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# WWW and Internet models from 1955 till our days and the “popularity is attractive” principle

## Abstract

We note that the model discussed in the communication of S. Bornholdt and H. Ebel (World Wide Web scaling exponent from Simon’s 1955 model, cond-mat/0008465) is the particular case of the model considered and solved exactly in our paper, cond-mat/0004434. These models may be used for estimation of the order of the deviation of the scaling exponent from $`2`$ both for the distributions of incoming links and links coming out from nodes but not for the obtaining some specific values of the exponents from the WWW growth data. We emphasize that, unlike the statement of Bornholdt and Ebel, both the network under consideration and the model of Barabási and Albert provide quite equal possibilities for individual growth. There is no great difference between them in this respect. The resulting distributions for individual nodes and arising scaling relations have been obtained in our paper, cond-mat/0004434. We discuss briefly the modern state of art in the physics of the evolving networks and the great role of the general principle – popularity is attractive – in the self-organization of complex communications networks, in physics of nonequilibrium phenomena, and in Nature.

An interesting linking between the Simon’s model  (1955) and new conceptions of the developing networks was made in the communication of Bornholdt and Ebel . Using a simple model of the growing network with preferential linking and referring to the Simon’s model Bornholdt and Ebel have obtained the connectivity distribution $`P(k)k^\gamma `$ with the exponent $`\gamma `$ which value have coincided with the experimental result (2.1)  for the exponent of the distribution of incoming links in World-Wide Web.

Here, we note that this model is the particular case of the model which was considered and solved exactly (for large networks) in our paper . The only difference is the different definitions of the time scales that do not influence the result. We show that these models may explain the scales of the deviation of the exponent $`\gamma `$ from $`2`$ for both the distribution of incoming links in the World Wide Web and the distribution of links coming out from nodes but they can not provide the particular experimental values of these exponents. We demonstrate these estimations and explain their quality.

We point out that the statement of Bornholdt and Ebel that this model “allows for different growth rates” for nodes with same connectivity and, e.g., the model of Barabási and Albert  do not allow is not right. Both models provide quite equal possibilities in this respect. Their connectivity distributions of individual nodes are of a similar type.

We describe the connections of the idea of the preferential linking with classical problems of statistical physics of nonequilibrium phenomena and discuss briefly the state of art in the statistical physics of evolving networks.

Also, the aims of the present comment are to explain popularly the results of our papers  obviously written in a too mathematical language to be noticed and to manifest quite obvious simple ideas.

Below we:

(i) describe the model and its particular cases,

(ii) explain what estimates for the World Wide Web exponents it may give,

(iii) explain what kind of the distributions of connectivity of individual sites does the preferential linking produce,

(iv) discuss the modern state of art in understanding of the World Wide Web, Internet, and other evolving networks, and, finally,

(v) demonstrate the simplest derivation of the expression for the exponent of the connectivity distribution, Eq. (1).

I. The model.—At each increment of time a new node is created. Simultaneously $`m`$ directed links is distributed among all the nodes of the network by the following rules:

(i) The source of any of these links may be anywhere;

(ii) The target ends of these links are attached to nodes chosen preferentially: Probability to chose some particular node is proportional to $`k+A`$. Here, $`k`$ is the number of the distributed preferentially links which point to this node, and $`A`$ is some positive constant.

The distribution of incoming links  in this model is of the power-law form with the exponent $`\gamma =2+A/m`$ . We call $`A`$ the initial attractiveness of nodes (for links). $`A`$ is a parameter of the problem and is any positive constant. In particular, if $`n`$ links is already directed to any newborn node, $`A=n+B`$, where $`B`$ is another constant.

We stress that the preferential linking with the probability proportional to $`k+const`$ is the general type of the preferential linking producing free-scale networks (i.e., the networks with power-law connectivity distributions). E.g., the rule with the linking probability proportional to $`k^a,a1`$, do not give scale-free networks . Hence, we consider the most general situation.

In addition to links distributed preferentially, at each increment of time, one may also distribute some links, $`n_r`$, randomly without any preference (always there exist some crazy guys which make their references to God knows what). Hence,
$`m`$ is the number of links distributed preferentially each unit of “time”,
$`n`$ is the number of links pointed at a new node at the instant of its birth, $`n0`$,
$`n_r`$ is the number of links distributed without preference at each increment of time, $`n_r0`$,
$`B`$ is any constant such that $`n+B>0`$,
— one node is born per unit of “time”.

With these definitions, the expression for the exponent is

$$\gamma =2+\frac{n_r+n+B}{m}.$$
(1)
Note that all the factors accounted for in Eq. (1) (see the numerator), in fact, play the same role. An exact form of the connectivity distribution was obtained in . Below we show how our relation, Eq. (1), may be obtained in a most simple way using continuous approach. We have demonstrated that this approach gives exact results for the scaling exponents .

Bornholdt and Ebel considered the model in which, at each increment of time, one link is added to a network. In our case, time is equal to the total number of nodes. If we rescale time and set $`n_r=0`$, $`n=1`$, and $`B=0`$, we get the particular case considered by Bornholdt and Ebel with their probability $`\alpha =1/(1+m)`$ (one may check that all the quantities may be taken noninteger). If we set $`n_r=0`$ and $`n+B=m`$, we get, in fact, the Barabási-Albert’s model.

II. Possible estimations for the World Wide Web.—We do not know values of any of the quantities from Eq. (1). The constant $`B`$ may takes any values, the number of the randomly distributed links, $`n_r`$, may be not small (many crazy guys), $`n`$ is not fixed. From the experimental data , we know more or less the sum $`m+n+n_r101`$ (between 7 and 10, more precisely), and that is all.

