, by the rotation of the observer with respect to a local inertial observer and by the properties of space-time itself. The general geometrical construction of Fermi co-ordinates is well established . Here I present the most important properties of Fermi co-ordinates:

1. Fermi co-ordinates are chosen such that the position of the observer is given by $`x^\mu =(t,0,0,0)`$, where $`t`$ is the time measured by a clock co-moving with the observer.
2. The metric expressed in Fermi co-ordinates has the property

$$g_{\mu \nu }(t,0,0,0)=\eta _{\mu \nu }.$$
(1)
3. The connections $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\beta \gamma }^\alpha `$ vanish at $`(t,0,0,0)`$ if and only if the trajectory is a geodesic and there is no rotation.

The general geometrical construction of Fermi co-ordinates is not very useful for practical calculations. However, in flat space-time, Fermi co-ordinates can be constructed in an alternative way, more useful for practical calculations . Here I present a very elegant form of this construction .

Let $`S`$ be a Lorentz frame and let $`S^{}`$ be the Fermi frame of the observer whose 3-velocity is $`u^i(t^{})\text{u}(t^{})`$, as seen by an observer in $`S`$. In general, $`S^{}`$ can also rotate, which can be described by the rotation matrix $`A_{ji}(t^{})=A_j^i(t^{})`$. The co-ordinate transformation between these two frames is given by

$$x^\mu =_0^t^{}f_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}}^\mu (t^{},0;\text{u}(t^{}))𝑑t^{}+_Cf_i^\mu (t^{},\text{x}^{};\text{u}(t^{}))𝑑x^i,$$
(2)
where

$$f_\nu ^\mu =\left(\frac{f^\mu }{x^\nu }\right)_{\text{u}=\text{const}},$$
(3)
and

$$x^\mu =f^\mu (t^{},\text{x}^{};\text{u})$$
(4)
denotes the ordinary Lorentz transformation, i.e. the transformation between two Lorentz frames specified by the constant relative velocity u. Explicitly,

$`f_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}}^0=\gamma ,f_j^0=\gamma u_j,f_{\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0}}^i=\gamma u^i,`$
$`f_j^i=\delta _j^i+{\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma }{\text{u}^2}}u^iu_j,`$ (5)
where $`u^j=u_j`$, $`\text{u}^2=u^iu^i`$, $`\gamma =1/\sqrt{1\text{u}^2}`$ are evaluated at $`t^{}`$. In (2), $`C`$ is an arbitrary curve with constant $`t^{}`$, starting from $`0`$ and ending at $`A_j^i(t^{})x^j`$. The rotation matrix satisfies the differential equation

$$\frac{dA_{ij}}{dt}=A_i^k\omega _{kj},$$
(6)
where $`\omega _{ik}=\epsilon _{ikl}\omega ^l`$, $`\epsilon _{123}=1`$ and $`\omega ^i(t^{})`$ is the angular velocity as seen by an observer in $`S`$. The Fermi co-ordinates $`x^\mu `$ are constructed such that the space origins of $`S`$ and $`S^{}`$ coincide at $`t=t^{}=0`$.

The metric tensor in $`S^{}`$ is

$`g_{ij}^{}=\delta _{ij},g_{0j}^{}=(𝝎^{}\times \text{x}^{})_j,`$
$`g_{00}^{}=c^2\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{\text{a}^{}\text{x}^{}}{c^2}}\right)^2(𝝎^{}\times \text{x}^{})^2,`$ (7)
where

$$\omega ^i=\gamma (\omega ^i\mathrm{\Omega }^i),a^i=\gamma ^2\left[a^i+\frac{1}{\text{u}^2}(\gamma 1)(\text{u}\text{a})u^i\right],$$
(8)
$`\mathrm{\Omega }^i`$ is the time-dependent Thomas precession frequency

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_i=\frac{1}{2\text{u}^2}(\gamma 1)\epsilon _{ikj}(u^ka^ju^ja^k),$$
(9)
and $`a^i=du^i/dt`$ is the time-dependent acceleration.

In general space-time, instead of a closed formula (2), one can find the transformation between two Fermi frames in the form

$$x^\mu =f_\nu ^\mu x^\nu +f_{\nu \alpha }^\mu x^\nu x^\alpha +\mathrm{},$$
(10)
where it is assumed that the two observers have the same position at $`t=t^{}=0`$. One can show  that the quantity

$$f_\nu ^\mu =\left(\frac{x^\mu }{x^\nu }\right)_{x=x^{}=0}$$
(11)
is again given by (2), where $`u^i=dx^i/dt`$ is the velocity of the observer in $`S^{}`$ as seen by the observer in $`S`$, at the instant when the two observers have the same position.

From Property 2 we see that the space co-ordinates $`x^i`$ are a generalization of Cartesian co-ordinates. However, this does not imply that an observer is not allowed to use polar co-ordinates, for example. The most general co-ordinate transformations that correspond merely to a redefinition of the co-ordinates of the same physical observer are the so-called restricted internal transformations , i.e. the transformations of the form

$$t^{}=f^0(t),x^i=f^i(x^1,x^2,x^3),$$
(12)
where $`t,x^i`$ are Fermi co-ordinates. The quantities $`g_{00}dt^2`$ and

$$dl^2=g_{ij}dx^idx^j$$
(13)
do not change under restricted internal transformations. In order to describe physical effects as seen by a local observer, one must use Fermi co-ordinates modulo restricted internal transformations. For simplicity, in the rest of the paper I use Fermi co-ordinates.

Two observers with different trajectories have different Fermi frames. In particular, this implies that even if there is no relative motion between two observers, they belong to different frames if they do not have the same position. As we shall see, this fact was not realized in many previous papers, which led to many misinterpretations. At first sight, this fact contradicts the well-known fact that two inertial observers in flat space-time may be regarded as belonging to the same Lorentz frame if there is no relative motion between them. However, this is because their Fermi frames (with the space origins at their positions) are related by a translation of the space origin, which is a restricted internal transformation. In general, for practical purposes, two observers can be regarded as belonging to the same Fermi frame if there is no relative motion between them and the other observer is close enough to the first one, in the sense that the metric expressed in Fermi co-ordinates of the first observer does not depart significantly from $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ at the position of the second one. It is an exclusive property of Minkowski co-ordinates, among other Fermi co-ordinates in flat or curved space-time, that the metric is equal to $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ everywhere. This implies that two observers at different positions but with zero relative velocity may be regarded as belonging to the same co-ordinate frame only if they move inertially in flat space-time.

## 3 Relativistic contraction and the rate of clocks

In this section I study relativistic contraction and the rate of clocks as seen by an observer in flat space-time. As seen in the preceding section, the explicit co-ordinate transformation that determines the relevant Fermi frame is available for flat space-time.

For motivation, let us first review the problems  of the standard resolution  of the Ehrenfest paradox. We study a rotating ring in a rigid non-rotating circular gutter with radius $`r`$. One introduces the co-ordinates of the rotating frame $`S^{}`$

$$\phi ^{}=\phi \omega t,r^{}=r,z^{}=z,t^{}=t,$$
(14)
where $`\phi `$, $`r`$, $`z`$, $`t`$ are cylindrical co-ordinates of the inertial frame $`S`$ and $`\omega `$ is the angular velocity. The metric in $`S^{}`$ is given by

$$ds^2=(c^2\omega ^2r^2)dt^22\omega r^2d\phi ^{}dt^{}dr^2r^2d\phi ^2dz^2.$$
(15)
It is generally accepted that the space line element should be calculated by the formula

$$dl^2=\gamma _{ij}^{}dx^idx^j,i,j=1,2,3,$$
(16)
where

$$\gamma _{ij}^{}=\frac{g_{0i}^{}g_{0j}^{}}{g_{00}^{}}g_{ij}^{}.$$
(17)
This leads to the circumference of the ring

$$L^{}=_0^{2\pi }\frac{r^{}d\phi ^{}}{\sqrt{1\omega ^2r^2/c^2}}=\frac{2\pi r^{}}{\sqrt{1\omega ^2r^2/c^2}}\gamma (r^{})2\pi r^{}.$$
(18)
The circumference of the same ring as seen from $`S`$ is $`L=2\pi r=2\pi r^{}`$. Since the ring is constrained to have the same radius $`r`$ as the same ring when it does not rotate, $`L`$ is not changed by the rotation, but the proper circumference $`L^{}`$ is larger than the proper circumference of the non-rotating ring. This implies that there are tensile stresses in the rotating ring. The problem is that it is assumed here that (14) defines the proper frame of the whole ring. This implies that an observer on the ring sees that the circumference is $`L^{}=\gamma L`$. The circumference of the gutter seen by him cannot be different from the circumference of the ring seen by him, so the observer on the ring sees that the circumference of the relatively moving gutter is larger than the proper circumference of the gutter, whereas we expect that he should see that it is smaller.

This problem resolves when one realizes that (14) does not define the proper frame of the ring. Each point on the ring belongs to a different Fermi frame. The co-ordinates (14) are actually Fermi co-ordinates (modulo a restricted internal transformation) of an observer that rotates in the centre of the ring. However, this raises another problem. If (16) is the correct definition of the space line element, then the observer that rotates in the centre should see that the circumference of the gutter is larger than the proper circumference of the gutter by a factor $`\gamma (r^{})`$. However, $`\omega r^{}/c`$ can be arbitrarily large, so $`\gamma (r^{})`$ can be not only arbitrarily large, but also even imaginary. On the other hand, we know from everyday experience that the apparent velocity $`\omega r^{}`$ of stars, due to our rotation, can exceed the velocity of light, but we see neither a contraction nor an elongation of the stars observed. This implies that the definition of the space line element (16) is not always appropriate. In , (16) is derived by defining the space line element through a measuring procedure that lasts a finite time, so, in general, this formula is not appropriate for a definition of the instantaneous length. In flat space-time, as shown in , if physics is described by Fermi co-ordinates modulo restricted internal transformations, a more appropriate definition of the space line element is (13).

Using the co-ordinate transformation (2), one can study the relativistic contraction in the same way as in the conventional approach with Lorentz frames. One assumes that two ends of a body are seen to have the same time co-ordinate. From (2) and (2) one can easily see that the co-ordinate transformation is linear in $`x^i`$. As demonstrated in more detail in , it implies that an arbitrarily accelerated and rotating observer sees equal lengths of other differently moving objects as an inertial observer whose instantaneous position and velocity are equal to that of the arbitrarily accelerated and rotating observer.

