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# The GZK Feature in our Neighborhood of the Universe

## 1 Introduction

The unexpected detection of cosmic rays with energies above $`10^{20}`$ eV has triggered considerable interest in the possible origin and nature of these particles . These highest energy events are surprising for the following reasons. If these particles are protons, they likely originate in extragalactic sources, since at these high energies the Galactic magnetic field cannot confine protons in the Galaxy. However, extragalactic protons with energies above a few times $`10^{19}`$ eV can produce pions through interactions with the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and consequently lose significant amounts of energy as they traverse intergalactic distances . Therefore, in addition to the extraordinary energy requirements for astrophysical sources to accelerate protons to $`>10^{20}`$ eV, the photopion threshold reaction suppresses the observable flux above $`10^{20}`$ eV. These conditions were expected to cause a natural high-energy limit to the cosmic ray spectrum known as the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff .

As clearly shown by the most recent compilation of the AGASA collaboration data , the spectrum of cosmic rays does not end at the expected GZK cutoff. The significant flux observed above $`10^{20}`$ eV together with a nearly isotropic distribution of event arrival directions has challenged astrophysically based scenarios (see e.g.,  and references therein) and has inspired a number of alternatives (see, e.g.,  and references therein). However, the GZK cutoff is not an absolute end to the cosmic ray spectrum but it generates a feature around $`5\times 10^{19}`$ eV. The spectrum recovers at energies above this feature  and the local distribution of sources can significantly affect the agreement between predicted and observed spectra. In particular, a local overdensity of sources can decrease the gap between observed and detected events above the GZK cutoff . This effect can easily be understood: photopion energy losses limit the maximum distance at which sources can contribute at the highest energies to a few tens of Mpc, while cosmic rays below the pion production threshold come from much larger volumes. A local overdensity will increase the observed flux at the highest energies relative to the lower energy flux. Here we show that the observed local overdensity is not high enough to explain the data unless, perhaps, the sources have a hard injection spectrum.

In the following, we simulate the propagation of ultra-high energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) from extragalactic sources to Earth. Our numerical propagation code includes pair production, photopion production, and adiabatic losses due to the universe’s expansion. For a uniform distribution of sources, our numerical results agree well with previous results and analytical calculations. We study the effect of a local overdensity by assuming that the number density of sources is proportional to the number density of galaxies. To keep this study independent of specific hypothetical sources, we use different injection spectra and consider a possible source evolution with redshift. However, since we assume that UHECRs are protons, our results are mostly relevant for extragalactic astrophysical acceleration scenarios.

Rather than adopting analytic models of the galaxy distribution, as do , we extract the distribution of galaxies from observations of large scale structure using the CfA2 and the PSCz galaxy catalogs. We assume that the density field derived from these studies has the same shape as the density field of UHECR sources, although a priori UHECR sources may cluster differently from luminous matter. We show that the local density is only about a factor of two above the mean, in contrast with much higher estimates previously published . This large discrepancy was caused by neglecting the necessary galaxy selection functions which account for the fact that nearby galaxies are far easier to detect than far away galaxies. Once we include the selection functions, we find that the real overdensity is not high enough to bridge the gap between predicted and observed spectra for soft sources ($`J(E)E^\gamma `$, with $`\gamma =3`$). However, sources with a hard injection spectrum ($`\gamma <2.1`$) can fit the present data within 2$`\sigma `$, at energies above a few $`10^{19}`$ eV. Sources of UHECRs distributed as ordinary galaxies are marginally consistent with present data and, for hard injection spectra, the GZK cutoff is not really a cutoff but a feature in the high-energy cosmic ray spectrum.

The plan of this paper is as follows. In §2, we discuss the proper way to model a distribution of sources associated with galaxies. We derive the galaxy density field in our neighborhood of the universe using the CfA2 and PSCz galaxy redshift surveys with their respective selection function. In §3, we describe our UHECR propagation code. In §4, we display the results for different injection spectra and a realistic spatial distribution of sources. We also contrast our results with previous work and analytical estimates. We conclude in §5.

## 2 The Galaxy Density Field

Although galaxies are not homogeneously distributed in the local universe, the GZK cutoff is usually calculated assuming a homogeneous distribution of sources throughout space. If the sources are distributed like the luminous matter around us, the effects of an inhomogeneous galaxy distribution needs to be taken into account when predicting the spectrum of UHECRs. In order to include the effects of the spatial inhomogeneity in the UHECR spectrum, we must consider the estimated galaxy density field in our neighborhood of the universe. The density field is usually measured by selecting galaxies from an imaging survey of the sky and taking their redshifts. Almost invariably, the galaxies are selected to be brighter than some limiting flux in some band, $`f_{\mathrm{lim}}`$, expressed as an “apparent magnitude,” $`m_{\mathrm{lim}}=2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}(f_{\mathrm{lim}}/f_0)`$, where $`f_0`$ is an arbitrary zero-point. For all (or for some random subsample) of the galaxies brighter than this, one takes their spectra and determines their redshifts $`z`$. According to the Hubble law, the redshifts are related to their distances $`d=H_0cz`$, where $`c`$ is the speed of light and $`H_0100h`$ Mpc/ km/s, with $`h0.5`$$`0.8`$ (e.g., ).

However, a flux-limited survey is not a volume-limited survey. In a flux-limited survey, the raw distribution of redshifts cannot be used without regard to the way galaxies were selected. Here we describe the proper way to derive density fields from galaxy redshift surveys. We limit ourselves to measuring the density in redshift space and do not include the small effects of deviations from the Hubble law due to galaxy peculiar velocities. We base our approach on methods dating back to  (see, e.g.,  for a recent review).

We will use two surveys for our analysis. To compare directly with , we consider the Center for Astrophysics Redshift Survey (CfA2; ). Although this survey comprises about 10,000 galaxy redshifts (selected to be brighter than $`m=15.5`$, a $`B`$-band magnitude), it covers only about 17% of the whole sky. In order to better evaluate the effects of the density field of galaxies on the cosmic ray spectrum, we should use surveys which probe the density field over nearly the whole sky. The best sample of galaxies to use for this purpose is the IRAS PSC$`z`$ Survey , which consists of about 15,000 galaxies with infrared fluxes $`>0.6`$ Jy and covers about 84% of the sky.

A consequence of the flux limits in any survey is that at different redshifts, a different set of galaxy luminosities $`L`$ is observed, determined by the faintest luminosity observable at that redshift $`L_{\mathrm{min}}(z)`$. For an Euclidean metric, this luminosity is related to the flux limit by:

$$L_{\mathrm{min}}(z)=4\pi (H_0cz)^2f_{\mathrm{lim}}.$$
(1)
At cosmological distances (generally only appropriate when $`z>0.1`$) more complicated relations apply, which in general depend on the cosmological model  (see  for a useful compilation of results). If the distribution of galaxy luminosities is described by the galaxy luminosity function $`\mathrm{\Phi }(L)`$, then the fraction of all galaxies that are observable at any redshift is given by:

$$\varphi (z)=\frac{_{L_{\mathrm{min}}(z)}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑L\mathrm{\Phi }(L)}{_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑L\mathrm{\Phi }(L)}.$$
(2)
The quantity $`\varphi (z)`$ is usually referred to in the literature as the “selection function” . The most common methods used to determine the galaxy luminosity function from the survey itself are those of  and . These methods assume that the luminosity function is universal (i.e., independent of redshift) and use nearby galaxies to determine the shape of the faint end and far away galaxies for the shape of the bright end.

Consider, for example, Figure 1, which shows in the top panel the distribution of galaxies and redshifts in CfA2. Here we express galaxy luminosity in terms of the “absolute magnitude,” $`M=2.5\mathrm{log}_{10}L+`$ const; thus, in the figure, the faintest galaxies are at the top. The thick solid line shows the flux limit of the survey, translated into an absolute magnitude limit at each redshift. Because of this limit a number of galaxies which are observable at low redshifts are too faint to be observed at higher redshift. The fraction of galaxies $`\varphi (z)`$ between absolute magnitudes $`22<M<10`$ which are unobservable at each redshift is shown in the bottom panel of Figure 1, based on a fit to the luminosity function in the survey using the method of . Because the function falls rapidly from unity, it is clear that even at low redshifts the effects of the flux limit are important.

In principle, we can construct a volume-limited sample by choosing only galaxies brighter than some magnitude $`M`$ up to the redshift at which the thick solid line representing the flux limit crosses $`M`$. This usually decreases significantly the number of galaxies and the redshift depth of the survey. A more effective approach is to use $`\varphi (z)`$ to calculate the distribution of observed galaxies with redshift which one would expect if the distribution were homogeneous. Then, the density field can be inferred by comparing the actual counts to these expected counts. The top panel of Figure 2 compares these expected counts (dotted line) in redshift shells of thickness 0.001 to the observed counts (solid line) in CfA2. It appears that locally we are in an overdensity of galaxies of about a factor of two; note that at large distances, where each shell corresponds to a considerable amount of volume, and thus averages over large-scale structures, the number of galaxies is very nearly the expected number. Instead, if the flux limit is neglected (dashed line), the “expected” number of galaxies in each shell scales approximately as the square of the redshift of that shell. If we normalize these “expected” counts in approximately the same way as , we recover the incorrect result that we live in an overdensity of approximately a factor of 30. It is clear from the comparison of the dotted to the dashed curve that neglecting the flux limits is a poor approximation. Put simply, we do not live in a large overdensity, but we can certainly detect galaxies more easily if they are close by rather than far away.