The only thing we can do, it is to fix the scales of the quantities. The natural characteristic values for $`n_r+n+B`$ in Eq. (1) are (a) $`0`$, (b) $`1`$, (c) $`m1`$, and (d) infinity. In the first case, node have zero initial attractiveness, and all new links are directed to the oldest node, $`\gamma 2`$. In the last case, there is no preferential linking, and the network is not scale-free, $`\gamma \mathrm{}`$. Let us consider the really important cases (b) and (c).

(b) How do pages appear in the Web? Suppose, you want create your personal home page. Of course, first you prepare it, put references, etc. But that is only the first step. You have to make it accessiable in the Web, to lanch it. You come to your system administrator, he put a reference to it (one reference) in the page of your institution, and that is more or less all – your page is in the World Wide Web. If the process of appearing of each document in the Web is as simple as the creating of your page – only one reference to the new document $`(n=1)`$ – and if one forgets about the terms $`n_r`$ and $`B`$ in Eq. (1), than, for the exponent of the distribution of the incoming links, we would get immediately the same estimation as in , $`\gamma 21/m10^1`$. This estimation is indeed coincides with experimental value $`\gamma _{in}2=0.1`$ . We repeat again, that it follows only from the fixation of scale of the involved quantities. We emphasize that there are no any general reasons to set, e.g., $`B=0`$. A lot of real processes are not included in this estimation. Aging of nodes changes $`\gamma `$ , account for dying of nodes $`\gamma `$  (the half-life of a page in the Web is of the order of half a year) changes $`\gamma `$. The ratio between the total number of links and the number of nodes in the Web is not constant , it increases with time, the growth of the Web is nonlinear. This factor also change the value of $`\gamma `$, in future it may become even lower than $`2`$ .

(c) Above we discussed the distribution of incoming links. Eq. (1) may be also applied for the distribution of links which come out from documents of the Web. In this case all the quantities in Eq. (1) takes other values which are again unknown. Nevertheless, one may think that the number of the links distributing without any preference, $`n_r`$, is not small now. Even beginners proceed with linking of their pages. Hence, $`n_rm`$ – we have no another available scale, – and $`\gamma 2m/m1`$. We again compare this estimation with the experimental value, $`\gamma _{out}2=0.7`$  and find that we have made only small mistake. Of course, this is not quite fair but now we see what estimations may be made.

What may be done to improve these estimates? As we saw, any experimental information about the correlation between the numbers of in- and out- links of nodes would be useful.

III. Scaling of the distributions of connectivity of individual nodes.— One may study not only the global connectivity distribution of the network but the connectivity distributions of individual nodes. We have obtained the exact expressions for these distributions of the model under discussion . Unlike the statement of Bornholdt and Ebel that this model provides some extra possibilities for different growth rate, we found that these distributions are of the same type as in the model of Barabási and Albert . It is a mistake to think that the network under consideration may demonstrate the growth crucially different to the Barabási-Albert’s model. Indeed, the last one is only the particular case of the introduced model but this is not a marginal case to produce a radical difference. Therefore, the “rich-get-richer” behavior also present in the model under consideration, although all these networks provide broad distribution of the following scaling form:

$$p(k,s,t)=\left(\frac{s}{t}\right)^\beta f\left(k\left(\frac{s}{t}\right)^\beta \right).$$
(2)
Here, $`p(k,s,t)`$ is the connectivity distribution of the node appeared at time $`s`$ measured at time $`t`$ (i.e., when the size of the network is $`t`$), $`s<t`$. The scaling exponent $`\beta `$ is related to $`\gamma `$ by the following scaling relation:

$$\beta (\gamma 1)=1,$$
(3)
that was obtained in . It was proved in , that this relation is general and is valid for all such scale-free networks. We found that the scaling function is broad, $`f(x)=x^{A1}\mathrm{exp}(x)`$, so the connectivity distributions of individual nodes are broad. They are narrow only in the continuous approximation.

IV. The principles of communications networks.—Perhaps, the greatest results in the theory of communications networks belong to “the farther” of the Internet, P. Baran, (1964) , so they were obtained long ago. Nevertheless, the idea of the preferential linking in application to the evolving networks is really strong. Indeed, one of the first questions concerning the communications networks – why are they scale-free?

Two answers have been given quite recently. First, – because of the preferential linking . The growing networks are self-organized into the scale-free structures because popularity is attractive. This general principle governs the process of the growth of the World Wide Web!

Second, — because otherwise they would be unstable, weak against processes of decay, and could not exist as united systems . It has been shown that only the scale-free networks with the exponent $`\gamma `$ less than $`3`$ are resilient to random breakdowns . The “infinite” scale-free networks with $`\gamma <3`$ do not decay for any concentration (less than one) of randomly removed nodes or links.

Therefore, the evolution of the World Wide Web is governed by one of the most general principles in Nature. Only lazy can not imagine its numerous realizations in natural and social sciences, and in economics. It certainly establishes not only networks of movie actors. In particular, in physics, it produces various processes of growth and fragmentation. For instance, in  we studied the growth of the networks mathematically as the problem of the preferential distribution of new particles among growing number of places.

Now the World Wide Web is the most striking product of the principle popularity is attractive but it is only one of its products. It is wonderful that even in 1955 people thought about the quantitative formulation of this global principle.