Using (2), one can also study the rate of clocks as seen by various observers. In particular, one can study the twin paradox for various motions of the observers. However, it is more interesting to study not only the time shift after the two differently moving observers eventually meet, but also the continuous changes of the time shifts during the motion. As can be seen from (2), it is the time dependence (not the space dependence) of the co-ordinate transformation that significantly differs from the ordinary Lorentz transformations. One cannot invert (2) simply by putting $`u^iu^i`$. Therefore, inertial and non-inertial observers see quite different continuous changes of the time shift.

Here I present the results for uniform circular motion, derived in . Assume that there are three clocks. One is at rest in $`S`$, so it moves inertially. The other two are moving around a circle with the radius $`R`$ and have the velocity $`\omega R`$ in the counter-clockwise direction, as seen by the observer in $`S`$. The relative angular distance between these two non-inertial clocks is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _0`$, as seen in $`S`$. The inertial observer will see that the two non-inertial clocks lapse equally fast, so I choose that he sees that they show the same time. He will see the clock rate $`t=\gamma t^{}`$, where $`\gamma =1/\sqrt{1\omega ^2R^2/c^2}`$. The observer co-moving with one of the non-inertial clocks will not see that the other non-inertial clock shows the same time as his clock. He will see the constant time shift given by the equation

$$\gamma \omega (t^{\prime \prime }t^{})=\beta ^2\mathrm{sin}(\gamma \omega (t^{\prime \prime }t^{})+\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _0),$$
(19)
where $`\beta ^2\omega ^2R^2/c^2`$ and $`t^{\prime \prime }`$ is the time of the other non-inertial clock. Finally, let us see how the inertial clock looks like from the point of view of the observer co-moving with one of the non-inertial clocks. Let the position of the inertial clock be given by its co-ordinates $`(x,y)`$. We choose the origin of $`S`$ such that, at $`t=t^{}=0`$, the space origins of $`S`$ and $`S^{}`$ coincide and the velocity of the non-inertial observer is in the $`y`$-direction, as seen in $`S`$. The rate of clocks as seen by the non-inertial observer is given by

$$t=\gamma t^{}+\frac{\omega R}{c^2}[y\mathrm{cos}\gamma \omega t^{}(x+R)\mathrm{sin}\gamma \omega t^{}].$$
(20)
The oscillatory functions in (20) vanish when they are averaged over time. This means that the observer in $`S^{}`$ agrees with the observer in $`S`$ that the clock in $`S^{}`$ is slower, but only in a time-averaged sense. For example, when these two clocks are very close to each other, then, by expanding (20) for small $`t^{}`$, one finds $`t=t^{}/\gamma `$, which is the result that one would obtain if the velocity of the non-inertial observer were constant. If the clock in $`S`$ is in the centre, which corresponds to $`x=R`$, $`y=0`$, then (20) gives $`t=\gamma t^{}`$, so in this case there is no oscillatory behaviour.

## 4 The invariance of radiation and of the velocity of light

In this section I study some physical effects for which an explicit transformation, such as (2), is not necessary. This allows to drew conclusions which refer to general (not only flat) space-time.

If (14) is interpreted as a proper frame of all observers on a rotating platform, then one can conclude that the observer on the rotating platform will see that the velocity of light depends on whether light is propagating in the clockwise or in the counter-clockwise direction (see, for example, ). This is related to the fact that the metric (15) is not time orthogonal. However, now we know that each observer belongs to a different Fermi frame, and from Property 2 we see that in the vicinity of any observer the metric is equal to the Minkowski metric $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$. This implies that for any local observer the velocity of light is isotropic and is equal to $`c`$, provided that it is measured by propagating a light beam in a small neighbourhood of the observer. In particular, this leads to a slightly different interpretation of the Sagnac effect .

The result that (11) is given by (2) has the following very general implication. Let $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _n}(x)`$ be an arbitrary local tensor quantity. Let the two observers measure this quantity at their common instantaneous position. The results of measurements will be related as

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mu _1\mathrm{}\mu _n}^{}=f_{\mu _1}^{\alpha _1}\mathrm{}f_{\mu _n}^{\alpha _n}\mathrm{\Phi }_{\alpha _1\mathrm{}\alpha _n}.$$
(21)
The two measurements will be different if there is an instantaneous relative velocity between the two observers. However, the instantaneous relative acceleration, as well as higher-order derivatives, are irrelevant to this transformation law.

A local observer can measure only the values of fields at the point of his own position. It is completely unphysical to talk about the value of a field at some point from the point of view of the observer sitting at some other point. Since all interactions are local, a measuring apparatus can respond only to the values of fields at the position of the apparatus. This implies that covariant fields seen by an observer depend only on his instantaneous velocity, not on his acceleration.

This is in contrast with what was concluded in several previous papers (see references in ). In particular, it was concluded that an inertially moving charge radiated from the point of view of an accelerated observer and that the accelerated charge did not radiate from the point of view of an co-accelerating observer. These conclusions were an artifact of the misinterpretation of the Fermi co-ordinates of the accelerated observer, in the sense that they were applied to calculate how the fields transformed at all points covered by these co-ordinates, not only at the point of the position of the observer.

The use of Fermi co-ordinates also illuminates the origin of radiation of an accelerated charge. The radiation is not a kinematical effect resulting from the co-ordinate transformation between the frames of the radiating charge and the observer, but a dynamical effect, in the sense that even for the observer co-moving with the charge, the fields depend on acceleration. This is not explicitly seen in the conventional approach in which the Maxwell equations are solved in Minkowski co-ordinates. To see this explicitly, we write the covariant Maxwell equation

$$D_\mu F^{\mu \nu }=j^\nu $$
(22)
in a more explicit form

$$_\mu F^{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \lambda }^\mu F^{\lambda \nu }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \lambda }^\nu F^{\mu \lambda }=j^\nu .$$
(23)
We assume that the current $`j^\nu `$ corresponds to a point-like charge. Let us study how the field $`F^{\mu \nu }`$ looks like to an observer co-moving with the charge in his small neighbourhood. Since he uses the corresponding Fermi co-ordinates, the connections $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\beta \gamma }^\alpha `$ vanish in his small neighbourhood if and only if his trajectory is a geodesic (I assume that the charge does not rotate). Therefore, if the charge does not accelerate, in the small neighbourhood of the charge the solution of (23) looks just like the well-known Coulomb solution $`𝐄r^2`$, $`𝐁=0`$. On the other hand, if the charge accelerates, then, even in the small neighbourhood, Eqs. (23) no longer look like the Maxwell equations in Minkowski space-time. This gives rise to a more complicated solution, which includes the terms proportional to $`r^1`$. The essential feature of radiating fields is the fact that they fall off with distance much slower than other fields, so their effect is much stronger at large distances. If the field is proportional to $`r^1`$ as seen by one observer, it is also so as seen by any other observer at the same position. This means that the notion of radiation does not depend on the observer.

As is well known, when a charge accelerates, a self-force acts on it. A self-force also appears when a charge moves geodesically in curved space-time . Fermi co-ordinates provide a simple intuitive picture explaining why a self-force appears when the charge accelerates or when space-time around the charge is curved. The fields produced by the charge always act on it. However, when the charge moves inertially through flat space-time, then the metric related to the corresponding Fermi co-ordinates is isotropic, and so are the fields. This implies that self-forces in different directions cancel exactly, so the resultant force is zero. When space-time is curved (such that it is not isotropic) or the charge accelerates, then the metric related to the Fermi co-ordinates is no longer isotropic. Consequently, the fields are also not isotropic, which implies that the resultant force need not to be zero. This implies that a “freely” falling charge in curved space-time does not move along a geodesic and therefore radiates.

## Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the Republic of Croatia under the contract No. 00980102.


format: text

text:
# Adaptive Optics imaging of P Cyg in Hα Based on data collected at the Observatoire de Haute-Provence

## 1 Introduction

Among the galactic Luminous Blue Variables (LBV), the supergiant P Cyg (HD 193237, B1Ia+) is both a historical prototype since its famous XVIIth century eruptions, and an intriguing paradigm in many aspects. In their exhaustive study of P Cyg’s fundamental parameters, mass loss physics and evolution, Nota et al. (Nota et al. (1995)) have held this star being the unique case of the so-called ”Peculiar Nebulae” class LBVs. Indeed the 22 arcseconds (arcsec) faint and spherical nebulae around P Cyg were only recently discovered by Barlow et al. (Barlow et al. (1994)) who estimate its mass as 0.01 solar mass. This value significantly differs from those of more regular LBVs, ranging from 1$`M_{}`$ to 4.2$`M_{}`$ (e.g. for AG Car) which also present more asymmetric nebula.

Evolutive tracks suggest an initial mass of 48$`\pm `$6 $`M_{}`$, and it’s present mass is estimated to be at the most 40 $`M_{}`$, but lower masses ($``$ 30 $`M_{}`$) are also reported in literature (Lamers et al. (1983), Lamers et al. (1985), and Turner et al. (1999)). However, the fine spatial structure of this large amount of excreted matter remains to be detailed. P Cyg’s relative proximity ($``$ 1.8 kpc, Lamers et al. (1983)) represents an opportunity to observe its radiatively driven mass loss from the starting point out to the interstellar medium. Indeed, at 1.8 kpc, the central star radius ($`76R_{}`$) corresponds to a tiny angle of 0.2 milliarcsecond (mas) but the Hα emitting region extends over several tens of arcsec, and radio emission seems to attain at even larger scales (Meaburn et al. (1999)). The optical and radio observations depict so far an essentially clumpy distribution of matter both at large (Taylor et al. (1991), Nota et al. (1995)) and small scales (Skinner et al. (1998), Vakili et al. (1997)), with temporally variable emission (Skinner et al. (1997)). These imaging observations remain sparse and can loosely constrain the spatial and/or temporal evolution of the clumps in the nebula. Moreover, in the optical wavelengths, the star to the envelope brightness ratio remains an obstacle for studying the central star immediate environment. In this paper we report an attempt to observe the Hα circumstellar environment of P Cyg during an AO run at OHP observatory on October 1997 using short exposures collected with a photon-counting camera.

The paper is organized as follows. In section 2, we describe the AO+imaging instrumentation used for this study as well as data reduction and calibration procedures. Section 3 describes the image reconstruction in which particular efforts have been made to test the validity of the PSF. The last section makes a critical discussion of our founding, and attention is given on the perspectives opened by the emergencies of new high angular resolution techniques. A need arise for a coordinated campaign for a global approach of P Cyg, and LBVs environment.