As mentioned above, the CfA2 survey covers a relatively small fraction of the sky. Thus, the PSC$`z`$ redshift survey provides a more useful sample to use in the context of this paper. Using the selection function provided by , we again show the expected versus the observed counts for the PSC$`z`$ survey in the bottom panel of Figure 2. This survey also shows we are living in a slight overdensity, and furthermore reveals the general homogeneity of the nearby universe. (The actual counts and their dependence on redshift are different from CfA2, because the galaxies are selected in different ways).

## 3 The Propagation Code for UHECRs

Armed with a more realistic model of the local universe, we can calculate the spectrum of UHECRs that would be observed on Earth for extragalactic sources with different injection spectra. Our numerical propagation code includes pair production and photopion production as energy losses, as well as adiabatic losses due to the expansion of the universe. We compare our numerical results with analytical calculations which we carry out as in . In order to isolate the effect of density inhomogeneities we neglect the effect of magnetic fields in this paper.

We compare the results of the simulations with the observed spectrum by requiring that the total number of simulated events with energy above a normalizing energy, $`E_{norm}`$, be the same as what is observed. In general we choose $`E_{norm}10^{19}`$ eV since at lower energies the flux of cosmic rays is likely to have a galactic origin and at higher energies the observed number of events is very small. For a given source spectral index, we generate many realizations of the spectrum on Earth. Each realization has the same total number of observed particles above $`E_{norm}`$ calculated as follows. The flux of UHECRs contributed from a shell of thickness $`\mathrm{\Delta }z`$ at redshift $`z`$ is proportional to $`p(z)(1+z)^{m5/2}f(z)`$, where the redshift dependence of the density of sources and the flux suppression due to distance are included explicitly . In this formula, we allow for source luminosity evolution through the parameter $`m`$. The function $`f(z)`$ describes possible deviations from a homogeneous spatial distribution of sources. For a homogeneous distribution $`f(z)=1`$, otherwise $`f(z)`$ represents the local overdensity of sources at redshift $`z`$ as, for example, those derived from the catalogs introduced in §2. We assign the redshift of one event by extracting a random number according to the distribution $`p(z)`$ given above. The energy of the particle at the source is extracted from a distribution representing the spectrum of the source assumed to have the form of a power law $`E^\gamma `$. The particle is then propagated from the source to the detector.

The photopion energy losses are simulated following . In each spatial step of the simulation of size $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$ ($`200`$ kpc), the average number of photons that can induce the production of pions in the scattering with a proton of energy $`E`$ at time $`t`$ is

$$N_{ph}(E,\mathrm{\Delta }s)=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }s}{K_p(E)l(E)}.$$
(3)
Here, $`l(E)=c\left[(1/E)(dE/dt)\right]^1`$ is taken from  and $`K_p(E)`$ is an effective inelasticity at energy $`E`$, which can be approximated by

$$K_p(E)0.2\left(\frac{E_{th}+2.5E}{E_{th}+E}\right),$$
(4)
with $`E_{th}=3\times 10^{11}`$ GeV . Once the average number of pion producing photons has been determined over the path $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$, the actual number of photons with which the proton interacts is extracted from a Poisson distribution with mean $`N_{ph}(E,\mathrm{\Delta }s)`$. For sufficiently small $`\mathrm{\Delta }s`$, the number of photons in each step is usually either zero or one. The energy of each photon is extracted from a Planck distribution at temperature $`T_{CMB}=2.728`$ K (with a minimum energy corresponding to the threshold for pion production). Since the CMB photons are isotropically distributed in space, we extract the interaction angle from a flat distribution in $`\mathrm{cos}(\theta )`$. The final energy of the proton after each scattering with a CMB photon is calculated from the kinematics of the scattering. Since the inelasticity for pair production is very low, we treat it as a continuous energy loss process.

We compare our numerical results with analytic results for the modification factor from single sources and from a distribution of sources as in . The agreement is excellent and the effect of the fluctuations at energies larger than $`(34)\times 10^{19}`$ eV is evident in Figures 5–8 as we discuss below. The average of the simulated flux is slightly larger than the analytic one, as expected for the stochastic process of photopion production (on small distances there is an appreciable chance that some protons do not interact at all).

## 4 Results

As we stressed above, a local overdensity increases the observed flux above GZK energies with respect to the flux at lower energies. To show this effect clearly, we estimated the change in the spectrum due to a simple top-hat model before considering more realistic models of the galaxy density field. In Figure 3, we display the results of our analytical calculation for three choices of the overdensity, $`\rho /\overline{\rho }=1,10,30`$ (solid, dashed, and dash-dotted lines respectively), all in a volume of radius $`20`$ Mpc around the Earth and with source spectral index $`\gamma =3`$. From this figure, it is clear that the overdensity increases the flux at the highest energies versus the flux at and below the GZK feature, as mentioned above.

The galaxy surveys discussed in §2 provide a more realistic model of the local density field. Among the different surveys, the PSCz catalog covers a lot more solid angle and reaches further (up to a redshift $`z_{max}=0.1`$) when compared to the CfA2 survey. Thus, we use the PSCz to study the effect of different source spectra below. But first we compare the results of the two catalogs for a fixed spectral index ($`\gamma =3`$) with the homogeneous distribution in Figure 4. This choice of $`\gamma `$ allows a direct comparison of our results with those of . In this figure, we normalize the spectrum by requiring that the number of events with energy above $`10^{19}`$ eV equal the AGASA number of 728 . The error bars in the simulation are obtained by generating 100 realizations and calculating the mean and variance of the set. Figure 4 shows that the two catalogs give very similar results.

In Figure 5, we compare the case of a homogeneous distribution and the PSCz catalog versus the AGASA data also for $`\gamma =3`$. The total number of events with $`E>10^{20}`$ eV is $`1.2\pm 1.0`$ for the homogeneous case and $`1.5\pm 1.0`$ for the PSCz catalog of galaxies. Both numbers are consistent with 1, while AGASA has detected 8 events with $`E>10^{20}`$ eV. The data is more than 6 $`\sigma `$ away from the observations. None of our realizations have the observed number of events for this soft spectrum. In the figure, the solid and dashed lines represent the result of the analytical calculations for the same value of the parameters and for the homogeneous and PSCz cases respectively. The dash-dotted and dash-dot-dot-dotted lines trace the mean simulated fluxes for the homogeneous case (hatched downwards to the right, i.e., like “$``$”) and the PSCz case (hatched upwards to the right, i.e., like “/”). As can be seen from Figure 5, the difference between the analytic calculations and the mean of the numerical calculation is quite small. In addition, the homogeneous case has only slightly lower fluxes at higher energies than the realistic models. Here our results differ significantly from those of , due to the fact that the real local overdensity is much smaller than found in .

In Figure 6, we show the generated fluxes assuming that 9075 events have been observed above $`10^{19}`$ eV, a number which the Auger project is expected to reach in the first 3 years of operation. Again we compare the results of a homogeneous distribution of sources ($``$ hatches) with those associated with the PSCz galaxy distribution (/ hatches), using $`\gamma =3`$ for both. As expected from a larger sample, the size of the error bars decreases significantly. The number of events at $`E>10^{20}`$ eV in the two cases is still much smaller than if extrapolated from the AGASA observations ($`100`$). This figure shows that the Auger project will be able to constrain the nature of the GZK feature much more accurately than possible at present.

It is clear that with a source injection spectrum as steep as $`\gamma =3`$, the number of events with $`E>10^{20}`$ eV is significantly smaller than what has been observed so far. Since sources with harder spectra have been proposed, we consider different choices for the injection spectrum. We simulated the case of $`\gamma =2.7`$, but the results do not diffr significantly from the $`\gamma =3`$ case. Next we discuss the case of $`\gamma =2.1`$, where we find the gap between observed and predicted flux to reach the 2 $`\sigma `$ level.

In Figure 7, we show the results for $`\gamma =2.1`$ for three cases: a homogeneous distribution of the sources with $`z_{max}=0.1`$ (/ hatches), the PSCz distribution with $`z_{max}=0.1`$ (horizontal hatches), and a homogeneous distribution with $`z_{max}=1`$ ($``$ hatches). For such hard spectra, we need to adjust the normalization energy, $`E_{norm}`$, such that the flux at energies below $`10^{20}`$ eV is consistent with observations in this energy range. Thus, we choose the normalization energy, $`E_{norm}=4\times 10^{19}`$ eV, where the number of events observed by AGASA  (49) is still statistically significant.

Again, Figure 7 shows that the number of events at $`E>10^{20}`$ eV is affected by the local distribution of the sources. For the adopted normalization, the homogeneous distribution gives $`3.3\pm 1.6`$ events above $`10^{20}`$ eV (to be compared with the observed 8) and the PSCz distribution provides $`3.7\pm 2.0`$ events in the same range. In this last case, about $`5\%`$ of our realizations give a number of events above $`10^{20}`$ eV which is equal or larger that the observed one (consistent with a $`2\sigma `$ significance for a Gaussian error distribution).