V. Derivation of our expression for the exponent.—Let us show in the simplest way how one may obtain Eq. (1). We use the continuous approximation which gives exact results for the scaling exponents . Using this approach, one may write the following equation with the boundary condition for the average connectivity (here, average number of incoming links) of the node $`s`$ at time $`t`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{k}(s,t)}{t}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{n_r}{t}}+m{\displaystyle \frac{\overline{k}(s,t)+B}{_0^t𝑑u[\overline{k}(u,t)+B]}},`$ (4)
$`\overline{k}(t,t)`$ $`=`$ $`n.`$ (5)
The first term in the right hand part of it arises from the links distributed without preference, the second one – from the preferential linking. Integrating Eq. (5) from $`0`$ to $`t`$ we get

$$_0^t𝑑s\frac{\overline{k}(s,t)}{t}=\frac{}{t}_0^t𝑑s\overline{k}(s,t)\overline{k}(t,t)=n_r+m$$
(6)
and the obvious relation,

$$_0^t𝑑s\overline{k}(s,t)=(n_r+m+n)t.$$
(7)
Substituting Eq. (7) into Eq. (5) we obtain the equation

$$\frac{\overline{k}(s,t)}{t}=\frac{n_r}{t}+\frac{m}{m+n_r+n+B}\frac{\overline{k}(s,t)+B}{t}$$
(8)
the solution of which in the scaling region is of the following form:

$$\overline{k}(s,t)\left(\frac{s}{t}\right)^\beta $$
(9)
(we used the boundary condition $`\overline{k}(t,t)=n`$) with the scaling exponent

$$\beta =\frac{m}{m+n_r+n+B}.$$
(10)
Finally, using the scaling relation, Eq. (3), we obtain $`\gamma =1+1/\beta =2+(n_r+n+B)/m`$.

E-mail address: sdorogov@fc.up.pt
E-mail address: jfmendes@fc.up.pt
E-mail address: alnis@samaln.ioffe.rssi.ru


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# REFERENCES

New schemes for manipulating quantum states using a Kerr cell  Marco Genovese and C.Novero Istituto Elettrotecnico Nazionale Galileo Ferraris, Str. delle Cacce 91, I-10135 Torino

Recently, Quantum Non Demolition (QND) detection of a single photon has become possible .This is due to the discovery of new materials with very high Kerr coupling as the Quantum Coherent Atomic Systems (QCAS)  and the Bose-Einstein condensate . These great technical improvements could allow the realisation of small Kerr cells, capable of large phase shift, even with a low-intensity probe. This recent development has a large relevance for application to quantum information theory and foundations of Quantum Mechanics. For example, it has lead to the proposal of schemes for complete teleportation  and for realising quantum gates . In this proceeding we describe some other proposals of application of this device, as the fast modulation of quantum interference , the generation of optical Schrödinger cats  and of GHZ states and the realisation of translucent eavesdropping.

Let us consider first a scheme for realising a fast modulation of quantum interference. A ”signal” photon enters a Mach-Zender interferometer through a Beam-Splitter (BS I) from port 1; assuming a 50% BS (the treatment of the non 50% case is a trivial extension) one has after the BS

$$a_2=\frac{a_1+ia_0}{\sqrt{2}}a_3=\frac{a_0+ia_1}{\sqrt{2}}$$
(1)
A probe laser crosses the Kerr cell on the third arm acquiring a phase which in principle will be measurable, providing welcher Weg information. The usual treatment of Kerr interaction gives after recombination on Beam Splitter II:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }|n_4|\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{2}\left[1\mathrm{exp}[2|\nu |^2\mathrm{sin}^2(\chi T)]\mathrm{cos}[(\omega _s+\chi _s)T+\mathrm{\Theta }+|\nu |^2\mathrm{sin}(2\chi T)]\right]$$
(2)
where $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ takes into account different lengths of arms 2 and 3 and could be varied interposing a variable phase shift on one of the interferometer arms. $`\chi _s`$ and $`\chi `$ denote the self- and the cross- Kerr couplings respectively and $`n_3`$ and $`n_p`$ are the photon number operators on the arm 3 and for the probe, which is assumed to be described by a coherent field $`|\nu `$.

To this point, the usual treatment  of QND ideal welcher Weg experiment has been considered, with the well known result that the probe laser acquires a phase which permits, by a homodyne measurement, the identification of the path followed by the signal photon. The signal-to-noise ratio in the homodyne measurement, given by $`R=4|\nu |\mathrm{sin}(\chi T)`$, is directly related to the suppression of interference, whose visibility is $`\mathrm{exp}(R^2/8)`$.

Let us now consider the insertion of a second Kerr cell on the $`2^{nd}`$ arm and let us assume that the interaction time between the probe and signal fields in this cell is $`T^{}`$. We now have:

$$\mathrm{\Psi }|n_4|\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{\Psi }|n_1[2(\mathrm{exp}[i\left(\mathrm{\Theta }+\beta (TT^{})\right)]+\mathrm{exp}[i\left(\mathrm{\Theta }+\beta (TT^{})\right)])]|\mathrm{\Psi }$$
(3)
where $`\beta =(\omega _s+\chi _s/2+\chi _sn_s+2\chi n_p)`$. If we choose the Kerr cells so that $`T=T^{}`$, the phase into the probe due to the photon in path 3 or 2 would be the same and the interference pattern $`\frac{1\mathrm{cos}(\mathrm{\Theta })}{2}`$ is recovered for the signal field. On the other hand, if one considers the case where the distance between the two Kerr cells is larger than the coherence length of the probe laser the two paths will still be distinguishable and interference will be lost. Quantum interference can thus be regulated, changing the coherence length of the laser before injecting it into the first Kerr cell. The observation of this effect represents a very good and illustrative example of the effect of disappearance of quantum interference when welcher Weg information is obtained and of the effect of erasing this information.

Let us now substitute the first beam splitter with a Polarising-Beam-Splitter I (PBS I) and let us suppose that the entering photon is in a superposition of vertical (V) and horizontal (H) polarisation, which will take different paths, for example the vertical one will follow path 2 and the horizontal path 3. As before, a probe laser crosses the Kerr cell on the arm 3 acquiring a phase or not according if the photon crosses or not the cell. Thus the entangled state:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{|H|\nu ^{}+|V|\nu }{\sqrt{2}}$$
(4)
is generated, where the coherent state $`|\nu ^{}`$ differs in phase from $`|\nu `$.