## 2 Journal of observations

### 2.1 Instrumentation

P Cyg was observed, in the context of a dark-speckle run (Boccaletti et al. (1998)). The AO bench of the ONERA (Office National d’Etudes et de Recherches Aérospatiales) was installed at the Coudé focus of the 1.52m telescope. The 90 actuators of BOA and its 1 kHz closed loop bandwidth enable a compensation of atmospheric turbulence in visible light (Conan et al. (1998)) and provide typical Strehl ratio of $`10\%`$ to $`30\%`$ depending on seeing conditions.
The restored wavefront feeds a dark-speckle optics designed to detect faint companions around bright objects. The beam is then focused onto the detector with an $`f/976`$ aperture, giving a fine pixel sampling of 144 $`pixels/arcsec`$ or $`0.007arcsec/pixel`$ (this oversampling of the images was imposed for the dark-speckle experiment). The detector is a cooled CP20 photon-counting camera (Abe et al. (1998)) allowing single photon detection with a very low dark count ($`<5.10^3photon/pix/s`$). The quantum efficiency of CP20 is less than $`10\%`$ at $`700nm`$.
Near diffraction-limited images of P Cyg ($`m_v=4.81`$, $`S_p=B1Ia+`$) and 59 Cyg ($`m_v=4.74`$, $`S_p=B1.5V`$) have been obtained (Fig. 1) using a broadband $`H_\alpha `$ filter ($`\lambda _0=6563`$Å, $`\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda =100`$Å) (Fig. 2).

### 2.2 Data analysis

The data consist in two sequences of 20 ms short exposures, for respectively P Cyg, and the reference star 59 Cyg of similar magnitude and spectral type. In a preliminary step, the short exposures recorded by CP20 were cleaned for photon-centroiding electronic artifacts and then co-added to generate an equivalent long exposure of 99s for P Cyg and 370s for 59 Cyg. Despite the Coudé configuration of the 1.52m telescope, rotation of the field between the two sequences was found negligible. We checked for non-linear effects introduced by the so-called photon-centroiding hole and camera saturation (Thiébaut (1994)). It appears that the incoming flux is much below the saturation limit, the double-photon occurrence is absent. The total number of detected photons for the two images are very similar: 481563 for P Cyg and 416309 for 59 Cyg. A coherent peak and a broken ring, featuring a triple coma aberration, are clearly visible, but 59 Cyg’s image is sharper, indicating that P Cyg’s envelope is possibly resolved. This is quite visible in Fourier space, as shown in Fig. 3. The envelope of P Cyg clearly appears as the well resolved low frequency part in the visibility curve. High angular information is obtained up to about 80 % of the cut-off frequency. The visibility curve is indeed clearly dominated by noise beyond that limit.

Since 59 Cyg has been observed 53 minutes later than P Cyg, a variation of atmospheric conditions and/or a poor correction could be responsible of a noticeable change in the Point Spread Function (PSF) shape. From open/close loop data recorded by the wavefront sensor of BOA, seeing conditions have been derived by one of us (F.C.) : intensity in sub-apertures, Fried parameter evolution, noise evolution, Zernike coefficient variance evolution, etc… Some of these relevant parameters are summarized in Table 1 for both stars. In particular the Fried parameter ($`r_0`$) exhibits no temporal variation and remains stable around 5.4cm between the 2 data sequences. Also, high order correction (Zernike coef. (4,44)) have similar variances in both cases, indicating similar adaptive mirror corrections for P Cyg and 59 Cyg. The largest difference appears for the tip-tilt corrections (Zernike coef. (2,3) of the Table 1). However we confirm that during the observations no saturation was detected, and we expect these modes be correctly compensated for both stars. Furthermore, parameters such as turbulent layers altitude, mean isoplanetic angle and wind velocity indicate a very good stability of the atmospheric conditions during the two records.
Moreover, the photon flux stability can be checked on the short exposures statistics. For 59 Cyg, the flux is stable with a perfect Poisson variance. P Cyg’s behavior is roughly the same, except some localized empty exposures, due to electronic saturation, which have been removed.
This preliminary analysis permits to assume that 59 Cyg can be confidently considered as P Cyg’s PSF and a successful deconvolution becomes possible.

## 3 Image reconstruction

### 3.1 Deconvolution of the raw image of P Cyg

A deconvolution of the image of P Cyg using 59 Cyg as the PSF has been made using basically the iterative Richardson-Lucy algorithm (RL) (Richardson (1972), Lucy (1974)) to which some improvements have been applied as we shall describe thereafter. To improve the result, a pre-processing of the image was first performed. All images were smoothed using a moving average window of 4$`\times `$4 pixels. To get rid of the effects of the coronagraphic mask (clearly visible in Fig. 1 at the right of P Cyg’s image), only a central region of 0.9$`\times `$0.9 arcsec of the smoothed images was conserved. To make the deconvolution procedure faster, the number of points of the images was further reduced by a factor 16. The resulting images of 32$`\times `$32 pixels remain correctly sampled (0.028 arcsec compared with the theoretical Shannon limit of 0.044 arcsec for the 1.52m telescope operated at 656.3nm).
The RL algorithm was then applied to these pre-processed images using the well-known iterative procedure:

$$x^{k+1}(r)=x^k(r)h(r)\frac{y(r)}{h(r)x^k(r)}$$
(1)
where $``$ is the convolution symbol, $`r`$ denotes the two-dimensional spatial position, $`y(r)`$ denotes the image of P Cyg, $`h(r)`$ the image of 59 Cyg taken as the PSF, and where $`x^k(r),x^{k+1}(r)`$ are the reconstructed images at the iteration $`k`$ and $`k+1`$.

To limit the instability that appears in the solution, due to the amplification of noise, we stop the iteration number by using a comparison between the Fourier Transform of the reconstructed object at the iteration $`k`$ and the Fourier transform of the image reconstructed by a Wiener filter (Lantéri et al. (1998), Lantéri H., Soummer R. et al. (1999)). The main difficulty is then shifted to a correct determination of the Wiener filter. The comparison lead to choose an iteration number of 245. The result of the deconvolution is given both in gray levels and in contour plot in Fig. 4. To make the envelope clearly visible, the contour levels are not equally spaced. The general pattern is that of a bright star, not resolved by the 152 cm telescope, surrounded by an extended envelope with bright spots.
These same results were obtained when we used for the reconstruction the RL algorithm regularized by a Tikhonov term, and more specially using the Laplacian operator (Lantéri H., Roche M. et al. (1999)). The result of this deconvolution is presented in Fig. 5 for the iteration 250 with a regularization factor equal to 0.01.

Neglecting the fine structure of the envelope, a normalized circular average of the image centered on the star may be fitted by the sum of two Gaussian curves, of the form: $`ae^{b|r|^2}+(1a)e^{b^{}|r|^2}`$ where a $``$ 0.85, b $``$ 618.2 and b’ $``$ 25.9 if we express r in arcsec. This corresponds to an equivalent width of the envelope of about 0.4 arcsec ($`\frac{2}{\sqrt{b^{}}}`$). The radial curve is shown in a semi-logarithmic scale in Fig. 6. In this model the total integrated flux produced by the envelope (r = (1-a)b/ab’) was found to be about 4 times larger than the one produced by the central star. This ratio is not an absolute parameter; it depends of course of the spectral bandwidth of the experiment (Fig. 2).

We may conclude from this first analysis that the envelope of P Cyg is well resolved by the central core of the PSF of the 1.52 m telescope, corrected by the adaptive optics system. However, the envelope remains comparable in size with the residual halo of the PSF. This assumes at least that we are free of anisoplanatism problems (Fusco et al. (2000)); this absence of variation allows the use of conventional deconvolution methods.
The question then may arise whether some of the fine structures we discovered in this envelope may be due to artifacts of the reconstruction process. Among others problems, a very important one is a possible variation of the PSF during the experiment (from P Cyg to 59 Cyg), as discussed recently by Harder and Chelli (Harder and Chelli (2000)). These authors show that a local non-stationary turbulence may produce strong residual aberrations (clearly visible in the first diffraction ring of their figure 17). At worst, can we imagine that the observed structures in our image result only from variations in the PSF, from P Cyg to 59 Cyg?
A comparison between the reconstructed image and the PSF is made in Fig. 7. To make the structures more visible, we used a representation similar to that of Harder and Chelli (Harder and Chelli (2000)). The images are negatives of intensities and the representation uses threshold and saturation. Doing so, a strong (white) secondary maximum appears in the image of P Cyg, and two lower ones remain far away from the core. Moreover, Fig. 7 clearly evidences that the central (white) surface of the reconstructed object is larger than that of the PSF (this will be interpreted in the next section as an effect of the envelope). It seems difficult to explain that such a structured image is only the result of variations of the PSF. However, it is also difficult to ascertain that our reconstructed image is free of any residual error (much more data would have been necessary for that). To strengthen our confidence in the fine details of the reconstructed image of the envelope, we have implemented a series of processing and tests. They are described in next sections 3.2 and 3.3, and in the Appendix.

### 3.2 Deconvolution of the envelope - alone of P Cyg

We have further processed the data assuming that P Cyg observed in $`H_\alpha `$ may be fairly represented by an unresolved star surrounded by an extended envelope. Let us write P Cyg as $`e(r)+\gamma \delta (r)`$, where $`e(r)`$ is the envelope and $`\gamma `$ the relative intensity of the star defined by the Dirac function $`\delta (r)`$. The observed image is then modeled as $`y(r)=e(r)h(r)+\gamma h(r)`$. We have implemented a somewhat heuristic procedure that consists of subtracting $`\gamma h(r)`$ from $`y(r)`$ to obtain $`e(r)h(r)`$. The procedure has some similarity with what is made in the algorithm CLEAN (Högbom (1974)), and the algorithm of Lucy (Lucy (1994)). In practice, it consists of subtracting an appropriate fraction of the image of 59 Cyg correctly shifted from P Cyg. The parameters of this subtraction are determined to leave a smooth pattern for $`e(r)h(r)`$, with no remaining bump or hole due to the unresolved star. We found that a fraction $`\gamma `$ = 20 % of the PSF ($`h(r)`$), shifted of a displacement (X = \- 0.3 pixels, Y = + 1.3 pixels) was to be subtracted from P Cyg ($`y(r)`$). This was done using an interpolation of the images with Mathematica (Wolfram S. (1999)). Fig. 8 shows the residual blurred envelope $`e(r)h(r)`$ (top) and the fraction of the PSF subtracted to the image of P Cyg $`\gamma h(r)`$ (bottom). This procedure, performed independently of the above deconvolution and parametric estimation of the star plus envelope, lead also to the same ratio 4 for the energy of the envelope relative to the central star.