The deficit of events at energies lower than $`(34)\times 10^{19}`$ eV for hard spectra is evident in the case of $`z_{max}=0.1`$. Since the high redshift sources contribute mainly to the low energy flux, we also considered the case where the maximum redshift is $`z_{max}=1`$. The increase in $`z_{max}`$ moves the deficit to energies lower than $`2\times 10^{19}`$ eV, as shown in Figure 7 (the discrepancy is about a factor 1.6).

We also considered the effect of a source luminosity evolution. For instance, if the luminosity of the sources increases with redshift $`z`$, the flux of UHECRs at energies below the GZK cutoff will also increase. This is shown in Figure 8 for the case $`m=0`$ (horizontal hatches), $`m=2`$ (/ hatches), and $`m=4`$ ($``$ hatches). This type of source evolution by itself does not improve significantly the agreement between the theoretical prediction and the AGASA data at low energies, leaving unaltered the number of events above $`10^{20}`$ eV. In fact the height of the bump at $`(34)\times 10^{19}`$ eV also increases with large values of $`m`$, thus reducing the number of events with energy larger than $`10^{20}`$ eV when the number of events is normalized to the integral flux above $`4\times 10^{19}`$ eV. The number of events above $`10^{20}`$ eV is $`2.8\pm 1.4`$ for the case $`m=2`$ and $`2.5\pm 1.5`$ for $`m=4`$ (these numbers are for a homogeneous distribution of the sources).

In trying to bridge the gap between predicted and observed ultra-high energy fluxes, we should consider some additional unknowns that may affect the output spectrum. For instance, it is not clear how the extragalactic component we have considered above gets modified by a Galactic component at the highest energies. The spectrum of Galactic cosmic rays might extend up to $`10^{19}`$ eV or even to higher energies. If the Galactic component continues to higher energies with the same spectrum as the observed one at lower energies (i.e., $`E^{3.1}`$), it will improve the agreement with the AGASA observations when combined with the extragalactic flux plotted in Figure 7. We do not have sufficient information about the Galactic contribution at such high energies to rule out this possibility.

Another aspect of this problem that should be considered is the effect of extragalactic magnetic fields. As shown in , a large scale magnetic field with strength $`10^7`$$`10^9`$ G can steepen the spectrum of the observed cosmic ray particles significantly. This effect would improve the agreement with the AGASA data. But as the diffusive limit is reached, the effect might go in the opposite direction: for instance, if the effective diffusion coefficient is too small, then the propagation time may be larger than the age of the universe for low energy particles generated beyond some distance, considerably reducing the cosmic ray horizon . In other words a smaller portion of the universe would contribute to the observed flux, thus reducing it. The highest energy component of the spectrum should not be affected appreciably by diffusive propagation, since most of the particles with $`E>10^{20}`$ eV originate in the local universe, where propagation is likely to be non-diffusive. A complete answer to this question awaits a full propagation code that includes the effects of a realistic model of extragalactic magnetic fields.

## 5 Conclusion

We have studied the effects on the spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays of sources associated with a realistic model for the galaxy distribution provided by the PSCz and CfA2 catalogs. We considered different injection spectra and the possibility of luminosity evolution of UHECR sources with redshift. We showed that when the galaxy selection functions are properly accounted for, the local overdensity is not as large as found by . Thus, the AGASA observations are inconsistent with the predicted flux above $`10^{20}`$ eV for soft injection spectra ($`\gamma 3`$).

We confirm that a local overdensity helps bridge the agreement between theory and observations but only (and only slightly) for hard injection spectra ($`\gamma 2`$). In this case, the observations are within 2$`\sigma `$ of the predicted number of events, in agreement with the findings of . Sources of UHECRs having a density field following that of galaxies are therefore consistent with present data only for hard injection spectra and, in this case, the GZK cutoff is not really a cutoff but a feature in the overall cosmic ray spectrum.

As future experiments such as the Pierre Auger Project , the High Resolution Fly’s Eye , the Telescope Array , and the EUSO  and OWL  satellite experiments increase the number of events observed above $`10^{20}`$ eV, a better determination of the shape of the GZK feature will be obtained. The GZK feature will contain information both on the injection spectrum (i.e., $`\gamma `$) as well as the clustering properties of the sources. Given $`\gamma `$, the clustering properties, and the angular distribution of arrival directions, a population of sources might be identifiable. If associated with active galaxies or some other specific class of astrophysical objects, the shape of the GZK feature can be further used to constrain intergalactic magnetic fields  as well as more exotic pieces of physics, such as violations of Lorentz invariance .

Alternatively, the gap between observed and predicted flux may widen as more data accumulates. This would indicate that astrophysical proton accelerators are unlikely sources of UHECRs. The added difficulty in reaching the extreme energies in astrophysical sources further justifies the search for alternative explanations. Future experiments will play a crucial role in settling this long standing mystery, through the determination of the cosmic ray flux, and arrival direction distribution, and the great discriminator: the composition at extremely high energies.

## Acknowledgment

This work was supported by NSF through grant AST-0071235 and DOE grant DE-FG0291 ER40606 at the University of Chicago and at Fermilab by DOE and NASA grant NAG 5-7092.


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# Thermodynamics of explosions

## 1 Introduction

The assumption of thermodynamic equilibrium at an intermediate stage of a heavy-ion collision is often incorporated in models of the colliding nuclear matter. These models range from statistical models of nuclear multifragmentation to the fluid dynamical models of the quark gluon plasma. In contrast, microscopic models of molecular dynamics type (e.g. RQMD, FMD and NMD), which are based upon constituent interactions, do not contain this assumption. Such models are appropriate for testing to what extent thermodynamic equilibrium is actually achieved. And if it is not, the application of thermostatic concepts such as temperature and entropy becomes questionable. In this study we employ a very simple model, and focus on the thermodynamic or “overall” description of the system.

## 2 The model

Our model consists of a number $`A`$ of identical balls of radius $`r_{hc}`$ having mass $`m`$. They perform classical non-relativistic hard-sphere scatterings, conserving energy, momentum and angular momentum. Initially the $`A`$ balls are placed randomly within a sphere of radius $`R=R_0A^{1/3}`$, and the initial velocities are chosen as a superposition of thermal (Maxwell-Boltzmann) and collective motion. We use a spherically symmetric Hubble-like flow field for the initial collective motion:

$$\stackrel{}{v}(\stackrel{}{r})=v_{0f}\stackrel{}{r}/R$$
(1)
where $`v_{0f}`$ is a model parameter, $`v_{0f}>0`$ for ingoing flow and $`v_{0f}<0`$ for outgoing flow. We fix the total energy $`E=E_{fl}+E_{th}`$, and vary the fraction $`\eta `$ of the flow energy, $`\eta =E_{fl}/E`$, where $`E_{fl}=\frac{mv_{0f}^2}{2R^2}_{i=1}^A\stackrel{}{r}_i^2`$ and $`E_{th}`$ are the flow energy and the thermal energy, respectively. Because of the way in which the system is built up, these energies will fluctuate from event to event with a relative uncertainty of the order of $`A^{\frac{1}{2}}`$.

In our simulations we have chosen nuclear-scale parameters: $`m=940`$ MeV, $`r_{hc}=0.5`$ fm, $`R_0=1.2`$ fm, $`0v_{0f}0.5`$ (in units of the velocity of light, $`c=1`$), but since the behavior of the model only depends on the two combined parameters $`mv_{0f}^2`$ and $`r_{hc}/R`$, the choice of nuclear scale is not crucial. We choose $`A=50`$, so with these parameters the initial radius of the system is $`4.2`$ fm.

We focus on four different types of event: $``$ ’th20’: The particles are started in $`100\%`$ thermal motion inside a spherical container of radius $`4.2`$ fm, at $`t=20`$ fm/c the container walls are removed. $``$ ’in’: $`100\%`$ ingoing flow. After interacting, the particles will move out again. This implosion-explosion process is intended to simulate some features of a heavy-ion collision. $``$ ’50/50’: $`50\%`$ thermal motion + $`50\%`$ outgoing flow, simulating an explosion from a non-thermalized state. $``$ ’100out7’: 100% outgoing flow inside a spherical container of radius $`7`$ fm.

The results are averaged over an ensemble of $`20`$ events of each kind.

## 3 Thermodynamic considerations

It is clear that we cannot use ordinary thermodynamics (or its well-known extensions to small systems  or to small deviations from equilibrium ) for the description of the overall behavior of our model. First, it is not clear that equilibrium prevails, even locally. Indeed we wish to investigate to what extent equilibrium is reached in the course of an implosion-explosion process. Second, our system has no fixed volume, it expands freely into the vacuum. It is the combination of these two facts, no temperature and no volume, that makes our approach different from much previous work on the subject .

Equilibrium thermodynamics is linked to the motion of the individual constituents making up the macroscopic system via the entropy . A natural starting point for the investigation of the overall, i.e. the “thermodynamic”, behavior of our system is therefore to apply an expression similar to the entropy, but in a way that makes sense in this highly non-equilibrium system.