The two signal photon paths are then recombined on a second beam splitter (BSII) and a polarisation measurement is performed on this photon on the base at $`45^o`$. This is the conditional measurement producing the Schrödinger cat: if the signal photon is found to have a $`45^o`$ ($`135^o`$) polarisation, the coherent state is projected into the superposition

$$|\psi _{+()}=\frac{|\nu ^{}+()|\nu }{\sqrt{2}}$$
(5)
A superposition of two ”many photons” states is thus obtained.

The one photon signal state can be easily produced, for example, using parametric down conversion (PDC) in a non-linear crystal. In this case the second photon of the down-converted pair can be used as trigger. Furthermore, if the same pulsed laser is used both for pumping the crystal and for the Kerr effect, one can easily obtain a good timing for the crossing of the Kerr cell for the signal photon and the coherent state. A main advantage of the present configuration respect to the Schrödinger cat generation using cavities is that the coherent states superposition travels in air between the Kerr cell and the detection apparatus allowing a much longer time before decoherence takes over.

For identifying the macroscopic superposition one can look for a negative part of the Wigner function, reconstructed by tomographic techniques .We have performed a numerical simulation keeping into account the deterioration due to errors: our results show that even with $`25\%`$, or larger, errors on the homodyne measurement the cat can be easily identified.

The use as input of a photon from PDC in a Kerr cell allows also the creation of a three photons GHZ entangled state, which is one of the three elements necessary for realising an optical quantum computer , together with single qubit operations, which are easily implemented, and teleportation. For what concerns this last , a description of a scheme performing this operation using a Kerr cell appears in Ref. . Using the same polarisation dependence of the Kerr interaction of Ref. , where there is no effect except when both the photons interacting in the Kerr cell have vertical polarization ($`|V|V|V|Ve^{i\varphi }`$), a GHZ state can be generated by the interaction of an entangled pair of photons with a third one. Let us assume, for example, of having generated the entangled state : $`|\mathrm{\Phi }^+=|H|H+|V|V/\sqrt{2}`$. A simple calculation shows that the interaction in the Kerr medium of the second photon of the pair with a third photon polarised at $`45^o`$ (denoted by $`|45`$, whilst its orthogonal state is $`|135`$), is, for a phase shift $`\varphi =\pi /2`$, the GHZ state:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{GHZ}=\frac{|H|H|45+|V|V|135}{\sqrt{2}}.$$
(6)
Analogous results are easily derived for the other three Bell states.

Finally, let us notice that such an apparatus can also be used for performing translucent eavesdropping on a quantum channel where polarisation is used for distinguishing qubits. In this case the input port of the first beam splitter is fed with a single photon of vertical polarisation, which splits on the two interferometer arms. On arm 1 it interacts with the transmitted qubit inside the Kerr cell (with the same polarisation dependence as before). Let us suppose that the transmitted qubit is in the general form $`|u=cos(\theta )|H+sin(\theta )|V`$, denoting the probe photon with $`|p`$, the final state is:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left[cos(\theta )|H|p_1+sin(\theta )|V|p_1e^{(i\varphi )}+i|u|p_2\right]$$
(7)
where the suffixes after the probe $`|p`$ denotes the path followed and where we have considered a 50 % BS (which gives Eve the largest information on Alice-Bob transmission). We have thus obtained the desired entanglement between the probe and the transmitted qubit, which can be used for translucent or coherent eavesdropping.


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# Photon Consumption In Minihalos during Cosmological Reionization

## 1. Introduction

The lack of any Gunn–Peterson troughs in the spectra of distant quasars (Stern et al. 2000; Fan et al. 2000), as well as the presence of Lyman $`\alpha `$ emission lines in the spectra of high–redshift galaxies (Weymann et al. 1998; Hu et al. 1999), imply that the hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) is highly ionized by redshift $`z6`$. It is widely believed that reionization was caused by an early population of either galaxies or quasars. The process of reionization and its impact on several key cosmological issues have recently received much theoretical attention, and have been studied by several authors using semi-analytic models (Meiksin & Madau 1993; Shapiro et al. 1994; Haiman & Loeb 1997, 1998) and three–dimensional numerical simulations (Gnedin & Ostriker 1997). In general, these works aim to follow the time evolution of the filling factor of ionized (HII) regions, based on some input prescriptions for the emissivity and spectra of the ionizing sources.

More recent works have focused on the increased rate of recombinations in a clumpy medium relative to a homogeneous one, i.e. when $`\rho ^2>\rho ^2`$ (Ciardi et al. 2000; Benson et al. 2000; Chiu & Ostriker 2000; Gnedin 2000a; Madau, Haardt, & Rees 1999 \[hereafter MHR\]). These studies have left significant uncertainties on the details of how reionization proceeds in an inhomogeneous medium. Since the ionizing sources are likely embedded in dense regions, one might expect that these dense regions are ionized first, before the radiation escapes to ionize the low–density IGM. Alternatively, most of the radiation might escape from the local, dense regions along low column density lines of sight. In this case, the underdense ‘voids’ are ionized first, with the ionization of the denser filaments and halos lagging behind (Miralda-Escudé et al. 2000).

In this paper, we point out that that the density inhomogeneities at the earliest redshifts are dominated by the smallest nonlinear structures, i.e. halos near the cosmological Jeans mass, $`M_{\mathrm{Jeans}}10^4\mathrm{M}_{}`$. Such small scales have not yet been resolved in numerical simulations of reionization (e.g. Gnedin 2000a), and have also not yet been fully quantified in the semi–analytic works (although see Chiu & Ostriker 2000 and Benson et al. 2000 for partial treatments). Our main goals in this work are (1) to quantify the importance of the high–redshift minihalos as sinks of ionizing photons; and (2) to assess whether by extrapolating to early times the known population of galaxies and quasars a sufficient number of UV photons are produced for hydrogen reionization.