We then processed the residual blurred envelope $`e(r)h(r)`$ using the same RL algorithm stopped at the same iteration number 245. The result is given both in gray levels and in contour plot with linear contour spacing in Fig. 9. The image of the envelope is fully consistent with what was obtained in the raw deconvolution of Fig. 4. The bright spots are all found at the same position. Moreover, there is a bright spot very close to the star clearly visible in this representation in the South-West direction; it was only perceptible as a small deformation of the central star in Fig. 4.

### 3.3 Analysis of the quality of the deconvolution

We have implemented a few more computations to check the quality of the results we give in this paper. The whole deconvolution procedure was also performed using the Image Space Reconstruction Algorithm (ISRA) (Daube-Witherspoon et al. (1986)) instead of the RL algorithm. The comparison with the image reconstructed by the Wiener filter leads us to the iteration 303. The reconstructed image is presented in Fig. 10.

The two algorithms gave almost the same results which reinforced us in the confidence we have in the deconvolution results given in this paper.
At that point we may conclude that the deconvolution was carried out taking into account the problem of noise; we also made use of an a priori model, by assuming that P Cyg was the sum of an unresolved star and an envelope. A significant question remains: up to what precision can we trust 59 Cyg as an accurate PSF for P Cyg? Several elements enable us to give a positive answer to that question: the seeing conditions were similar for both observations, and we found the same ratio of the flux envelope/star (about 4) before and after deconvolution. It would have been very convincing to have a series of observations of P Cyg and a reference, eventually with different seeing conditions, and have all the results that converge towards a unique solution. In fact, we made an elementary test that consisted in dividing the long exposure of P Cyg in two sequences. The same operation was applied to 59 Cyg. We have then made a deconvolution of these four resulting images. The results are very similar to those obtained with the deconvolution presented in Fig. 4 and are not reproduced here. In an alternative way, we give in the appendix the results of a series of additional tests that tend to confirm 59 Cyg as a correct PSF.
At that point, we think that we obtained all that allowed the present data. Of course, futures observations, with possibly a larger telescope, will be very usefull to confirm our first results and to further precise the morphology of this object.

## 4 Discussion

The present work follows a long series of observations to track the history of P Cyg’s giant eruptions in 1600 and 1655. Following the first attempts in this direction (Feibelman (1995)), it clearly appeared that the star to its nebula brightness ratio constitutes a challenging obstacle for the optical mapping of the nebular morphology. Indeed only few observations, with heterogeneous angular resolutions are reported in the literature. Leitherer and Zickgraf (Leitherer et al. (1987)) first published the detection of P Cyg’s extended nebulosity using CCD imaging. Later, Johnson et al. (Johnson et al. (1992)) reported the detection of forbidden emission lines due to nitrogen enriched material at 9 arcsec. The first coronagraphic imaging of P Cyg from the ground was obtained by Barlow et al. (Barlow et al. (1994)) from high resolution long-slit data. Barlow and co-workers discovered the presence of a 22 arcsec nearly circular shell which presents bright condensations of about 2 arcsec wide, mostly in the North (their plate scale is of 0.255 arcsec per pixel where a 4.3 arcsec occulting strip was used). STScI coronagraph imaging, using a 4.8 arcsec occulting disk, shows almost the same features (Nota et al. (1995)). From another point of view P Cyg constitutes an ideal target for testing new and different imaging techniques. Among these there are the spectral-line image sharpening techniques SCASIS (de Vos (1994)), the AMOS adaptive optics observations (Morossi et al. (1996)), and occulting mask imaging (4 arcsec) with the new MOMI instrument for wide field imaging (O’Connor et al. (1998)). In the latter case the authors suggest highly asymmetrical features at 3-4pc from the star (7’) probably associated to previous mass-loss events (Meaburn et al. (1999)). At the same time, radio imaging now offers approximately the same panel of field and spatial resolution as optical imaging making the comparison of optical and radio maps possible. Indeed, sounding different scales in radio wavelength can easily be achieved by changing the baseline configuration of radio arrays (Skinner et al. (1998)). Using this possibility Skinner and co-workers have compared radio maps to Barlow’s coronagraphic image of P Cyg (Barlow et al. (1994)). These authors claim that the emissive regions in radio and visible are roughly the same, although this comparison is further complicated by the coronagraphic mask and the telescope diffraction pattern. They conclude that both radio and optical maps exhibit the same details having the same physical origin: i.e. dense clumps overtaken by the faster wind and heated by shocks.
Low and intermediate spatial resolution images suggest a global spherical expanding envelope but clumpiness is present in each case. This trend is also present at higher spatial resolution of the 250km MERLIN centimetric network (Skinner et al. (1997)) approaching the submilliarcsecond observations of the GI2T optical interferometric (Vakili et al. (1997)).
In this context our present reconstructed image of P Cyg’s environment in Hα presents, as expected, strongly clumped features within the 1 arcsec field of view (0.011pc with D=1.8Kpc). More than 6 enhanced emission clumps are counted with our 0.05 arcsec spatial resolution in a nearly 0.6 arcsec region superimposed to the unresolved central star. The mean size of the clumps is roughly 0.08 arcsec which is the angular limitation of the 152cm OHP telescope. These results agree well both in size and morphology with MERLIN observations, at nearly the same resolution. The typical diameter of emitting regions for MERLIN is 0.4 arcsec (0.13 arcsec for the core), and amazingly comparable to the optical structures (Fig. 9). In this same figure, a North-East/South-West preferential axis appears in the Hα image due to the grouping of the clumps, the distribution being otherwise rather uniform. The same orientation was also pointed out in SCASIS observations at a lower spatial resolution (de Vos (1994)). Note that in our reconstructed image a bright feature is located at 80 mas South-East of the central star. We can speculate on its relation to the local strong emission discovered at 0.8 mas from the star in august 1994 by the GI2T interferometer (Vakili et al. (1997)) although the E-W absolute position of the latter emission was not given by this instrument. If this scenario holds, this position some 3.2 years after implies a projected velocity around 110km/s. Taking into account the radial velocity and uncertainties 208$`\pm 78`$km/s obtained by Vakili et al. (Vakili et al. (1997)), this projected velocity is to be expected for a clump nearly on the line of sight ejected three years earlier with the terminal velocity, and thus, compatible with the GI2T observations. Although the possible physical relation of 1994 blob and 1997 clump remains to be robustly settled, interferometric and AO imaging repeated in the future, should enlight such scenario.
At the present, only radio observations by Skinner et al. (Skinner et al. (1997)) present confident temporal variations. In the two 6-cm MERLIN images taken in a 40 days interval, impressive changes were observed, corroborated by VLA observations. In the observed region, the wind velocity suggests a 2 years dynamical time scale, which can hardly be compared to the 6-cm flux variations. On the other hand, the recombination time scale for hydrogen atoms ($`1.210^5/n_e`$ in years) is shorter, but not sufficient, $``$160 days considering a characteristic $`n_e`$ of $`2.810^5cm^3`$ at 0.07 arcsec. This short time scale puts strong constraints on the electron density, which has to be four times larger than the surrounding envelope material. The clumpiness can explain such a time evolution if the structures are sufficiently small and dense, or if the shocks between the wind and the clumps are strong enough. The question is whether increasing resolution would reveal the same clumpiness, and if activity observed in optical and radio wavelengths are closely correlated.
Some questions arise. How can these small scale clumps be related to the 2 arcsec ones observed in the Barlow’s images at 3 arcsec from the star? How can they survive over such a long distance? Do they reappear at the location we detect them?
A challenging issue is now understanding the connection between the different spatially resolved structures and their scales which needs the monitoring of the clumpiness from the star to the interstellar medium, and constrains the mass ejection dynamics. Therefore, our present observations are the first attempt to prove that an optical monitoring of the clumpiness in inner region of P Cyg’s mass loss is observationally feasible. As previously pointed out (Vakili et al. (1997)), the intermediate regions of P Cyg’s wind, from a few stellar radii to a few parsecs can be sounded by means of AO plus coronagraphic imaging from the ground, in relation with radio observations. The dynamical time scale for optical interferometry is around the month, but a temporal monitoring of P Cyg by this technique requires both higher sensitivity and larger numbers of baseline orientations due to the complex structures which occur at different scales. For larger distances, the recombination time scale in the clumpy wind should produce large effects as detected in radio, and AO becomes the perfect technique to follow such activities. The brightness of P Cyg and its evolutionary time scale allow the development of a multi-site and multi-wavelength observations campaign, using AO, optical and radio interferometry to get a unified picture of P Cyg’s environment physics.

## Appendix A Tests on the PSF

We have made a series of tests that tends to strengthen our confidence in the 59 Cyg’s image as a correct PSF for P Cyg. These tests are negative tests in that sense that if the PSF fails to succeed one, it should be rejected as a bad PSF.
Let us assume that 59 Cyg is a good unbiased representation of the true PSF $`h(r)`$. Differences between the blurred reconstructed image $`b(r)=h(r)x(r)`$ and the observed data $`y(r)`$ must then be dominated by statistical noise fluctuations, with no bias term. In this relation $`x(r)`$ is our best reconstructed image, as shown in Fig. 4, and $`h(r)`$ the PSF 59 Cyg of Fig. 1 of the body of the paper. We assume that the noise comes from a photo-detection process, and that $`y(r)`$ is a realization of the Poisson process of mean $`b(r)`$.

### A.1 Test 1: Poisson-Mandel transform

The first test we have performed is a basic one, not very sensitive to the exact value of $`h(r)`$, but that must be verified in any case. Let us denote $`y`$ and $`b`$ the values taken by $`y(r)`$ and $`b(r)`$. The total probability theorem (Papoulis (1984)) allows us to write the unconditional probability $`P(y)`$ of $`y(r)`$ as the sum of $`P(y/b)\times P(b)`$ for all $`b`$ values. For the Poisson process, the conditional probability of $`y`$ assuming $`b`$ is $`P(y/b)=\frac{b^y}{y!}\mathrm{exp}b`$ where $`y`$ is an integer (the number of photons) and $`b`$ a continuous value.