To study one-body observables, we reduce the $`6A`$ dimensional phase-space of the $`A`$ particles to $`6`$ dimensions in the standard way . Then we introduce a finite grid in the reduced phase-space, dividing each of the $`6`$ axes into $`D`$ segments. Instead of working with a fixed grid in phase-space, which would give us the usual entropy111in the limit $`D\mathrm{}`$ in an ensemble of infinitely many events, we let the entire grid expand or contract along with the swarm of points in phase-space in a uniform way: The outer grid edge follows the outermost point, the boxes are of equal size, and the number of boxes is kept fixed, thus the physical size (e.g. in units of $`\mathrm{}^3`$) of each box in phase-space varies with time. This is to deal with the no volume problem, we mentioned above. We then introduce the pseudo-entropy as

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\frac{1}{\xi }\underset{i}{}p_i\mathrm{log}(p_i)$$
(2)
where

$$p_i=\frac{numberofpointsinboxi}{totalnumberofpointsinphasespace}$$
(3)
and $`\xi `$ is a normalization constant. We choose $`\xi `$ as the theoretical maximum value of $`_ip_i\mathrm{log}(p_i)`$ so that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }[0,1].`$ In the current set-up, for the case of $`N`$ points in a reduced phase-space divided into $`D^6`$ boxes, $`\xi `$ is the smaller number of $`\mathrm{log}(N)`$ and $`6\mathrm{log}(D)`$. We refer to the quantity $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ as the pseudo-entropy instead of entropy, since some important features of the entropy, e.g. that it increases, are not retained in this formulation. Nevertheless, we shall see that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ has some nice properties, including that of characterizing the degree of equilibrium. For a system of fixed volume in equilibrium, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ is the usual one-body entropy (apart from normalization).

## 4 Results

In the calculations presented here, we have chosen $`D=7`$, so the $`6`$ dimensional phase-space is divided into $`7^6`$ boxes. Because we are dealing with a small number of events (typically $`20`$) in the ensembles, the precise values of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ depend on the choice of grid. We have, however, verified that $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ behaves qualitatively similar to what is shown here over a range of grid-sizes, varying $`D`$ between $`2`$ and $`9`$.

To give an idea of the dynamics and the timescales, we show in Fig. 1 the scattering rate.

Fig. 2 shows how the pseudo-entropy behaves in each of the four cases.

In the ’th20’ case, the pseudo-entropy $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$ as long as the particles are in equilibrium at fixed volume inside the container. Then at $`t=20`$ fm/c, when the container is removed and the system starts to expand, the pseudo-entropy decreases, reflecting the fact that the system goes out of equilibrium222 The particles stay almost thermalized, though, in the sense that they retain their Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution. But they are certainly not in equilibrium, since this means that the phase-space distribution is independent of time..

In the case ’100out7’, where the particles are started in an extreme non-equilibrium situation, the pseudo-entropy is low ($`\mathrm{\Sigma }=0.8`$ is a low value in this context), but increases towards $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=1`$ as the scatterings equilibrize the system. By comparison with Fig. 1 one can see that the first jump in $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ at $`t5`$ fm/c is due to particles scattering against the container wall (when particles hit the wall their velocity is reversed, so in this process many new states in phase-space are being populated), and the second “jump” around $`t20`$ fm/c is due to the many particle-particle scatterings around this time.

The interesting case is the implosion-explosion (’in’) scenario, since here we do not know in advance if the system reaches a state of equilibrium or not. From the fact that the pseudo-entropy in Fig. 2 reaches a value $`\mathrm{\Sigma }1`$, the same value as the known equilibrium case ’th20’, we infer that the system is in a state of equilibrium around $`t6`$ fm/c (which is also the time of maximum compression). We have checked that the speed distribution of the particles becomes nearly Maxwellian from $`t6`$ fm/c with a temperature in the compressed state of $`47`$ MeV, which is also the theoretical value of the temperature assuming that all of the initial flow energy is converted to thermal energy.

Another interesting feature of the pseudo-entropy is that it seems to decay in a characteristic fashion when the system expands from a state of equilibrium, see Fig. 3.

## 5 Conclusions

In this note we address the problem of thermodynamic equilibration in the context of heavy-ion collisions. We have defined a variable inspired by the entropy which, at least for the cases we have considered, seems to characterize the degree of equilibrium in an a priori highly non-equilibrium process such as an explosion. Now, more theoretical work needs to be done in order to understand why $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ behaves in this seemingly interesting way.

## Acknowledgements

This work was in part supported by the Danish Natural Science Research Council. GN thanks the Niels Bohr Institute for kind hospitality and The Leon Rosenfeld Foundation for financial support during the preparation of this work. JPB thanks the Nuclear Theory Group at GSI, where part of this work was done. INM thanks The Humbold Foundation for financial support.


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# Non-Thermal Production of WIMPs and the Sub-Galactic Structure of the Universe

## Abstract

There is increasing evidence that conventional cold dark matter (CDM) models lead to conflicts between observations and numerical simulations of dark matter halos on sub-galactic scales. Spergel and Steinhardt showed that if the CDM is strongly self-interacting, then the conflicts disappear. However, the assumption of strong self-interaction would rule out the favored candidates for CDM, namely weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), such as the neutralino. In this paper we propose a mechanism of non-thermal production of WIMPs and study its implications on the power spectrum. We find that the non-vanishing velocity of the WIMPs suppresses the power spectrum on small scales compared to what it obtained in the conventional CDM model. Our results show that, in this context, WIMPs as candidates for dark matter can work well both on large scales and on sub-galactic scales.

There is strong evidence for the existence of a substantial amount of cold dark matter (CDM). The leading candidates for CDM are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), such as the neutralino. The neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. In models with R parity it is stable, and its mass density in the universe is generally assumed to be a relic of an initially thermal distribution in the hot early universe. Assuminig, in addition, the presence of a small cosmological constant, the CDM scenario is consistent with both the observations of the large scale structure of the universe ($`1`$Mpc) and the fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background. Many experiments searching for neutralino dark matter particles are under way.

The collisionless CDM scenario, however, predicts too much power on small scales, such as a large excess of dwarf galaxies, the over-concentration of dark matter in dwarf galaxies and in large galaxies. Recently Spergel and Steinhardt proposed a new concept of dark matter with strong self interaction. This puts WIMPs as candidates for dark matter in considerable jeopardy.

In this paper we propose a scenario with non-thermal production of WIMPs. These WIMPs could be relativistic when generated. Their comoving free-streaming scales could be as large as of the order 0.1 Mpc or larger. The density fluctuations on scales less than the free-streaming scale would then be severely suppressed. Consequently the discrepancies between the observations of dark matter halos on the sub-galactic scales and the predictions of the standard WIMPs dark matter picture could be resolved.

To begin with, we consider a general case of non-thermal production of the neutralinos by the decay of topological defects such as cosmic string, by the decay of an unstable heavy particle, or produced non-thermally by the reheating process in a scenario of inflation at low energy scale (see also ). The momentum distribution function of the neutralinos is for simplicity assumed to be Gaussian:

$$f(p)=\frac{A}{\sqrt{2\pi }\sigma }\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{(pp_c)^2}{2\sigma ^2}\right),$$
(1)
where $`p_c`$ is the central value and $`\sigma `$ describes the width of the distribution.

Given a model, the parameters $`p_c`$ and $`\sigma `$ can be determined. For instance, in the supersymmetric version of the $`U_{BL}(1)`$ model, the (Higgsino-like) neutralinos arise directly from the decay of the right-handed neutrinos and their superpartners . In this model, $`p_c`$ is about a half of the mass of the mother particles. For a two-body decay, if the mother particle is at rest, the distribution function $`f(p)`$ is a $`\delta `$-function. The value of $`\sigma `$ characterizes the average non-vanishing velocity of the mother particles (when $`\sigma 0`$, $`f(p)`$ approaches a $`\delta `$-function). In the model of Ref., since the mother particles when released from the cosmic string loop are non-relativistic, $`\sigma `$ is small compared with $`p_c`$ and one has $`p_c<p><p^2>^{1/2}`$.

In Eq.(1), $`A`$ is a normalization factor determined by the energy density of the non-thermal component

$$\rho _{NT}=4\pi E(p)f(p)p^2𝑑p,$$
(2)
where $`E(p)=(p^2+m^2)^{1/2}`$ and $`m`$ is the rest mass of the dark matter particle. Given that the physical momentum $`p(t)`$ scales as the inverse of the cosmic scale factor $`a(t)`$, we define $`ra(t)p(t)/m`$. During cosmic evolution $`r`$ is a constant. Throughout this paper we set $`a(t_0)=1`$, so $`r`$ can be understood as the velocity of the particles at the present time (note that the dark matter particles are non-relativistic now even though they are relativistic when generated).

The comoving free-streaming scale $`R_f`$ for the non-thermal particles can be calculated as follows:

$`R_f`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle _{t_i}^{t_{EQ}}}{\displaystyle \frac{v(t^{})}{a(t^{})}}𝑑t^{}{\displaystyle _0^{t_{EQ}}}{\displaystyle \frac{v(t^{})}{a(t^{})}}𝑑t^{}`$ (3)
$``$ $`2r_ct_{EQ}(1+z_{EQ})^2\mathrm{ln}\left(\sqrt{1+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_c^2(1+z_{EQ})^2}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_c(1+z_{EQ})}}\right),`$ (4)
where $`r_ca(t)p_c(t)/m=p_c(t_0)/m`$ and the subscript ’EQ’ denotes radiation-matter equality. Below the free-streaming scale, the power spectrum will be severely damped. To account for the lack of substructure in the Local Group, N-body simulations study show that the free-streaming scale of the dark matter should be $`0.1Mpc`$. This corresponds to $`r_c10^7`$, which gives rise to a constraint on the parameters of our model.