This paper is organized as follows. In § 2, we summarize the ionizing photon budget from the known populations of galaxies and quasars. In § 3, we describe our model of an individual photoevaporating minihalo, based on three–dimensional numerical simulations. Combining this model with a hierarchical structure formation scenario, in § 4 we explicitly show that the ensemble of minihalos dominate the clumping of the high–redshift IGM. In § 5, we then compute the total number of ionizing photons consumed by the photoevaporating minihalos in the same hierarchical cosmology. In § 6, we argue that the minihalos must indeed have been photoevaporated. In § 7, we discuss the relevance of the covering factor of minihalos around ionizing sources, and the uncertainties this implies for our results. Finally, in § 8, we offer our conclusions and summarize the implications of this work. Unless mentioned otherwise, throughout this paper we adopt a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology with $`(\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda },\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b},h,\sigma _8,n)=(0.7,0.04,0.7,0.9,1)`$.

## 2. Ionizing Photons from Known Sources

The two most natural candidates for reionization are extensions of the known populations of quasars, or of galaxies with ongoing star-formation, to redshifts beyond $`z>6`$. Here we briefly review the number of ionizing photons expected from these sources. This will serve as a reference point for comparison to the ionizing photon budget we obtain in our calculations below.

### 2.1. Quasars

The luminosity function (LF) of quasars has been measured in optical surveys, and convenient parametric fitting formulae have been published by, e.g. Pei (1995). A more recent determination by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey extends the measurement of the bright end of the LF to higher redshifts, and is consistent with earlier optical results (Fan et al. 2000). Here we adopt the fitting formulae of MHR, which has a somewhat shallower slope towards higher redshifts than, e.g., Pei (1995), and therefore predicts a larger number of quasars when extrapolated to high $`z`$. We have used this LF, together with the average intrinsic spectrum of Elvis et al. (1995), to compute the production rate of ionizing ($`E>`$ 13.6 eV) photons from quasars. The faint-end slope of the empirical LF is $`d\mathrm{log}\mathrm{\Phi }/d\mathrm{log}L=1.64`$, so that most ionizing photons are produced by relatively bright quasars near the “knee” of the LF. A recent determination of the high–redshift LF in the soft X–ray band (Miyaji et al. 2000) has yielded significantly weaker evolution out to $`z4.5`$ than seen in the optical. Although the X–ray LF still has large uncertainties at $`z>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}2}`$, taking the X–ray results at face value may indicate the existence of a larger abundance of high–redshift quasars than seen in the optical. If this inference is confirmed in future studies, it could increase the number of ionizing photons produced by bright quasars relative to our estimates below, unless this high–$`z`$ X–ray population is intrinsically obscured at optical/UV wavelengths.

### 2.2. Galaxies

The total star formation rate in the universe can be estimated using the sample of high–redshift galaxies found by the Lyman-break technique (Steidel et al. 1999; Madau & Pozzetti 2000). Since the rest-frame UV continuum at 1500–2800 Å (redshifted into the visible band for distant sources) is dominated by the same short-lived, massive stars which are responsible for the emission of photons shortward of the Lyman edge, the needed conversion factor, about one ionizing photon for every 5 photons at 1500 Å, is fairly insensitive to the assumed IMF and is independent of the galaxy history for $`t10^{7.3}`$ yr (MHR). We normalize the number of ionizing photons to the observed 1500 Å flux (rest-frame), i.e. bypass the need for any correction due to dust extinction (this is a good approximation provided the mean color excess $`E_{9121500}=1.6E_{\mathrm{B}\mathrm{V}}`$ is actually small). We have further assumed an average escape fraction of $`f_{\mathrm{esc}}=50\%`$ for the ionizing radiation from the galaxy HI layers into the IGM, relative to the escape fraction at 1500 $`\AA `$. This value is a factor of $`5`$ higher than that inferred in nearby starbursts (Leitherer et al. 1995). Theoretically, the escape fraction is expected to be lower at high redshifts, because of the higher gas densities then (Wood & Loeb 1999; Dove et al. 2000). However, a recent measurement of the mean escape fraction from a sample of $`29`$ Lyman break galaxies at $`z=3.4`$ has yielded a value $`>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}50}\%`$ (Steidel et al. 2000). Although the physical implications of this result are still unclear (Haehnelt et al. 2000), to be conservative we adopted this value here.

The ionizing photon production rates for both quasars and galaxies are shown in Figure 2.2, in units of photons above 13.6 eV emitted into the IGM per $`10^8`$ years per intergalactic hydrogen atom. Also shown is the total number of photons radiated per H-atom prior to redshift $`z`$. To obtain these integrals, we have extrapolated the photo emission rates $`dn_\gamma /dz`$ beyond $`z=6`$, using the observed slope $`d\dot{N}/dz`$ at $`z=4`$. These extrapolations are clearly very uncertain. For reference, we note that if the photon emission rates had stayed flat at their $`z=6`$ values beyond $`z>6`$, than in the stellar case, the total number of photons would increase very little ($`20\%`$), since the observed rate is already nearly constant in redshift. In the quasar case, this would result in an increase in the total number of photons generated prior to $`z=6`$ by a factor of $`4`$. Under these extrapolations, as this figure reveals, luminous quasars produce little ionizing radiation prior to redshift $`z=5`$, while galaxies provide $`4\times (f_{\mathrm{esc}}/0.5)`$ ionizing photons per hydrogen atom by this epoch.