As a consequence, $`P(y)`$ is the Poisson-Mandel transform (Mandel (1959), Mehta (1970)) of $`P(b)`$:

$$P(y)=_0^{\mathrm{}}P(b)\frac{b^y}{y!}\mathrm{exp}bdb$$
(2)
We have verified that our data correctly obeys relation 2. We have taken for $`P(b)`$ the histogram of $`b(r)`$, applied the above transformation and compared the result $`P(y)`$ with the direct histogram of the values of $`y(r)`$. The comparison is shown in Fig. 11. The results are consistent with the data.

### A.2 Test 2: Rotations of the true PSF

The second test we have performed was to check the correctness of the small departures from circular symmetry of 59 Cyg. We use as the PSF $`h_\theta (r)`$ an image of 59 Cyg rotated of an angle $`\theta `$. Then the deconvolution procedure is carried out as previously and leads to an image $`x_\theta (r)`$. The blurred image $`b_\theta (r)`$ is obtained as the convolution of $`x_\theta (r)`$ and $`h_\theta (r)`$, and we finally compute the Euclidean distance between $`y(r)`$ and $`b_\theta (r)`$. The results are shown in Fig. 12 in a polar plot for $`\theta `$ varying from 0 to 2 $`\pi `$. The original PSF gives the best result. If the deviation from circular symmetry were purely random, the goodness of the deconvolution would not be affected by this rotation. Secondary minima of the curve appear for apparent symmetries of the PSF.

Representations of the difference between $`y(r)`$ and $`b_\theta (r)`$ are shown in Fig. 13. For the sake of clarity we have represented the sign of the difference $`y(r)b_\theta (r)`$. For $`\theta =0`$, we get a speckle-like pattern, roughly uniform over the whole image. For other values of $`\theta `$, this difference shows large patterns that indicates regions over which $`b_\theta (r)`$ does not correctly matches $`y(r)`$. These trends clearly show that $`h_\theta (r)`$ for $`\theta 0`$ is a biased version of $`h(r)`$.
As a conclusion, 59 Cyg passed the tests and could not be rejected as a bad PSF.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to acknowledge A. Labeyrie for having encouraged the present work. P Cyg’s observations were done using the BOA Adaptive Optics provided by ONERA to us. The manuscript benefited from discussions and critics of J.P. Véran, J. De Freitas Pacheco, G. Ricort and the GI2T team.


text:
# Effects of dissipation on quantum phase transitions

## I Intermediate “metallic” phases

The theory of a metallic phase in two dimensions at zero temperature is a matter of intense current debate. Indeed, such a phase was thought for many years not to be possible . Recent experiments have shown that metallic phases are not only possible, but exceedingly common whenever interaction effects are strong . Of course, there is always a question whether the metallic behavior is a finite temperature artifact, as there is no way to prove that the resistivity would not diverge or vanish if the temperature were lowered enough. Below we list some of the most clear-cut cases in which an apparently metallic phase has been observed. Since in each case, the experiments access temperatures low compared to all the simple energy scales in the problem, we feel it is reasonable to accept this evidence at face value.

1) An apparently metallic phase occurs in superconducting films in a magnetic field for intermediate magnetic field strengths  and in arrays of Josephson-junctions . In particular, this behavior is observed at low temperatures in the magnetic field range at which, at higher temperatures, scaling behavior is observed which was formerly interpreted  as indicative of a SIT.

2) Analogous behavior has been observed in semiconductor heterojunctions for magnetic fields in the neighborhood of a putative QHIT . Specifically, metallic behavior is observed at low temperatures in the neighborhood of the critical magnetic field at which higher temperature data is indicative of a QHIT.

3) In quench-condensed films of Ga, Pb and In at $`H=0`$, an anomalous metallic phase is seen  below the local superconducting transition temperature in which the resistance decreases strongly (by as much as five decades) with decreasing temperature, roughly like $`R=R_0\mathrm{exp}[T/T_0]`$, but extrapolates to a finite value, $`R_0`$, as $`T0`$.

4) In Si MOSFETs, and other high mobility semiconductor devices which access the strongly interacting (large $`r_s`$) physics of the two dimensional electron gas (2DEG), an unexpected metal insulator transition at $`H=0`$ has now been widely and convincingly documented. The stability of the metallic phase has also been supported by studies  of the quantum Hall effect at small non-zero $`H`$: Theoretically, a sequence of transitions resulting from the “floating up” of the extended states is predicted to occur as the expected insulating state is approached as $`H0`$, and indeed this is observed in smaller $`r_s`$ devices . However, at large $`r_s`$, the delocalized states (or more precisely, the critical lines separating different integer quantum Hall states) do not move up in energy as $`H0`$, thus allowing for a metallic state at $`H=0`$.

5) A related set of experiments on the behavior of high mobility 2DEG’s in the small magnetic field limit show behavior which we interpret as indicative of a metallic phase for a range of weak magnetic fields. Note, these experiments were interpreted somewhat differently by their authors: The data clearly reveal a failure of the delocalized states to “float up” as $`H0`$ and a breakdown of the selection rules thought theoretically to govern quantum Hall transitions, including the QHIT. However, the measurements were originally interpreted in terms of a QHIT in which the ground-state at $`H`$ smaller than a (electron density dependent) critical field, $`H_c`$ was said to be insulating. Indeed, in this field range, the resistance increases with decreasing temperature, but only weakly, and it appears to saturate at low temperatures. In the following, we will re-interpret this data in terms of a quantum Hall liquid to metal transition, rather than as a “new universality class of QHIT.”

6) Metallic phases were also found, under special circumstances, in high quality devices (especially in GaAs heteronjunctions) in the presence of a “quantizing” magnetic field ( i.e. $`H`$ big enough that the cyclotron energy, $`\mathrm{}\omega _c`$, is larger than the temperature, the disorder potential, and even the Coulomb strength). This “Hall metal” has been observed  and extensively studied  for a range of magnetic fields near “filling factor” $`\nu `$=1/2 (i.e. two magnetic flux quanta per electron) and related even fractions. Precisely at $`\nu =1/2`$ there is some indication of an upturn in the resistance at the lowest temperatures,, which might indicate that the true ground-state is insulating, but overall in this range of fields, the proponderance of experimental evidence supports the existence of a true metallic phase.

7) In weakly disordered metallic films (with large values of $`k_F\mathrm{}`$) the phase coherence length, which according to theory controls the low temperature behavior of “weakly localized” systems, appears  to saturate at low temperatures (The determination of $`\mathrm{}_\varphi `$ was done using magnetoresistance measurements,) rather than diverging as required by theory .

## II Extremal zero temperature phases

In this section we summarize our theoretical understanding of the relevant zero temperature electronic phases in two spatial dimensions in the absence of dissipation ($`\alpha =0`$). This discussion is not meant to be exhaustive as there are numerous other phases, for example phases that spontaneously break time reversal symmetry, which may be important under some circumstances.

### A The superconducting state

Numerous two dimensional systems in zero magnetic field exhibit a superconducting or superfluid phase below a non-zero transition temperature. The theoretical understanding  of this state is not in question, as far as we know: at finite temperature, the superfluid phase is characterized by a non-zero superfluid density, but no broken symmetry, although in the zero temperature limit, a true broken symmetry state is expected. The zero temperature superconducting state persists in the presence of a non-zero magnetic field, $`H`$, so long as it is small enough, $`H<H_c`$. In the absence of disorder, this is due to the crystallization of the field induced vortices and pinning at the boundaries (note that with no pinning at the boundaries, any finite current will cause the vortex lattice to slide and thus result in dissipation); this vortex crystal (Abrikosov lattice), itself, persists to a finite melting temperature, so in this limit superconductivity survives at low, but non-zero temperatures. In the presence of quenched disorder, the vortex crystal at small $`H`$ is certainly disrupted , but at $`T=0`$ the dilute vortices are localized by the disorder. However, in this case superconductivity is destroyed at any non-zero temperature due to thermally activated vortex motion . Thus, in systems of interest, for which disorder is an important feature of the physics, no $`T>0`$ transition to the superconducting state is expected; in this phase the conductivity diverges continuously as $`T0`$, together with a diverging length that describes the proximity to this zero-temperature vortex glass phase. Consequently the $`IV`$ characteristics of the system will exhibit non-linear behavior above some threshold current which itself vanishes as the temperature tends to zero .

### B The insulating phase

In the limit of large disorder, large $`H`$, or strong interactions between particles, all the particles are localized and an insulating ground state occurs. This is independent of whether the constituent particles are taken to be bosons or fermions (or anyons, for that matter). In the absence of disorder, this insulating state has Wigner crystalline long-range order, and correspondingly a finite temperature phase transition. However, disorder should couple to the charge order of the Wigner crystal as a random field. Thus, from the Imry-Ma random field arguments, no true finite temperature phase transition to the insulating state occurs. The insulating state is then characterized by a resistivity which diverges continuously as $`T0`$.

In the absence of a magnetic field, a further distinction may, in principle, distinguish various insulating phases based on their spin (magnetic) structure . Electrons in the extreme low density limit in the absence of disorder form a Wigner crystalline state in which the electron spins are ferromagnetically ordered . Although even weak disorder eliminates long-ranged Wigner crystalline order, presumably the ferromagnetism would survive up to a critical disorder strength. At higher densities, but still in the Wigner crystalline state, antiferromagnetic exchange processes begin to dominate, so a frustrated antiferromagnet, possibly with some form of spin-pairing and a spin gap, may occur . Such an insulating state with a spin-gap could also occur as the result of a localization transition of a system of Cooper pairs, as would be expected, for instance, in the Coulomb blockade limit of a granular superconductor . If so, some form of spin pseudo-gap is likely to survive the introduction of weak disorder. At large disorder, a zero temperature spin-glas s phase is also conceivable. At non-zero Zeeman coupling to an external magnetic field, most or all of the magnetic distinctions between various possible insulating phases are removed.

A distinction between insulating states in a magnetic field has also been discussed based on the asymptotic behavior of the Hall resistance, $`\rho _{xy}`$, as $`T0`$. A Wigner crystal, and presumably also an Anderson insulator have a Hall resistance which diverges in this limit. Conversely, it has been proposed that a “Hall insulator” phase exists which has a vanishing conductivity tensor, but a Hall resistance that approaches a finite value, presumably of order $`H/nec`$, as $`T0`$. A still more exotic, “Quantized Hall Insulator” phase has also been proposed in which, despite the vanishing of the conductivity tensor, the Hall resistance approaches a quantized value, for instance $`h/e`$, as $`T0`$. It is likely, although not proven, that a Hall insulator is a distinct state of matter, and must be separated by a phase transition from an ordinary insulator. This is certainly the case for a quantized Hall insulator, as there must be a first magnetic field at which the Hall resistance ceases to be quantized.