To calculate the power spectra for our models, we adapt the CMBFAST code  so that it applies to a thermal as well as a non-thermal dark matter distribution. To check the program we replaced the non-thermal distribution function in our adapted code by the standard thermal distributions for hot dark matter and cold dark matter respectively, and calculated the power spectra, obtaining the same results as with the standard CMBFAST code.

In the numerical calculations, we took the presently favored values $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.4`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.6`$$`h=0.65`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_bh^2=0.02`$ of the relevant cosmological parameters, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$$`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda },`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ are the ratios of the contributions from total mass, vacuum energy, and baryons to the total density of the universe. In general, there are two sources of WIMPs which contribute to $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m`$, one is from thermal production, the other is from non-thermal production. For simplicity, in our study we neglected the contribution of WIMPs from the thermal production mechanism.

In Fig.1, we show the power spectrum of our model with $`r_c=1.5\times 10^7`$. For comparison, we also plot the power spectra for the conventional CDM model and the warm dark matter (WDM) model with $`m_W=1`$keV (For this mass the free-streaming scale is $`0.11`$Mpc). Throughout this paper, we normalize all power spectra by the COBE observations.

We have varied the parameters of the non-thermally produced WIMPs dark matter model in the numerical calculations. Different values of $`r_c`$ gives rise to different power spectra. However the spectrum is independent of the rest mass $`m`$ of the dark matter particle (for fixed $`r_c`$), and is very insensitive to $`\sigma `$ for $`\sigma p_c`$. This can be understand easily from Eq.(4) which shows that the comoving free-streaming scale $`R_f`$ only depends on $`r_c`$.

One can see from Fig. 1 that on large scales, the three power spectra are the same, which shows that our model retains all the merits of the conventional CDM model on large scales, while on sub-galactic scales, the power spectrum of non-thermal dark matter (NTDM) model is damped severely relative to that of the CDM model, and is close to that of the WDM model with $`m_W=1`$keV. Ref. argued that such a warm dark matter scenario provides a solution to the substructure problem.

The model we present in this paper with non-thermal production of WIMPs provides a promising scenario for large-scale structure formation of the universe. However, we need to check its consistency with observations on small scales, especially on scales of the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest. In Fig.2 we plot the power spectrum of our model and the observed power spectrum of the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ system at $`z=2.5`$ shown as the filled circles with error bars. For comparison we also give the power spectra for the conventional CDM and WDM models. In fitting to the observed data, we choose the primordial spectral index $`n=0.97`$ for all models. The mass for the WDM particles is choosen as $`750`$eV, and the parameters for the NTDM models are $`r_c=(1.3,1.4,1.5)\times 10^7`$, respectively.

To obtain a quantitative constraint on $`r_c`$, we closely follow the study by Narayanan et al in Ref.. They studied explicitly the power spectrum of WDM models and came to the conclusion that any mechanism which suppresses the conventional CDM linear power spectrum more severely than a 750eV WDM particle will be inconsistent with Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest observations in the scale range $`2.5\mathrm{lg}[k(km^1s)]1`$. This requires that the linear theory power spectrum of any substitute to the conventional CDM models be higher than that of a WDM model with $`m_W=750`$eV. For a flat universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.6`$ the range of these scales corresponds to 0.4$`h^1`$ Mpc$`k`$ 12.8 $`h^1`$ Mpc. From Fig. 2 one can see that the larger the value of $`r_c`$ is, the lower the small-scale power spectrum becomes. By comparing the values of the power spectra at the upper limit of the above range in $`k`$ with the power spectrum of the WDM model with $`m_W=750`$eV, we obtain an upper limit on $`r_c`$ of $`r_c1.5\times 10^7`$.

Next we examine the constraints on our model by the recent studies of the phase-space density. The particle phase-space density $`Q`$ is defined as $`Q\rho /<v^2>^{3/2}`$, where $`\rho `$ is the energy density and $`<v^2>`$ is the mean square value of the particle velocity. The astronomically observable quantity is the mean coarse-grained phase-space density. In the absence of dissipation, the coarse-grained phase space density can only decrease from its primordial value. Thus, one can use the observed maximum phase-space density to set a lower limit on the phase-space density for the dark matter particles. The highest observed phase-space density is obtained from dwarf spheroidal galaxies: $`Q_{obs}10^4`$Mpc3(km/s)-3 . For our models, $`<v^2>r_c^2`$ at the present time, and therefore

$$Q_0\rho _{NT0}/r_c^3.$$
(5)
Because the primordial phase space density decreases with time when the particles are relativistic and becomes a constant after the particles become non-relativistic, one requires $`Q_0>Q_{obs}`$, which can be translated into a constraint on $`r_c`$:

$$r_c<(\rho _{NT0}/Q_{obs})^{1/3}2.5\times 10^7.$$
(6)
This limit is of the same order of magnitude but slightly weaker than that from the observations of the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ forest.

In conclusion, we have demonstrated that our model with non-thermally produced WIMPs is consistent with observations on scales ranging from the Lyman-$`\alpha `$ systems to the CMB. Compared to the conventional CDM model, the power spectrum of our model on sub-galatic scales is severely damped, which will account both for the lack of substructure in the Local Group and for the observed smooth inner halos*** There are other alternatives to the Spergel-Steinhardt solution to the discrepancies, for instance, the warm dark matter models, the proposal of damping of the primordial spectrum on sub-galactic scales in some broken-scale-invariance (BSI) inflationary scenarios , among others.. In addition, during the structure formation, the non-vanishing velocity of the WIMPs may further reconcile the discrepancies between the theoretical predictions and observations on sub-galactic scales. However, the detailed effect of the dark matter velocity on the formation of halos needs further study with high resolution N-body simulations.

To solve the sub-galactic-scale problem, our study in this paper requires the value $`r_c1.5\times 10^7`$. This has implications on the models of non-thermal production of WIMPs. In the scenario of Ref. where neutralinos are released by cosmic string decay, $`r_c`$ can be approximately expressed as $`r_c=(T_0/2m)(M/T_d)`$, where $`T_0`$ is the present temperature, $`T_d`$ is the temperature when the string decay first leads to nonthermal neutralinos, and $`M`$ is the characteristic mass of the mother particle and the scale of the defect which determine the initial momentum. For $`m`$ in the range of $`50`$Gev to $`100`$Gev, $`M`$ is required to be in the range of $`1.6\times 10^8`$Gev to $`6.4\times 10^8`$Gev. This is consistent with the results given in Ref. and shows that the value which we used in the text is quite realistic.

In summary, the discrepancies between theory and observations on sub-galactic scales disfavores the conventional WIMPs CDM model. In this paper we show that if the dark matter particles have a non-thermal origin, these discrepancies can be resolved and the WIMPs remain good candidates for the dark matter particle.

###### Acknowledgements.

We wish to thank R. Croft and M. Zaldarriaga for helpful correspondence, and acknowledge M.C. Lee and Z.-H. Lin for discussions. This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and by the U.S. Deparment of Energy under Contract DE-FG02-91ER40688, TASK A. Some of the work took place during the PIMS/APCTP String Cosmology Workshop (July 24 \- Aug. 4, 2000).


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# METAL ABUNDANCES OF RED CLUMP STARS IN OPEN CLUSTERS: I. NGC 6819 1footnote 11footnote 1Based on observations made with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) operated on the island of La Palma by the Centro Galileo Galilei of the CNAA (Consorzio Nazionale per l’Astronomia e l’Astrofisica) at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Open clusters (OC’s) are excellent tools to infer the evolution of our Galaxy from both the chemical and structural points of view, because they provide information on the distribution of the chemical abundances in the disk, on the average ages at various galactic locations, on the initial mass function, on the interactions between thin and thick disks (e.g., Mayor 1976, Panagia and Tosi 1981, Friel 1995, Luhman et al. 2000). The major advantage of using OC’s rather than field stars to derive these quantities resides in the circumstance that a) their current galactic location is not too different from where they were born, and b) the distances, ages and metallicities of field stars located beyond a limited radius from the sun are highly uncertain.

OC’s probably represent the best means to understand how element abundances change with time and with location in the Galaxy. Several years ago, young OC’s have been suggested to show steeper negative abundance gradients with galactocentric distance than old clusters (Mayor 1976, Panagia & Tosi 1981). However, later extensive studies (e.g. Friel & Janes 1993) have suggested that the gradient slope is roughly independent of the cluster age. A striking characteristics of Friel & Janes’ sample is that at each Galactic radius the oldest clusters happen to be also the most metal rich ones. This result, if confirmed, would have remarkable implications on our understanding of the Galaxy evolution, since it is opposite to any intuitive age-metallicity relation derivable from steady-state scenarios and suggests the existence of short, intense phenomena which may alter significantly local evolutions. A caveat on these results is that they can be strongly affected by several uncertainties related also to the lack of homogeneity in the derivation of the cluster parameters (age, metallicity, distance, reddening). As discussed e.g. by Bragaglia et al. (2000), use of literature values can lead to a confusing picture; for instance, ages derived with different techniques/isochrones may not only be uncertain in absolute value, but also in ranking.