## 3. Photoevaporation of Minihalos

In cold dark matter (CDM) cosmologies, the mean density and temperature of the IGM imply the cosmological Jeans mass of

$$M_\mathrm{J}10^4\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0h^2}{0.15}\right)^{\frac{1}{2}}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2}{0.02}\right)^{\frac{3}{5}}\left(\frac{1+z}{11}\right)^{\frac{3}{2}}\mathrm{M}_{},$$
(1)
where $`M_\mathrm{J}`$ is the total (gas + DM) mass of perturbations allowed to grow in linear theory. This mass corresponds to a virial temperature of the dark matter halo

$$T_\mathrm{J}25\left(\frac{h}{0.7}\right)^{2/3}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0h^2}{0.15}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2}{0.02}\right)^{\frac{2}{5}}\left(\frac{1+z}{11}\right)^2\mathrm{K}.$$
(2)
It is natural to expect that the earliest nonlinear objects are hosted in halos of the size described by equations (1) and (2). Numerical simulations find that the mass scale can be up to a factor of $`10`$ still lower than this (Gnedin 2000b); however, as we shall find below our results are insensitive to the exact value of the smallest allowed halo size, as long as it is below $`T1000`$K. We shall hereafter refer to halos with virial temperatures between $`T_\mathrm{J}T_{\mathrm{vir}}10^4`$K as “minihalos”. A sufficiently strong early X–ray background (XRB) could catalyze the formation of $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ molecules in minihalos, which could then cool and fragment into stars, or form central black holes (Haiman, Rees & Loeb 1996; Haiman, Abel & Rees 2000). In this case, the gas from the minihalos would likely be ionized and expelled by the internal UV source. Alternatively, in the absence of any early XRB, most minihalos would likely not have sufficient molecular abundance to cool and dissipate (Haiman, Rees & Loeb 1997; Haiman, Abel & Rees 2000). In the further absence of any external UV radiation, they would then remain in approximate hydrostatic equilibrium until they eventually merge into more massive objects.

However, photoionization by either a nearby external UV source, or by the smooth cosmic UV background radiation after the reionization epoch, heats the gas inside a minihalo to a temperature $`10^4`$K. By definition, the gas inside a minihalo is then no longer bound, leading to the photoevaporation of the baryons out of their host halos (Rees 1986; Shapiro, Raga & Mellema 1998; Barkana & Loeb 1999). In general, the resulting photoevaporative outflow has a complex velocity, density and ionization structure, whose time–evolution has been studied in a two–dimensional simulation by Shapiro & Raga (2000). In the present paper, we shall not address this evaporation process itself in detail. Our main goal here is to obtain a rough estimate of how many recombinations each hydrogen atom experiences during the evaporation process. We will therefore use a simplified model of the evaporative flow, which we calibrate using three–dimensional simulations.

### 3.1. Analytic Model of Photoevaporation

We begin by adopting a radial density profile $`n_\mathrm{H}(r)`$ for the undisturbed gas, based on the spherically symmetric truncated isothermal sphere (TIS, Shapiro, Ilyev & Raga 1999), with the scalings converted to our adopted $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology as given in Navarro, Frenk & White (1997, hereafter NFW). This profile has the advantage of characterizing a spherical object with a well–defined core, calibrated specifically for use within the Press–Schechter formalism (which we shall use below). For this density profile, the average internal overdensity of the gas within the halo, relative to the background hydrogen density, is $`\delta _{\mathrm{int}}n_\mathrm{H}/\overline{n}_\mathrm{H}=130.5`$. Similarly, the mean “internal clumping” is $`C_{\mathrm{int}}n_\mathrm{H}^2/\overline{n}_\mathrm{H}^2=444^2`$. As an alternative approach, we have assumed the gas to be in hydrostatic equilibrium within a halo that has a density profile as parameterized by NFW, with a concentration parameter $`c=5`$. This value was obtained by following the algorithm described in the appendix of NFW, which assigns to each halo of a given mass identified at redshift $`z`$ a collapse redshift $`z_{\mathrm{coll}}`$ (defined as the time at which half of the mass of the halo was first contained in progenitors more massive that some fixed fraction of the final mass), and assuming that the characteristic halo density is proportional to the critical density at $`z_{\mathrm{coll}}`$ (Navarro, Frenk & White 1997). With this algorithm a minihalo of total mass $`M=10^7h^1`$M at $`z=10`$ has $`(z_{\mathrm{coll}},c)=(13.5,4.8)`$ (see also Madau, Ferrara, & Rees 2000). The NFW profile, by definition, has a mean internal overdensity of 200, and the embedded gas is somewhat more centrally condensed than the TIS we adopted, $`C_{\mathrm{int}}=532^2`$. We conclude that an NFW profile would give similar results to those obtained below, except with the total number of recombinations increased by about $`(532/444)^250\%`$.

Within the core of the TIS profile, the central density contrast reaches a value as high as $`2\times 10^4`$ relative to the cosmic background. In reality, for gas at temperature $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ that has collapsed adiabatically, the density contrast can not exceed $`(T_{\mathrm{vir}}/T_{\mathrm{IGM}})^{3/2}`$, where $`T_{\mathrm{IGM}}`$ is the IGM temperature (given by $`T_{\mathrm{IGM}}(z)2.73(1+z_c)[(1+z)/(1+z_c)]^2`$ with $`z_c150`$). We therefore modify the inner density profile, and adopt $`\rho (r)=\mathrm{min}[\rho _{\mathrm{TIS}}(r),\rho _{\mathrm{IGM}}(T_{\mathrm{vir}}/T_{\mathrm{IGM}})^{3/2}]`$, where $`\rho _{\mathrm{TIS}}(r)`$ is the original TIS density run, and $`\rho _{\mathrm{IGM}}`$ is the density of the uniform IGM. This modification reduces the average density contrast and the internal clumping below their fiducial values of 130.5 and 444 within halos whose virial temperature is lower than $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1500}`$K. Below we find that $`68\%`$ of the recombinations in the ensemble of minihalos arise in those with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1500}`$K, so that uncertainties in the density profiles of the smallest halos do not significantly effect our results.