In the present paper, we will always assume that the effects of disorder are important, so we will not explicitly discuss the Wigner crystal or Abrikosov lattice. For simplicity, we will also neglect the various magnetic and transport distinctions between insulating phases, as well.

### C The quantum Hall liquid

The quantum Hall liquid has a vanishing longitudinal conductivity and a quantized Hall conductance, $`\sigma _{xy}=(e^2/h)s_{xy}`$ where $`s_{xy}`$ is an integer or one of a particular set of rational fractions for the the integer and fractional Hall effect, respectively. There is no true broken symmetry, and so no finite temperature phase transition to this state. Quantum Hall liquid states are partially characterized by the quantized value of the Hall resistance. A quantum Hall state is typically most stable at a “magic” value of the magnetic field, $`H_{magic}=s_{xy}^1\varphi _0\overline{\rho }`$, where $`\varphi _0=hc/e`$ is the quantum of flux and $`\overline{\rho }`$ is the mean electron density. However, like the superconducting state, the quantum Hall state at $`T=0`$ is stable for a finite range of disorder and magnetic field.

Quasi-particles are generated in the ground-state when the magnetic field differs from the magic value, or can be nucleated by disorder. They play a role analogous to that of vortices in a superconductor , and when they are not localized they destroy the quantum Hall state. In the absence of disorder, a low density of quasi-particles will crystallize, producing a quantum Hall state which is analogous to the Abrikosov lattice. In the presence of disorder, the dilute quasi-particles are localized. However, whereas the vortices in a superconductor are bosonic , the quasi-particles in a quantum Hall state have statistics, fermionic in the integer case and anyonic in the fractional case, which are related to $`s_{xy}`$.

### D Flux attachment and the Law of Corresponding States

There is a formal transformation , often called flux attachment, which maps a system of interacting particles in a magnetic field with Bose or Fermi statistics to another problem of transformed “Chern-Simons” particles with the same mass, same interactions, but with modified statistics, and which interact with a fluctuating “statistical gauge field,” $`a_\mu `$, whose dynamics are governed by a Chern-Simons term, rather than the usual Maxwell action. The Chern-Simons action has the effect of attaching $`\theta `$ (related to the Chern-Simons coupling constant) quanta of statistical flux to each particle. Consequently, the net magnetic flux seen by the transformed particles is modified according to

$$H^{eff}=H\theta \varphi _0\overline{\rho },$$
(1)
and the phase (statistical) angle associated with the interchange of two particles is transformed according to

$$\varphi _{exchange}=(n\theta )\pi $$
(2)
where, depending on whether the original particles are bosons or fermions, $`n=0`$ or $`n=1`$, respectively. Manifestly, for $`\theta `$ an odd integer, this transformation maps bosons into fermions and vice versa, while for $`\theta `$ even, it maps bosons into transformed bosons, and fermions into transformed fermions.

The effect of this transformation is a formal relation between seemingly different states of matter. For instance, if for some choice of $`\theta `$, the resulting Chern-Simons bosons are condensed into a superconducting state, the original particles are necessarily in a quantum Hall liquid state, with conductivity tensor

$$\sigma _{xy}=(q^2/h)(1/\theta ),\mathrm{and}\sigma _{xx}=0,$$
(3)
where $`q`$ is the particle charge (i.e. the coupling to the external electromagnetic gauge field). Conversely, if the Chern-Simons bosons are “localized” in an insulating state, $`\sigma _{ij}=0`$. In similar ways, it is possible to relate fermions in an integer quantum Hall state to electrons in a fractional quantum Hall state, etc.

There is another transformation, which is a version of a standard duality transformation, that relates the physics of different phases, and which can be implemented straightforwardly in the bosonic Chern-Simons field theory. Formally, this transformation relates the particle three current, $`J_\mu `$ to a dual gauge field, $`a_\mu ^{dual}`$,

$$J_\mu =ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda }_\nu a_\lambda ^{dual}$$
(4)
and conversely, a dual particle (vortex) current to the original gauge field, $`a_\mu `$,

$$J_\mu ^{dual}=ϵ_{\mu \nu \lambda }_\nu a_\lambda $$
(5)
where $`ϵ_{\mu ,\nu ,\lambda }`$ is the Levi-Cevita symbol. The remarkable feature of this transformation in 2+1 dimensions is that the action has the same form in terms of the original and transformed variables but the statistical angle is transformed according to

$$\theta ^{dual}=1/\theta .$$
(6)
Moreover, when considering the coupling to an external electromagnetic gauge field the particle charge, $`q`$, transforms according to

$$q^{dual}=q/\theta $$
(7)
and the conductivity tensor (computed from the Kubo formula) for the original variables is related to that computed in the dual theory according to

$$\sigma _{ij}=\sigma _{ij}^{dual}+(q^2/h)(1/\theta )ϵ_{i,j}$$
(8)
(This expression appears to differ from, but is actually consistent with a more familiar relation which involves the one gauge-field irreducible response functions of the Chern-Simons particles, i.e. the particle response to the combined external and statistical gauge fields. In terms of these irreducible response functions, the conductivity of the original particles is related to the resistivity of the dual particles.)

Comparing the expressions in Eq. (3) and Eq. (8), it is clear that if a set of Chern-Simons bosons are condensed in a superconducting state, the dual bosons must be localized, and conversely. In the context of the SIT, this allows one to view the insulating state as a condensed state of vortices. In the case of the integer quantum Hall effect with $`s_{xy}=1`$ (and hence $`q=e`$ and $`\theta =1`$), the quantum Hall liquid state can be viewed as a condensed state of charge $`e`$ bosons, with vortex excitations (quasi-holes) with charge $`q^{dual}=e`$, fermionic statistics ($`\theta ^{dual}=1`$), while the proximate insulating state can be viewed as a vortex condensate, and the original electrons become the vortices in the dual theory.

These two transformations form the basis for a Law of Corresponding States, which relates seemingly different states of matter. However, it should be recalled that, because the fluctuations of the statistical gauge field induce additional interactions between particles, at a microscopic level the correspondence may be quite complicated. However, if only the topology of the phase diagram and the nature of the phases are of principal interest, the Law of Corresponding States can be adopted without caveat.

Within the context of the dirty boson model, it is thought that there are only two zero temperature phases in the presence of disorder, a superconducting phase and an insulating phase, as shown in figure 1a. Assuming that this is the case for the Chern-Simons bosons in the quantum Hall effect, a global phase diagram for the quantum Hall systems can be constructed. The result is summarized in figure 2a.

## III Critical phenomena

### A Quantum phase transitions

It is clear that an understanding of the phases is a necessary precursor to an understanding of the quantum critical phenomena associated with the transitions between them. However, unlike the analogous classical problem, it is possible for the universality class of a quantum transition to depend on the nature of the dynamics as well as on the character of the two phases.

The simplest possibility, about which the most is known theoretically, is that some or all of the observed transitions are equivalent to a SIT in a system of disordered, interacting fundamental bosons, the so-called “dirty boson” problem. Because the electrons form Cooper pairs in the superconducting state, and because it is ultimately fluctuations in the phase of the order parameter which are expected to destroy superfluidity (so that the electrons can plausibly be viewed as paired even on the disordered side of the transition), it is an appealing view that the dirty boson problem captures the universal features of the SIT in actual superconducting films. One of the most striking predictions that has been made on the basis of this model is that the conductivity tensor at the critical point takes on a universal value in units of $`(e^{})^2/h`$ (where $`e^{}=2e`$ for Cooper pairs and $`e^{}=e`$ for electrons in the quantum Hall effect). To the best of our knowledge, there are no convincing calculations, either numerical or analytic, for the value of the critical conductance or the critical exponents at this transition. An argument can be made on the basis of particle-hole symmetry that the Hall conductance at the transition is 0. Independent arguments, based on the $`1/r`$ form of the Coulomb interaction, lead to the expectation that the dynamic exponent $`z=1`$.

The most obvious, potentially dangerous piece of physics that is omitted in this approach is the effect of low energy quasi-particle excitations in such systems. Presumably, in a granular superconductor, where a relatively clean, large gap in the quasi-particle spectrum is expected and, indeed, observed , the neglect of quasi-particles is a safe bet. However, to date, nothing resembling the expected SIT has been observed in granular films - what is observed is best described as a crossover (an actual transition point is difficult to identify in the data) from a superconductor to strange metal to an insulator. In disordered films, even in the absence of a magnetic field, one would expect on theoretical grounds that in the neighborhood of the critical film thickness, the superconducting gap will be filled in with a large density of gapless quasi-particle excitations, and this expectation is apparently born out in experiment. In the presence of a magnetic field, where gapless quasi-particle excitations are expected in the cores of vortices, this expectation is even stronger, especially when the spacing between vortices is not large compared to their radius. In both cases dissipation due to gapless quasi-particle excitations can potentially alter the critical phenomena.

In quantum Hall systems a variety of zero temperature continuous phase transitions are expected and, in one form or other, observed: 1) The QHIT, both for the case in which the quantum Hall liquid is an integer Hall state (typically, $`s_{xy}=1`$ or, when spin-splitting are not resolved, $`s_{xy}=2`$) or a fractional Hall state (typically $`s_{xy}=1/3`$). 2) Transitions (“plateau transitions”) between two distinct quantum Hall liquid states, which again might be integer or fractional. For non-interacting electrons, the critical exponents associated with the QHIT are known to be $`\nu 7/3`$, and an argument due to Lee and Wang  shows that at least short-range interactions do not alter this result. Under conditions of particle-hole symmetry, it can be proven quite generally that the critical Hall conductance at $`s_{xy}=1`$ quantum Hall liquid to insulator transition is $`\sigma _{xy}^c=(e^2/h)(1/2)`$; if the critical conductance is, indeed, universal then this must be the critical value, even in the absence of (microscopic) particle-hole symmetry. An argument based on particle-vortex duality in the Chern-Simons formulation of the problem leads (among others) to the relation (also called the “semi-circle law”) that $`\rho _{xx}=(h/e^2)`$ in the vicinity of the $`s_{xy}=1`$ or $`s_{xy}=1/3`$ to insulator transition. Together, these two results lead to the conclusion that $`\sigma _{xx}^c=\sigma _{xy}^c=(e^2/h)(1/2)`$ at the $`s_{xy}=1`$ to insulator critical point, a conclusion that has also been supported by numerical studies of non-interacting electrons .