To overcome this problem, we are homogeneously analysing with great accuracy a sample of open clusters at various galactic locations and covering a wide range in age and metallicity. We derive the age, distance, reddening and approximate metallicity of these systems from deep photometry combined with the synthetic Color-Magnitude diagrams method (see e.g. Sandrelli et al. 1999 and references therein), while accurate element abundance determination is based on high-resolution spectroscopy. The final sample of OC’s necessary to allow for significant statistics on the abundance gradient at various epochs should be of at least 30 objects.

In this paper we present the abundances derived from high-resolution spectroscopy of the first cluster of the sample: NGC 6819, an intermediate age cluster (age $``$ 2.3–3.1 Gyr), with RA(2000) = 19 41, DEC(2000) = +40 12, lII =73.98, bII = $`8.47^{}`$, and Galactocentric distance 8.2 kpc. A recent reference for photometry and derivation of distance and age is Rosvick & VandenBerg (1998).

The observations have been performed with SARG, the new high dispersion spectrograph at the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) and this is the first paper where data acquired with this instrument are presented.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS AND DATA REDUCTION

Spectra of two clump stars were obtained in July 2000, and one in August 2000, during the second and third commissioning runs of SARG, the new high dispersion spectrograph at the 3.5 m TNG in La Palma (Spain). The stars were selected (using BDA, the database for Galactic open clusters, Mermilliod 1995) among fiducial cluster members, selected from proper motions (Sanders 1972), and now confirmed by the velocities measured from our spectra. The most important data for the program stars are listed in Table 1, along with a summary of the spectral characteristics, and the heliocentric radial velocities; Figure 1 gives the location of the stars in the colour magnitude diagram (top panel) and on the sky (bottom panel).

Being this the first paper based on SARG data, a few details about the spectrograph and the observations are to be provided. SARG (Gratton et al. 2000, in preparation) is a single-arm, white-pupil, cross dispersed echelle spectrograph, permanently mounted at one of the arms of the TNG fork. It is fed by a suitable optical train from the Nasmyth focus. The spectrograph uses an R4 echelle grating in an off-plane, quasi-Littrow configuration, that yields an $`RS`$ product of 46,000 when coupled with the 100 mm spectrograph beam. Spectral resolution of SARG depends on the selected slit (a set of 7 is available on the slit wheel, from 0.27 to 1.60 arcsec), the maximum value being about 150,000. The present observations were obtained using a slit width of 300 $`\mu `$m, corresponding to 1.60 arcsec projected on the sky. However, stellar images did not fill completely this wide slit. During the observations, the seeing value was about 0.7 arcsec. Since the guiding accuracy was not yet optimal (only manual guiding was available when the program spectra were acquired), the actual images over the 1 hr exposure time had a FWHM of about 1.2 arcsec, yielding a spectral resolution of about 40,000. This value is confirmed by measures of the FWHM of narrow telluric lines.

SARG is equipped with four grism cross dispersers mounted on a wheel; the present observations were done using the yellow grism, which provides an almost complete spectral coverage from 4650 to 7900 Å, with only a small gap of about 40 Å near 6200 Å, due to the non-sensitive region between the two $`4k\times 2k`$ thinned, back illuminated EEV CCD’s located on the focal plane of the spectrograph. Minimum interorder separation is about 7 arcsec. To reduce read out noise and read out time, the CCD’s were binned $`4\times 4`$. With this choice, 2-pixel resolution is 36,000, a bit less than the FWHM of the spectral lines, so that the spectra are slightly undersampled. The spectra have a rather high background level, due to parasite light in the spectrograph not yet eliminated when they were acquired, which is well removed by the spectrum extraction procedure. The high background level has small impact on the spectra of these rather bright stars and the final $`S/N130`$ is that expected from photon noise.

Spectral extraction was done using standard IRAF222IRAF is distributed by the NOAO, which are operated by AURA, under contract with NSF routines for echelle spectra. First, the two CCD’s were separated and reduced independently. The two dimensional images were bias subtracted (but not flat-fielded; the flats were extracted and used to check the quality of correction done for the blaze function, with the ISA package, Gratton 1988), then cleaned from cosmic rays hits and hot pixels using $`cosmicrays`$. Images were corrected for scattered light; the orders were then found (21 in the red CCD, and 34 in the blue one), traced, and extracted, subtracting the local sky background. Wavelength calibration was performed using thorium lamp exposures taken once each night (the spectrograph is very stable, and furthermore precise radial velocities were not our goal), yielding a $`r.m.s`$ of about 0.009 Å in our wavelengths.

## 3 ANALYSIS AND ERROR ESTIMATES

### 3.1 Equivalent Widths

In our analysis, we used both equivalent widths and spectral synthesis. Equivalent widths were used to derive the best set of atmospheric parameters (effective temperature from line excitation, gravity from the equilibrium of ionization, microturbulence from trends with expected line strength: see Table 2) and elemental abundances. Comparisons with synthetic spectra were then used to check the adopted abundances.

Equivalent widths (see Table 3) were measured on the unidimensional, extracted spectral orders using an automatic routine within the ISA package, prepared by one of us (R.G.G.). Only the spectral region 5500-7200 Å was eventually used in the abundance analysis: continuum tracing is quite uncertain at shorter wavelengths at the resolution of our spectra, and diffraction fringes (not completely removed by our reduction procedure) make results from longer wavelengths uncertain. The routine measuring equivalent widths works as follows. First, removal of the blaze function response is performed using a spline interpolating function. Then, a local continuum level is determined for each line by an iterative clipping average over a fraction (the highest ones) of the 200 spectral points centered on the line to be measured; after various tests, this fraction was set at 1/4th for the spectra of NGC 6819. Second, the equivalent width for each line from an extensive list (including several hundred lines, that are quite clean in the solar spectrum) is tentatively measured using a gaussian fitting routine. Measures are rejected according to several criteria (e.g. if the central wavelength does not agree with that expected from preliminary measure of the geocentric radial velocity; if the lines are too broad or too narrow, etc.). Third, the measured lines are used to draw a relationship between equivalent width and FWHM. Fourth, this relation is used to measure again equivalent widths using a second gaussian fitting routine, which has only one free parameter (the equivalent width), since the central wavelength is fixed by the measured geocentric radial velocity, and the FWHM by the relationship between equivalent width and FWHM. Again measures are rejected if residuals are too large, asymmetric, etc.

These procedures allow one to obtain very stable measures of the EWs, with small random errors even when lines are in quite crowded spectral regions. However, systematic errors may be present, related to the adopted reference continua. Comparisons with synthetic spectra convinced us that systematic errors in the finally adopted EWs are quite small, insofar as a suitable fraction of the points is used to determine the reference continuum level and rejection criteria on the used lines are kept strict.

Since the stars have similar atmospheric parameters, we may estimate (internal) errors in our equivalent widths by comparing values measured in different stars. Such a comparison is shown in Figure 2. Taking as reference star 978 (which is the brightest, and has the best spectrum), the $`rms`$ scatter about the linear relationship are 10.9 and 10.5 mÅ for stars 333 and 979 respectively. Assuming that both sets of EWs have equal errors, we can estimate typical errors of 7.5 mÅ in our measured EWs.

### 3.2 Atmospheric parameters

Equivalent widths and Kurucz model atmospheres (CD-ROM 13: models with the overshooting option switched off) were used to derive the best set of atmospheric parameters listed in Table 2. Effective temperatures were derived directly from the spectra, imposing Fe I lines of different excitation (several tens for each star) to provide the same temperatures. Panel (a) of Figure 3 shows the run of abundances from Fe I lines with excitation potential for star 978: there is no discernible trend. Internal error estimates in temperatures are obtained directly from the errors in the linear regression fits, and are $`\pm `$68 K, corresponding to 1$`\sigma `$ $`rms`$ uncertainty of 0.015 dex/eV in the slope. Systematic errors might be larger and mainly ascribed to the set of adopted model atmospheres (Kurucz 1995).

In addition, a number of Fe II lines were measured in each star, allowing to estimate surface gravities $`\mathrm{log}g`$ from the equilibrium of ionization of Fe, which is very well derived from our Fe lines. Internal errors include contribution from both the above uncertainties in the adopted temperature and the errors in EWs of individual lines: the quadratic sums provide an internal error of $`\pm 0.19`$ dex in $`\mathrm{log}g`$. Our use of the LTE approximation in the analysis is not of concern for these stars (see Gratton et al. 1999); however, systematic errors can be present, mainly related again to the adopted model atmospheres.

The following exercise shows that the assumed temperature scale leads to a reasonable internal consistency of data. The (average) absolute magnitude of the program stars is $`M_V=+0.6`$, according to their apparent magnitude and to the distance modulus of $`(mM)_V=12.35`$ by Rosvick & VandenBerg (1998), and in agreement with the average value for clump stars measured by Hipparcos. The bolometric correction appropriate for the temperature, gravity and metal abundances of the program stars, derived from the Kurucz CD-ROM’s is $`BC=0.44`$ mag. This leads to an assumed luminosity of the program stars of $`\mathrm{log}L/L_{}=1.82`$, and, assuming a mass of 1.5–1.6 $`M_{}`$ (appropriate for a clump star in a 2.5 Gyr old cluster: see Rosvick & VandenBerg 1998), we obtain an expected gravity for the program stars of $`\mathrm{log}g=2.5`$, in reasonable agreement with the observed value. Note that, instead, if we decrease $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ by 100 K, we obtain a good ionization equilibrium for a gravity of $`\mathrm{log}g2.3`$, that implies an absolute magnitude of $`M_V+0.3`$: too bright in our opinion for clump stars in an old open cluster. This exercise thus suggests that the adopted temperature scale might be overestimated but only slightly (by $`50`$ K); such a small error would cause our \[Fe/H\] value to be overestimated by only 0.03 dex. Hereinafter, we will assume that systematic errors are not larger than the internal errors of $`\pm 70`$ K.