We next assume that the spherically symmetric halo is suddenly photoionized by an external UV flux. Simultaneously, the gas temperature jumps to $`10^4`$K, resulting in an outflow. We assume that photoevaporation requires a sound crossing time, $`t_{\mathrm{pe}}R_{\mathrm{vir}}/10\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, so that the photoionized gas retains its original shape for a duration

$$t_{\mathrm{pe}}=f\frac{R_{\mathrm{vir}}}{10\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1},$$
(3)
after which it is fully dispersed into the IGM (where $`R_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ is the radius of the TIS). Note that $`t_{\mathrm{pe}}T_{\mathrm{vir}}^{1/2}`$, so that smaller halos are photo–dissociated more rapidly. This prescription is admittedly oversimplified, since the gas should expand gradually, and non–uniformly, at varying speeds, rather than as a step–function. In addition, for low UV fluxes, the expansion might start before the gas is ionized (see discussion below). Nevertheless, as we will see below, the numerical simulations show a fairly rapid evaporation, and can be used to calibrate the normalization constant “$`f`$” that we have introduced.

### 3.2. Numerical Simulations

Our main goal is to estimate the number $`N_{\mathrm{pe}}`$ of recombinations each hydrogen atom experiences during the photoevaporation process. This number is given by

$`N_{\mathrm{pe}}`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑t𝑑Vx^2n_\mathrm{H}^2\alpha _\mathrm{B}\times \left[𝑑Vn_\mathrm{H}\right]^1}`$ (4)
$`=f{\displaystyle \frac{R_{\mathrm{vir}}}{10\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1}}C_{\mathrm{int}}\overline{n}_\mathrm{H}\alpha _\mathrm{B}/\delta _{\mathrm{int}}.`$
Here the volume integrals are taken over the region that contains the virial gas mass, $`x`$ is the ionized fraction (which is a function of radius and time), and $`\alpha _B=2.6\times 10^{13}\mathrm{cm}^3\mathrm{s}^1`$ is the case B hydrogen recombination coefficient evaluated at $`T=10^4`$K. Given an initial density profile, the second line can be readily computed, except for the normalization constant $`f`$. For reference, we note that the photoevaporation time (eq. 3) for a $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}=10^4`$K minihalo at redshift $`z=10`$ is approximately $`25f\%`$ of the Hubble time at that redshift; we find that during this interval each hydrogen atom within this halo recombines $`N_{\mathrm{pe}}=340f`$ times.

The first line in equation (4) is computed explicitly in the simulation, which gives the total number of recombinations each hydrogen atom experienced during the whole photoevaporation process. By comparing this number to the second line, we determine the normalization constant $`f`$. The simulations are performed by setting up stable truncated isothermal spheres in both dark matter (DM) and gas as the initial condition for the three–dimensional structured adaptive mesh refinement cosmological hydrodynamics code enzo of Bryan & Norman (1997; 1999). For simplicity, we use a standard CDM cosmology with $`h=0.5`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}=0.1`$. We solve the chemical reactions for the ions of hydrogen and helium, including collisional ionization, radiative recombinations, and photo–ionization. The reaction rates are taken from Abel et al. (1997). The hydrogen photo–ionization rate is assumed to be uniform on the grid(s); i.e. we do not solve radiative transfer. The photo–ionization heating rate is simply given by $`k_{\mathrm{ph}}ϵ_{\mathrm{ph}}`$, where $`ϵ_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ denotes the average energy of photo–electrons (which depends on the ionizing spectrum; here we adopt $`ϵ_{\mathrm{ph}}=2`$eV).

The typical photoionization rates experienced by minihalos depend strongly on the luminosity and clustering properties of the radiation sources. In addition, the photoionization rates can vary substantially for individual minihalos, because of the $`1/r^2`$ dependence of the flux from nearby sources. In our simulations, we have experimented with photoionization rates of $`k_{\mathrm{ph}}=10^{13}10^{10}\mathrm{s}^1`$, corresponding roughly to a background flux of $`J=3\times 10^{23}10^{20}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{Hz}^1\mathrm{sr}^1`$ at 13.6eV. In general, we find that for fast photoionization rates ($`k_{\mathrm{ph}}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{12}\mathrm{s}^1`$), the gas is fully ionized before any motion occurs. In this regime, we find a simple scaling of the numerical results (see below) with halo mass and redshift, independent of the actual value of $`k_{\mathrm{ph}}`$. This is because the heating–induced motions are independent of the photo–heating rate, as long as this rate is comparable to or shorter than the sound crossing time. In the following, we will quote results from simulations with a high–enough flux that allows us to use these scalings, and thus eliminate the need for a large grid of simulations in mass, redshift, and flux.

We emphasize that for smaller UV fluxes, the number of recombinations can be reduced relative to our adopted estimate. The core of the halo has a lower ionization fraction, both because the equilibrium fraction is reduced, and because the photoionization time scale in the core becomes comparable to the sound crossing time (for $`k_{\mathrm{ph}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{12}\mathrm{s}^1`$), so that equilibrium is not established before bulk motion occurs. In addition, radiative transfer effects for a low flux might keep the central regions shielded until the density is significantly reduced, and further reduce the number of recombinations. In general, full radiative transfer would be needed to adequately quantify these effects, which we defer to a subsequent paper. Here we only estimate these effects in the optically thin case, and find that for the range of $`k_{\mathrm{ph}}`$ of interest, the reduction in the number of recombinations is small. As an example, for the low rate of $`k_{\mathrm{ph}}=10^{13}\mathrm{s}^1`$, the core of our fiducial $`z=10`$ halo would reach $`x=0.4`$, resulting in an overall reduction of the internal clumping of the ionized gas within the halo by a factor of two. Finally, we note that prior to reionization, it is conceivable that, due to the strong fluctuations of the UV flux as a function of position, the gas condenses and photo–evaporates from DM minihalos multiple times, and hence absorb many more photons.