At least superficially, there is less reason to necessarily expect additional dissipation in quantum Hall systems than in superconducting films. However, in addition to the many possible extrinsic sources of dissipation, there are certainly ways such dissipation could arise intrinsically, even here. For instance, there could be  compressible regions of electronic structure associated with the “Hall metallic” or $`\nu =1/2`$ state. These might arise naturally, especially in systems with a smoothly varying disorder potential, in the form of “fat” edge states.

A quantum model for dissipation consists of coupling the system variables to a continuum of Ohmic heat bath degrees of freedom; dissipation is then merely a flow of energy from the system to the heat bath. The integration of the heat bath degrees of freedom results in an action containing induced temporal long range interactions. The analysis of such long range interactions brings in a new control parameter signifying the coupling to the dissipative heat bath, $`\alpha `$, proportional to $`h/e^2R`$, where $`R`$ is the shunt resistance characteristic of the dissipative heat bath. In addition the action will depend on the dimensionality of the space, the symmetry of the order parameter, etc., common in a conventional description of a quantum phase transition.

A quantum phase transition often involves two related phenomena: the formation of a condensate and the associated metastability. For a superconductor or a superfluid, this is widely appreciated. In order to stabilize the superconducting state the phase slip processes must be suppressed and the vortices must be localized. In an incompressible quantum Hall state there is no true broken symmetry, but its metastability hinges upon localizing the quasiparticles over a finite range of disorder and magnetic field (the fermionic quasiparticles playing the role of vortices in a superconductor.) Thus, in the limit of large dissipation, a quantum phase transition can acquire a very special character because dissipation can efficiently reduce quantum fluctuations of the system. As a result, the competition between the kinetic and potential energies is altered, resulting in a state that is characteristically classical. In other words, the formation of the condensate is tuned by dissipation. Similarly, the metastability of the state can be altered by suppressing quantum tunneling and motions of vortices and quasiparticles, typically by the orthogonality overlap of the continuum degrees of freedom of the heat bath. Such a dissipation tuned transition is well documented in the case of a single Josephson junction, in which as a function of $`\alpha `$, the system undergoes a transition from a quantum state at $`\alpha <\alpha _c`$, where quantum diffusion of the phase destroys the superconducting state, to a “classical” state at $`\alpha >\alpha _c`$, where quantum tunneling is suppressed and the junction is truly superconducting at $`T0`$. Such a transition can occur in higher dimensional systems, as well, as has indeed been indicated in recent experiments on Josephson Junction arrays .

Because the first effect of dissipation is to suppress fluctuation, and hence to stabilize the superconducting phase, we have drawn the superconducting to insulating phase boundary, $`H_c(\alpha )`$ in Fig. 1b with a positive slope. However, in the limit of large $`\alpha >\alpha _m`$, we have indicated a metallic phase, as is suggested, for instance, by the recent work in Ref. . The reason for the existence of the metallic phase is that with the suppression of quantum fluctuations, the motion of the excitations responding to the external field is diffusive and classical, with characteristics inherited from the heat bath. It is likely that particle exchange with the heat bath, in addition to the usual capacitive coupling, will play an important role in this physics. The existence and the stability of a metallic phase at large $`\alpha `$ is the central postulate of the present work whose theoretical basis is presently uncertain.

### B Classical percolation

There is another limiting view of any transition between a conducting (or superconducting) and an insulating phase provided by classical percolation; as the conducting regions of the system percolate, the system goes from being globally insulating to globally conducting. In two dimensions, many of the critical properties are well understood theoretically, including the correlation length exponent, $`\nu _{perc}=4/3`$. The correlation length $`\xi _{perc}`$ is, roughly speaking, the radius of gyration of the largest typical clusters of the minority phase . In the case in which the length scale of the disorder is very long, so that quantum tunneling, and more particularly quantum coherence between distinct tunneling events can be ignored, both the QHIT and the SIT would be expected to be well approximated as percolation transitions. The earliest theories of the QHIT were based on percolation of puddles of Hall liquid . Likewise, the phenomenologically successful puddle theory of Shimshoni, Auerbach, and Kapitulik  is based on the assumption that the measured transport is dominated by tunneling of vortices (in the case of the SIT) or quantum Hall quasi-particles (for the QHIT) across a characteristic, isolated weak-link between puddles.

It is generally believed that at low enough temperature, any classical percolation approach must break down. Roughly speaking, if we imagine that, as in weak-localization theory, there exists some sort of quantum phase coherence length, $`\mathrm{}_\phi (T)`$ that diverges as the temperature tends to zero, then the classical theory would be valid so long as $`\xi _{perc}\mathrm{}_\phi `$, with the true quantum behavior apparent only at such low temperatures that $`\xi _{perc}\mathrm{}_\phi `$. In the QHIT, this crossover from classical to quantum percolation has been studied explicitly .

In figure 4, we illustrate this crossover schematically for the simplest case in which classical percolation and the quantum phase transition occur at the same critical field, $`H_c`$. (In the case of the $`s_{xy}=1`$ QHIT, particle-hole symmetry in the lowest Landau level insures that this is the case.) Under the assumption that $`\mathrm{}_\phi `$ diverges as $`T0`$, the $`x`$ axis is essentially the temperature. (Specifically, if $`\mathrm{}_\phi (T)T^{1/p}`$, then $`xT^{4/3p}`$.) The dashed line in the figure denotes $`\mathrm{}_\phi (T)=\xi _{perc}`$, while the solid line denotes $`\mathrm{}_\phi (T)=\xi (H)`$. In the lightly shaded regime labeled “classical percolation,” where $`\mathrm{}_\phi >\xi _{perc}`$, the system can be viewed as a collection of effectively macroscopic droplets of the two-phases, and hence some sort of quasi-classical puddle theory applies. In the darker shaded regime, between the dashed line and the solid line, at which , the system is in the quantum critical regime, where $`\xi (H)|HH_c|^\nu `$. In ordering these two crossovers, we have assumed that $`\nu >\nu _{perc}=4/3`$, which is certainly satisfied if, as discussed, $`\nu 7/3`$. For very large $`\mathrm{}_\phi `$, as T approaches zero, we allow for classical percolation to cease being relevant, hence the darker shaded area covers all the region between the solid lines near $`H_c`$. Below the solid line the properties are dominated by dilute thermal excitations above the appropriate ground-state phase, a regime that in other contexts  is called “renormalized classical.”

Note that figure 4 describes a situation in which there is only one critical field for both, classical and quantum percolation. For self dual systems in two dimensions the percolation threshold has to be 50$`\%`$ for either case. However, for general systems the two critical fields will be different. Indeed, where the puddles of the two competing phases are not macroscopic (i.e. when the correlation length for the disorder potential is finite) the notion of classical percolation is not completely well defined, as there is an intrinsic “quantum blurriness” to the edges of the puddles, so there is no precise point at which two puddles can be said to touch.

However, if for some reason, perhaps due to strong enough coupling to a heat bath, $`\mathrm{}_\phi `$ does not diverge at low temperatures, then near enough to the percolation threshold a sort of “metallic” phase, in which the dissipation occurs  predominantly at weak-links between nearly percolating puddles of the minority phase, will be valid to arbitrarily low temperatures! Moreover, in this case, a true phase transition separates the metallic state in the neighborhood of $`H=H_c`$ and the extremal quantum states at large values of $`|HH_c|`$. At present, we know of no theoretically well understood prototypical systems in which this sort of behavior occurs. Some very promising starts along this line, especially related to the behavior of superconducting grains in a metallic host, are enumerated in the final section. Nonetheless, it is important to realize that analogous behavior is established in certain well understood zero dimensional systems . Here, as a function of the strength of coupling to a heat-bath, various quantum systems with more than one classical ground-state are observed to make a transition from the expected quantum behavior, in which tunneling renders the ground-state unique, to zero temperature “classical” behavior, in which the system is trapped in a single (arbitrary) one of the classical ground states.

### C “Superuniversality”

The Chern-Simons mapping suggests that there should be a correspondence not only between the various stable electronic phases in two dimensions, but also between the quantum phase transitions between them. This idea is referred to as “superuniversality”. Superuniversality as an approximate statement follows from treating the fluctuations of the statistical gauge field at linear response (one-loop) level. Non-perturbative proofs of superuniversality have been constructed for certain simplified models, without disorder. Whether it is truly an exact relation asymptotically deep in the critical regime, or whether the effects of higher order fluctuations of the statistical gauge field ultimate destroy superuniversality, is still being debated. If we assume that the correspondences implied by suepruniversality hold to a sufficient level of approximation, we can derive a large number of additional results.

The critical exponents, $`\nu `$ and $`z`$, should be the same at all quantum Hall transitions, including the QHIT and the plateau transitions, irrespective of whether the transitions involve integer or fractional quantum Hall states. Assuming that the critical conductivity tensor is indeed universal, one can compute the critical conductance at any given transition from its value at the $`s_{xy}=1`$ to insulator transition, as discussed in Ref. .

The same correspondence implies that the magnetic field driven SIT should have the same critical exponents and a related value of the critical conductance. In particular, if we accept that at the $`s_{xy}=1`$ to insulator transition, $`\sigma _{xy}^c=\sigma _{xx}^c=e^2/2h`$, then at the SIT we would expect $`\sigma _{xy}^c=0`$ and $`\sigma _{xx}^c=2e^2/h`$.

## IV Discussion

While the classical theory of phase transitions has been extraordinarily successful, there are several reasons to exercise caution when applying this approach to zero temperature, quantum phase transitions: 1) Experiments are always carried out at finite temperature, so that the proper identification of the relevant phases requires an extrapolation to zero temperature. In all the cases cited above, the question has arisen whether a transition between two distinct zero temperature phases has actually been observed, or whether a finite temperature crossover behavior is being misinterpreted as a quantum phase transition. 2) In most experimentally interesting cases, quenched disorder is known to play a central role in the critical physics, and there is increasingly compelling theoretical reasons to believe that Griffiths singularities, which are typically only of academic interest for classical critical phenomena, can fundamentally complicate the scaling analysis at quantum critical points. In particular they can, under some circumstances, lead to divergent susceptibilities and relaxation times over a finite range of parameters about the quantum critical point, and apparent correlation length exponents which depend on the averaging procedure. 3) Effects of dissipation, that is to say the coupling of the critical modes to a continuum of other “heat-bath” degrees of freedom, can fundamentally alter the character of the phases and of the transitions between them.