Microturbulent velocities $`v_t`$ were obtained by compensating any trend in the derived abundances from Fe I lines with the expected line strength (see Magain 1984). Results for star 978 are graphically shown in panel (b) of Figure 3. Due to the large number of measured Fe I lines and to the high quality of measurements, internal error bars in the derived values of $`v_t`$ are almost negligible ($`\pm 0.07`$ km/s, average from the 3 stars).

### 3.3 Abundances

Table 4 lists the abundances obtained for the individual stars, as well as the average values for the cluster. Sensitivities of these abundances to changes in the atmospheric parameters are listed in Table 5 and were used to estimate the internal errors in our abundances. These errors are given in the last column of Table 4 and were obtained by summing quadratically the contribution due to each atmospheric parameter (assuming uncertainties of 70 K in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, 0.19 dex in $`\mathrm{log}g`$, $`0.05`$ dex in \[A/H\], and $`0.07`$ km/s in $`v_t`$: last Column of Table 5), and that due to the line-to-line scatter (we assumed 0.15 dex); the value was then divided by the square root of the number of stars used to estimate abundances.

The average Fe abundance for NGC 6819 is \[Fe/H\]=$`+0.09\pm 0.03`$, the three stars yielding very similar results. Element-to-element abundance ratios are generally close to solar (within twice the internal error; note that abundances for V, Mn, and Co include corrections for the quite large hyperfine structure of their lines). There are two exceptions:

* We get a slight overabundance of Si (on average, \[Si/Fe\]=$`+0.18\pm 0.04`$). This result is obtained from a rather large number of lines and seems reasonably sound;
* We find a quite large Na excess (on average, \[Na/Fe\]=$`+0.47\pm 0.07`$). This value includes a small non-LTE correction ($`<0.05`$ dex), computed according to Gratton et al. (1999). A partial confirmation of the results of the equivalent width based abundance analysis comes from comparisons of the observed spectra with synthetic spectra. An example of such a comparison is shown in Figure 4, where the spectral region 6150-6166 Å is presented, compared with results of spectral synthesis computations. Note the good match of the Fe I lines. Na and Si lines are clearly stronger than predicted for a solar-scaled composition, indicating an overabundance with respect to Fe. However, the excess we would derive from this figure is about \[Na/Fe\]$`+0.3`$, a bit lower than that given by the equivalent widths. Similar excesses of Na have been found for population I supergiants (see e.g. Sasselov 1986); however the clump stars in NGC 6819 are much less massive than those considered by Sasselov.

## 4 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

We can use our temperatures, derived from line excitation (and hence a reddening free parameter) to derive the interstellar reddening toward NGC 6819. This can be done by comparing the observed $`(BV)`$ colours with those predicted by models (Kurucz 1995). There might be some systematic errors in such reddening derivations, since they would depend on the accuracy of the colours computed by model atmospheres, and on possible errors on the $`gf`$’s. However, this zero-point offset (itself a function of temperature) may be determined by observation of a comparison sample of nearby, unreddened clump stars, analyzed following strictly the same procedure described here. We did this for a sample of 12 bright clump stars with accurate parallaxes from Hipparcos (Cohen et al. 2000, in preparation). This comparison sample overlaps in temperature and metal abundance the stars of NGC 6819, so that no extrapolation was required. Using this procedure, we derive an average reddening for our three clump stars of $`E(BV)=0.142\pm 0.044`$ (3 stars, r.m.s.=0.076 mag). This value agrees very well with that obtained recently by Rosvick & VandenBerg ($`E(BV)=0.16`$) in their accurate study based on good quality CCD photometry. Previous determinations where contadictory, ranging e.g. from $`E(BV)=0.12`$ (Burkhead 1971) to $`E(BV)=0.28`$ (Auner 1974), and were based on more uncertain photographic photometry.

Our determination of the metallicity for NGC 6819 (\[Fe/H\]=$`+0.09\pm 0.03`$) is only slightly higher than the value obtained by Rosvick & VandenBerg (1998) from an analysis of the color–magnitude diagram (\[Fe/H\]=$`0.05`$), and seems to agree very well with the value given by Twarog, Ashman & Anthony-Twarog (1997: \[Fe/H\]=$`+0.07\pm 0.05`$), and based on a revision of the low dispersion spectroscopic data by Friel & Janes (1993). In fact the latter agreement is based on a value for the reddening ($`E(BV)=0.280.30`$) much higher than ours, derived from quite old data and explicitly admitted to be highly uncertain. Had they adopted a lower value for the reddening, their metallicity would have also been lower (\[Fe/H\] $``$ –0.05 or –0.10, see Rosvisk & Vandenberg 1998), but the discrepancy is fairly modest.

Our values for the metallicity and reddening of NGC6819 are close enough to the values presented by Rosvick & VandenBerg that no new analysis of distance modulus and age for this cluster seems required. We must recall, however, that the age and distances derived from isochrone fitting to the cluster color-magnitude diagram are highly sensitive to the adopted stellar models. Finally, we point out that our reddening and metallicity perfectly agree with those recently adopted by Sarajedini (1999) in his discussion of the dependence of the luminosity of the clump on age and metallicity.

NGC6819 hence appears to be a cluster with galactocentric distance (8–9 kpc) similar to that of the sun, metallicity moderately higher and age slightly younger. These features make it consistent with standard age-metallicity relations and abundance gradients.

We acknowledge the use of the BDA, the open clusters database maintained by J.C. Mermilliod. This research has made use of the SIMBAD data base, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France. We thank the referee for thorough comments and useful suggestions. Financial support has been provided by the Italian MURST, through COFIN-1998 under the project ”Stellar Evolution”. Partial support by CNAA is also acknowledged.


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# A Compact Population of Red Giants in the Blue Compact Dwarf Galaxy UGCA 2901footnote 11footnote 1 Based on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, obtained at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

## 1 Introduction

The wide array of properties in dwarf galaxies, the most common and potentially simplest galaxies in the universe, presents a challenge to models of structure formation. In particular, single-star photometry of nearby dwarfs has revealed a variety of star formation histories, even for galaxies with similar morphology (e.g. Tolstoy 1999). Identifying patterns among the various internal and external properties of dwarfs is part of answering fundamental questions about structure formation, such as whether dwarf galaxy formation was delayed by photoinization in the early universe, what universal events produced the faint blue excess counts at intermediate redshifts, and the importance of the blowout of enriched gas and the infall of pristine gas from the intergalactic medium (see Kunth & Östlin 2000 for a review.)

One especially intriguing category of dwarf galaxy is the Blue Compact Dwarf (BCD). This designation actually comprises star forming dwarfs with a range of morphologies, selected for blue colors and/or emission line spectra, along with compact size (Thuan & Martin 1981). They also have low metallicities, which originally made them candidates for “primeval” galaxies forming in the local universe (Searle & Sargent 1972). Since then, the majority of BCDs, designated types iE and nE, have revealed relatively large, low surface-brightness red elliptical background sheets underlying the blue star-forming regions (Loose & Thuan 1986). HST observations have now resolved several of these background sheets into red giants (e.g. Schulte-Ladbeck, Crone, & Hopp 1998, Schulte-Ladbeck et al. 2000), showing that star formation took place in them at least 1 Gyr ago, and possibly much earlier. Those BCDs which do not show a red background sheet are still candidates for primeval galaxies, a hypothesis strengthened by studies of abundance ratios (Izotov & Thuan 1999, but see Kunth & Östlin for a discussion of alternative explanations.) However, recent results challenge this hypothesis: Pox 186, a BCD previously thought not to have a background sheet, is now seen to have one (Doublier et al. 2000); and even the lowest-metallicity galaxy on record, I Zw 18, may harbor stars at least as old as 0.5 Gyr (Aloisi, Tosi, & Greggio 1999; Östlin 2000.) Thus, the problem of whether any BCDs are primeval is not yet solved. Moreover, the typical mode of star formation in iE-type BCDs does not appear to be the traditional picture of short, intense bursts separated by long quiescent periods, but a more continuous “gasping” mode of star formation (Schulte-Ladbeck et al. 2000.) It is not yet clear what mode of star formation occurs in other types of BCDs.

The dwarf galaxy UGCA 290, which was identified as a BCD based on its bright, compact HII emission (Karachentsev & Makarov 1998), provides a key to understanding these issues. Until now, all the BCDs resolved as deeply as the red giant branch have been type iE BCDs. Unlike these, UGCA 290 exhibits only a slight low surface-brightness halo in ground-based images; its star forming region appears as two large lobes which cover most of the visible galaxy (see Figure 1). Therefore, the stellar content of this galaxy can test whether the properties observed for deeply resolved BCDs are limited to the classic iE type or not.

## 2 Observations and reductions

We observed UGCA 290 in August of 1999 as part of GO program 8122. As Figure 1 shows, we captured most of the galaxy in the WFPC2 field of view, but missed the edge of the low-surface brightness region to the northeast. We obtained data in four filters: F814W, F555W, F336W, and F656N. For F814W and F555W, which approximate the I and V filters, we took six 1300 s exposures, at three dither positions, for a total of 7800 s in each filter. For F336W and F656N we obtained three 1300 s exposures at one position, for a total of 3900 s in each filter. In this paper we focus on the results in V and I.

We combined exposures at the same pointings using CRREJ and then combined the dithered images using DRIZZLE onto a 1600 x 1600 pixel grid. Figure 1 shows the color image of the Planetary Camera (PC), showing many resolved stars. Notice that the galaxy is relatively transparent (see the two red background galaxies) and free of individual HII regions. We masked out a few obvious background galaxies before conducting single-star photometry with DAOPHOT. We took the zero points from the May 1997 SYNPHOT tables and determined our point spread function (psf) from relatively isolated stars in our images. The residual errors from psf fitting remain below 0.1 mag for magnitudes up to $`27.0`$ in F555W and $`26.3`$ in F814W. We corrected for the small foreground extinction in this direction according to Schlegel et al. (1998), assuming an $`R_v=3.1`$ extinction curve: $`A_v=0.046`$ and $`A_I=0.027`$. We have not attempted to correct for extinction within UGCA 290, but its transparancy outside major regions of star formation suggests that it is low, at least for stars in the background sheet. Finally, we transformed our magnitudes into ground-based V and I following Holtzman et al (1995).

We estimated the completeness of our photometry by adding artificial stars to our images using ADDSTAR and checking to see what percentages of them we could recover. In order to maintain the same level of crowding as in the original, we created simulated images by adding 5% of the observed number of resolved stars, consistent with their observed luminosity function. We created 200 such images for each filter in two different regions: in the PC chip, to model the more crowded inner part of the galaxy; and in the fourth of the WF2 chip closest to UGGA 290, to model the background sheet. In the analysis which follows, we refer to the completeness estimates for the background sheet.

## 3 Results

### 3.1 Stellar Content

Figure 2 displays the color-magnitude diagram (CMD) for UGCA 290 along with that for the classic, well-studied iE BCD VII Zw 403 which is only 4.4 Mpc away (Schulte-Ladbeck et al. 1999.) For UGCA 290, we include only stars with errors smaller than 0.2 mag in both colors. Our data reduction for VII Zw 403 is described in Schulte-Ladbeck et al. (1999); here we show only those stars in the inner 30 arcseconds of this galaxy, which encompasses its entire star-forming core. Section 3.2 explains how we set the absolute magnitude scale.

The salient features in the CMD of UGCA 290 represent stellar populations with a range of ages. The bright “blue plume” at $`(VI)0`$ contains high-mass main sequence and He-burning blue loop stars, the bright “red plume” at $`(VI)1.5`$ contains red supergiants and asymptotic giant branch stars, the “red tail” extending past $`(VI)>2`$ contains intermediate-mass asymptotic giant branch stars, and the concentration of red stars at $`(VI)1,M_I=3.5`$ contains low-mass red giants, along with some asymptotic giants. For reference, we overlay both CMDs with the $`Z=0.0004`$ Padova stellar evolutionary tracks for masses 40 M, 15 M, 4 M, and 1 M (Fagotto et al. 1994). There is also a very bright, red object with $`(VI)=4.0,M_I=7.6`$ which is located between the two main lobes of enhanced star formation. This may be a background galaxy, although it exhibits no extended structure in our images.

The resolved stellar contents of UGCA 290 and the core of VII Zw 403 are remarkably similar. The star formation history of VII Zw 403 was modeled by Lynds et al. (1998), but they focus on the asymptotic giant branch and red giant branch stars in the red background sheet. We will provide a more detailed comparison of the young stellar populations in these two galaxies in a later paper.

### 3.2 Distance and Metallicity

The identification of the red giant branch is especially useful in that it allows a reliable distance estimate; the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) occurs at an absolute magnitude $`M_I4`$ with only a small dependence on metallicity (see Lee, Freedman, & Madore 1993.) The location of our TRGB appears as a rise in the luminosity of function of red ($`VI>0.8`$) stars at $`I=25.3\pm 0.1`$. Guided by our work with VII Zw 403, we attempted to refine this measurement by considering only stars far away from the star-forming regions, but any benefit of a better-defined RGB was outweighed by the small number of such stars. We measure the ($`VI`$) color of the RGB for UGCA 290 to be $`1.30\pm 0.03`$ at the TRGB and $`1.25\pm 0.03`$ at half a magnitude fainter than the TRGB. Following Lee et al, this indicates a stellar metallicity of roughly \[Fe/H\]$`=2.0\pm 0.1`$. (Our stated error includes only uncertainty in identifying the color from the CMD; see Lee et al. for the limitations of this method.) This low value suggests the possibility of a very low nebular metallicity $`12+`$log(O/H)$`<7.6`$ (see Figure 1 of Kunth & Östlin 2000). With the approprate bolometric correction, the absolute magnitude of the TRGB is $`3.94`$. Comparing to the observed TRGB at $`I=25.3`$, the distance modulus is $`29.1\pm 0.12`$, for a distance of 6.7 Mpc. The error of 0.12 comes primarily from identifying the location of TRGB. The overall calibration of the TRGB method introduces an additional, systematic error of 0.18 mag.

The previous distance estimate for UGCA 290, based on the brightest blue supergiants, was 2.8 Mpc (Makarova et al. 1998) Our photometry is in agreement with Makarova et al.; our brightest three supergiants do occur at $`V20.6`$, as they obtain from ground-based measurements. However, the WFPC2 reveals that these supergiants are very bright indeed, a full five magnitudes in $`M_I`$ brighter than the TRGB. The apparently large difference in distance estimates is in fact not very surprising given the uncertainties in using the brightest supergiant method for such a faint galaxy (Greggio 1986). For a distance of 6.7 Mpc, the apparent magnitude found by Makarova et al. corresponds to an abolute magnitude of $`M_B=13.4`$.

### 3.3 Morphology

Figure 3 illustrates the difference in morphologies between VII Zw 403 and UGCA 290 by plotting the spatial distributions of “young” stars and “old” stars. Although most regions of the CMD can contain stars with a range of ages, very young and old populations are fairly straightforward to identify. The region with $`M_I<6`$ contains stars with ages $`0100`$ Myr, while the region with $`VI>0.8,M_I>4`$ contains stars with ages of at least 0.5 Gyr. For clarity, we leave out the stars in other regions of the CMD. In order to compare the intrinsic morphologies of the two galaxies fairly, we include only stars brighter than an absolute magnitude of $`M_I=3`$. Note that in both galaxies, our completeness is better than 80% for such stars. Our completeness is actually better for UGCA 290, despite its greater distance, because of our longer exposure times and dithering, and the fact that this galaxy is simply not as crowded. The plots in Figure 3 are set to the same kpc scale. There is a significant difference between the morphologies of these two galaxies, even keeping in mind that part of the UGCA 290 halo is missed to the northeast.

Another difference in morphology, which is clear upon comparing the images directly, is that VII Zw 403 exhibits several small, bright H II regions, while the H II in UGCA 290 is more diffuse. From our continuum-subtracted F656N image, the total H$`\alpha `$ flux of UGCA 290 is $`2.0\pm 0.3\times 10^{13}`$ erg/s/cm2, which for an extinction of 0.1 mag corresponds to a luminosity of $`1.2\times 10^{39}`$ erg/s. This is about $`60\%`$ of the H$`\alpha `$ luminosity of VII Zw 403 (Lynds et al. 1998). It is consistent with the observed relationship between $`L_{H\alpha }`$ and $`M_B`$ for irregular galaxies (Hopp 1999). For a Salpeter $`0.1100`$ M initial mass function, this luminosity correponds to a star formation rate of 0.0085 M/yr (Hunter & Gallagher 1986).

## 4 Discussion

There may in fact be a large range of BCD types with very similar recent star formation histories. Already, three other iE BCDs have shown similar star formation histories in the near-IR, with extended blue and red plumes, asymptotic giant branches, and red giants, indicating star formation over at least 1 Gyr with no major periods of quiescence during that time (Hopp et al. 1999). The stellar content of UGCA 290 shows that these features are not limited to the classic iE type of BCD. Perhaps these galaxies, despite the differences in their early histories reflected in their red halos, have recently found themselves in a similar star-forming environment — possibly due to infall of similar gas clouds from the intergalactic medium combined with isolated geography. It is tempting to speculate on universal changes which would explain these similarities. For example, perhaps universal conditions several billion years ago caused these galaxies to burst as part of the population we see as the faint blue excess, and a certain cool-down time was needed after that burst to allow gas to settle back into the small gravitational potential well and again reach a critical density for star formation. A more complete inventory of the properties of UGCA 290 and other key BCDs is needed to answer these questions.

Another implication of our result applies to the current debate which is raging over the status of those BCDs which exhibit no red background sheet in ground-based CCD images. If the star-forming region of UGCA 290 were only slightly more extended relative to its background sheet, the red giant population could easily be hidden to ground-based observation. Our results support the position that the absence of an obvious background sheet does not show that a BCD is undergoing its first bout of star formation.

MMC and RSL acknowledge support from HST grants 8012 and 8122. UH acknowledges financial support from SFB 375.