The SIT: On the basis of the dirty-boson model, the zero temperature phase diagram of superconducting films is expected to be of the form shown in figure 1a; all along the phase boundary, the SIT is in a single universality class, except at the zero $`H`$ end point.

How well are these expectations met experimentally? Certainly, at not too low temperatures, a field driven SIT has been apparently observed in a number of superconducting thin-film systems. Moreover, the resistivity (more precisely the $`IV`$ curve) as a function of the $`H`$, $`T`$, and $`I`$ can be successfully collapsed onto a scaling curve, suggestive of quantum critical scaling. However, while the value of $`z1`$ extracted from the data is consistent with theoretical expectation, it is always found that $`\nu 4/3`$, suggestive more of classical than of quantum percolation. Moreover, the critical resistivity is not found to be universal, and is often as much as a factor 10 smaller than the value $`\sigma _{xx}^c=2e^2/h`$, predicted on the basis of superuniversality. Finally, and most dramatically, it has been emphasized in the recent work of Mason and Kapitulnik (although it is a highly neglected fact that is lurking in much previous data, as well) that at low temperatures, the resistivity saturates to a strongly field dependent but temperature independent value. Thus, in fact no SIT actually takes place in this field range!  Manifestly, there is physics here that is beyond the scope of the dirty boson model.

This observation does not contradict the theoretically solid expectation that superconductivity will occur for a non-zero range of $`H`$. Indeed, Mason and Kapitulnik  have recently found evidence of a low temperature Metal-to-Superconductor transition in disordered amorphous films in which a field-tuned Superconductor-Insulator Transition is disrupted . This new transition is characterized by hysteretic magnetoresistance and discontinuities in the $`IV`$ curves. The metallic phase just above the transition is different from the ”Fermi Metal” before superconductivity sets in as is evident from the temperature dependence of the resistance and the $`IV`$ characteristics obtained for this phase. Of course, experiments at much higher $`H`$ to look for the metal to insulator transition predicted by figure 1b are the next step.

The QHIT and the QHPT: The Law of Corresponding States applied to the simple phase diagram in figure 1a leads to the complex phase diagram in figure 2a, and superuniversality would imply that all the phase transitions are in the same universality class.

How well are these expectations met experimentally? The answer is mixed. There is a subset of experiments that are in striking agreement with these expectations. Early experiments on the plateau transitions between various integer quantum quantum Hall states, and from the $`s_{xy}=2/5`$ to $`s_{xy}=1/3`$ quantum Hall states exhibited good scaling properties characteristic of a quantum phase transition, and apparently universal values of the critical exponent, $`\nu z7/3`$. Measurements at finite frequency showed remarkable $`\mathrm{}\omega /k_BT`$ scaling, again strongly indicative of quantum critical behavior. No sign of saturation of the critical behavior was detected to the lowest temperatures. However, no clear results concerning the critical conductance were obtained in these experiments.

Somewhat later, experiments were carried out on the QHIT, of which some of the clearest made use of purposely low mobility heterojunctions. Transitions from the $`s_{xy}=2`$ to insulator (the factor of 2 is due to the fact that the spin-splitting is not resolved in these samples) and the $`s_{xy}=1/3`$ to insulator transition. Quantum critical scaling is observed on some samples , with $`\nu z7/3`$. Moreover, the theoretically predicted universal values of the critical resistance are found to good approximation. (Ambiguities due to the exact geometry of the current paths make a precise test of this prediction difficult.) Some features of the shape of the global phase diagram in figure 2a were also confirmed in these experiments, including the existence of a reentrant insulator to quantum Hall liquid to insulator transition as a function of increasing $`H`$ (also known as the phenomenon of “floating” of the delocalized states ). However, other experiments point to the phase diagram of figure 2b by showing deviations from scaling on both sides of the transition . It is important to note that deviations from scaling can occur even without noticeable resistance saturation, and it is therefore difficult to determine the conductance states in experiments where scaling is not measured.

A large number of more recent experiments on the QHIT, carried out on high mobility heterojunctions, exhibit behavior that is more like that observed in superconducting films: An apparent transition is observed at high temperatures, which appears to satisfy scaling. However, as pointed out by Mason and Kapitulnik, the apparent value of $`\nu z4/3`$, rather than 7/3. Moreover, at low temperatures, the resistivity apparently saturates to a finite (metallic) value, rather than diverging in the putative insulating side of the transition or vanishing on the putative quantum Hall side. The one striking difference between these results and the results for superconducting films is that the apparent critical resistance at which the QHIT occurs appears to be, to good approximation, universal (sample independent) and in agreement with the predictions of theory.

A New Global Phase Diagram: Mason and Kapitulnik proposed figure 1b, where $`\alpha `$ is a measure of dissipation. While there are many speculative ideas concerning how this sort of phase diagram could arise, at this stage this proposal must be viewed as phenomenological. In particular, our fundamental postulate that large $`\alpha `$ stabilizes a metallic phase is supported by recent theoretical work, especially that in Ref. , but has not been clearly established. However, once this postulate is accepted, it rationalizes in a simple way the observations on superconducting films. Moreover, on the basis of this idea, as outlined in the introduction, a number of interesting further predictions can be made.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank Assa Auerbach, Seb Doniach, Eduardo Fradkin, Dung-Hai Lee, and Boris Spivak for many useful discussions. Work at Stanford University supported by NSF grant DMR-9800663. Work at UCLA was supported by NSF Grants DMR-98-14289 (SKA) and DMR-99-71138 (SC). NM thanks Lucent CRFP for fellowship support.


text:
# The Ultra-Luminous IR Galaxy Population

## 1. Starbursting Galaxies and the ULIRG Population

It has been known since the pioneering work of Larson & Tinsley (1978) that collisionally disturbed galaxies (e.g., Arp’s  peculiar galaxies) have abnormally high star formation rates compared to isolated galaxies of similar type. It was not until IRAS discovered the population of luminous IR galaxies (LIRGs) and ultraluminous IR galaxies (ULIRGs), having extremely high star formation rates (100–1000$`\times `$ the Galactic star formation rate), that the links between strong star formation, high IR luminosity, and galaxy-galaxy encounters were made inseparable (Joseph & Wright 1985). The observation that some galaxies have higher rates of star formation than can be sustained by their current gas content over a full Hubble time led to the idea of ”starbursting” galaxies (i.e., starbursts; Weedman et al. 1981). It has thus been unequivocally established that the LIRG, ULIRG, starburst, and collision+merger processes are physically related phenomena that are intimately connected to the star formation history of galaxies, galaxy formation, and galaxy evolution (for a review, see Sanders & Mirabel 1996). In fact, most recently, it appears very likely that the cosmic IR background is produced by cosmologically distant LIRGs and ULIRGs (i.e., dusty starbursts; Smail et al. 1998; Blain et al. 1999; Barger et al. 1999).

## 2. Results from a Survey of ULIRGs

We have been studying a large sample of ULIRGs with both HST imaging and ground-based spectroscopy (Borne et al. 1997a,b, 1998, 1999a,b, 2000; Colina et al. 1999, 2000; Arribas et al. 2000). Among the plethora of results being derived from this rich survey database, we have found strong evidence for a multiple-merger origin for many of the ULIRGs in our sample (Borne et al. 2000). We have established a morphological classification scheme for ULIRGs that indicates that the sample is nearly equally divided between single objects (e.g., merged; disturbed; IR-luminous QSOs) and multiple objects (e.g., pairs; compact groupings; strongly interacting multiples). We find very little luminosity variation across these morphological classes. We have also verified the long-known belief that the ULIRG population has a high interaction rate. From a sample of nearly 130 ULIRGs, we find $``$98% show evidence for close neighbors, tidal disturbances, or on-going merging. In several cases, the galaxies were previously classified as isolated and/or undisturbed from low-resolution ground-based imaging. Our sample is the largest that has been used to derive this interaction rate estimate. Most recently, we have been obtaining multi-fiber integral spectroscopy for several ULIRGs, which indicate that luminous gas-rich knots are ubiquitous among these galaxies. In every case, we find multiple line emission sources, frequently in regions detached from the cores of the galaxies or from any other region that is luminous in continuum light. These line-emitting regions have spectral characteristics of H II regions, LINERS, or AGN. In some cases, these line-emitting clouds may be simply reflecting the emission from a dust-obscured nuclear source. In general, we find that the ULIRG population of galaxies has a rich dynamical diversity, demonstrated both morphologically and spectroscopically. This points to a rich evolutionary history for these objects, with strong connections between the history of dust and gas evolution, star formation, metal enrichment, and galaxy evolution. The consequences of these connections may also be applicable to the interpretation of distant submm/FIR sources.

### Acknowledgments.

Support for this work was provided by NASA through grant number GO-06346.01-95A from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by AURA, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555.

## References

Arp, H. C. 1966, ApJS, 14, 1

Arribas, S., Colina, L., & Borne, K. D. 2000, ApJ, 545, 000 (in press)

Barger, A. J., Cowie, L. L., & Sanders, D. B. 1999, ApJ, 518, L5

Blain, A. W. et al. 1999, ApJ, 512, L87

Borne, K.D., et al. 1997a, in “Star Formation, Near and Far”, eds. S. Holt & L. Mundy (Woodbury: AIP), 295

Borne, K.D., et al. 1997b, in “Extragalactic Astronomy in the Infrared”, eds. G. A. Mamon, T. X. Thuan, & J. Tran Thanh Van (Paris: Editions Frontieres), 277

Borne, K.D., et al. 1998, in “After the Dark Ages: When Galaxies Were Young”, eds. S. Holt & E. Smith (Woodbury: AIP), 220

Borne, K. D., et al. 1999a, Ap&SS, 266, 137

Borne, K. D., Colina, L., Bushouse, H., & Lucas, R. A. 1999b, ApJ, 527, 554

Borne, K. D., Bushouse, H., Colina, L., & Lucas, R. A. 2000, ApJ, 529, L77

Colina, L., Arribas, S., & Borne, K. D. 1999, ApJ, 527, L13

Colina, L., Arribas, S., Borne, K. D., & Monreal, A. 2000, ApJ, 533, L9

Joseph, R., & Wright, G. 1985, MNRAS, 214, 87

Larson, R. B., & Tinsley, B. M. 1978, ApJ, 219, 46

Sanders, D. B., & Mirabel, I. F. 1996, ARA&A, 34, 749

Smail, I. et al. 1998, ApJ, 507, L21

Weedman, D. et al. 1981, ApJ, 248, 105