Our calibrations are based on four simulations, using halo masses of $`M=10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$ or $`M=5\times 10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$; and initial redshifts of $`z=10`$ or $`z=20`$. In all of these cases, by our choice of the flux, photoevaporation occurs very rapidly, with most recombinations occurring within a sound–crossing time; justifying the assumption of our simple model in equation (3). As an example, in Figure 3.2 we show the evolution of the $`M=10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$ halo starting at $`z=10`$. The figure reveals that by $`z=9.5`$ the density contrast is everywhere reduced below $`\delta <\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}`$. In each of the cases we examined, we infer $`f=1`$ from equation (4) to within $`15\%`$. For the $`M=10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$ halo, we find $`f=1.03,0.86`$ for $`z=20`$ and $`z=10`$, respectively. Similarly, for $`M=5\times 10^6\mathrm{M}_{}`$, we find $`f=0.85,0.89`$ for $`z=20`$ and $`z=10`$. Generally, considerable differences in the inferred values of $`f`$ can be expected if one were to carry out radiative transfer calculations for more realistic density distributions and source evolutions. In the rest of this paper, we take our four simulations at face value, and set $`f=1`$ in the remaining calculations.

## 4. Minihalos and Gas Clumping

In this section, we illustrate the importance of minihalos by estimating their contribution to the overall clumpiness of gas in the universe. For simplicity, we assume sudden reionization at some redshift $`z_r`$, corresponding to the overlap of discrete HII regions, and a sudden increase in the background flux at photon energy $`E=13.6`$eV from zero to a value $`J=J_{21}\times 10^{21}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}^1\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{Hz}^1\mathrm{sr}^1`$. Prior to $`z_r`$ the background flux is assumed to be negligible, so that minihalos form down to the Jeans mass, or down to the virial temperature of $`T_\mathrm{J}`$ (eq. 2).

At the overlap epoch, the minihalos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}<10^4`$K contain a mass fraction

$$f_M(z_r)=F_{\mathrm{coll}}(z_r,T_\mathrm{J})F_{\mathrm{coll}}(z_r,10^4\mathrm{K})$$
(5)
of all baryons, where $`F_{\mathrm{coll}}(z,T)`$ is the Press–Schechter collapsed fraction at redshift $`z`$ above the mass cutoff corresponding to the virial temperature $`T`$. The minihalos therefore fill a fraction

$$f_V(z_r)\frac{f_M(z_r)}{130.5}$$
(6)
of the volume, where $`\delta _{\mathrm{int}}=130.5`$ is the average overdensity within a minihalo relative to the background. The fraction we use in our calculations is somewhat larger than this value because, as discussed in § 3.1. above, we reduce the central densities of the smallest minihalos relative to the TIS model; as a result, they occupy a larger volume.

Once the ionizing flux turns on, the minihalos are photoionized, and each minihalo contributes to the gas clumping and increases the universal mean recombination rate, until it is photoevaporated. To illustrate the importance of minihalos, it is useful to define an average gas clumping factor,

$$C=\frac{n_\mathrm{H}^2}{\overline{n}_\mathrm{H}^2}=C_{\mathrm{IGM}}+C_>+C_<,$$
(7)
where the three terms represent the contributions from the smooth IGM, halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>10^4`$K, and minihalos, respectively. Previous works have computed gas clumping in a similar manner, but have not included the contribution $`C_<`$ from minihalos (see Benson et al. 2000). Each term in equation (7) can be written as $`C_i=f_{V,i}n_i^2/\overline{n}_\mathrm{H}^2`$, where $`f_{V,i}`$ is the volume filling factor and $`n_i`$ is the number density of ionized hydrogen in the $`i^{\mathrm{th}}`$ component. The first term is obtained by assuming that the uncollapsed gas mass fraction $`[1F_{\mathrm{coll}}(z,T_\mathrm{J})]`$ is fully ionized, and uniformly fills the available volume $`[1F_{\mathrm{coll}}(z,T_\mathrm{J})/130.5]`$ (in our calculations, we have included the small correction to these expressions due to the reduction of the central densities of small minihalos). Note that the uncollapsed gas fraction is underdense relative to the overall mean of the universe, so that $`C_{\mathrm{IGM}}1`$.

The contribution from large halos, $`C_>`$ is computed by summing over all halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>10^4`$K, whose abundance is assumed to follow the Press–Schechter mass function. These halos are collisionally ionized when they virialize, and subsequently cool via atomic line cooling. In the absence of an external UV field, most of the hydrogen would recombine, and remain neutral. When exposed to the photoionizing background, the large halos are self–shielding, and are still only partially ionized from the surface inward. This renders estimates of the contribution from large halos to the overall clumping highly uncertain, since the gas in each halo can continue to cool, self-shield, and collapse to form a disk, while it is being illuminated by the external radiation field. Nevertheless, in order to derive an illustrative estimate, we have computed the radius $`r_i`$ to which the halos are ionized from the outside in, assuming that the gas density profiles follow that of the TIS solution. We have assumed further that the spherical halo is exposed to an external ionizing flux of $`J_{21}=1`$, and repeated the 1D radiative transfer calculation for several halo masses, to obtain $`r_i`$ as a function of $`M_{\mathrm{halo}}`$. We then evaluated $`n_i^2`$ for each halo mass, excluding the neutral core $`0<r<r_i`$ in each case, and obtained the final clumping factor by averaging $`n_i^2`$ over $`M_{\mathrm{halo}}`$.

Finally, the contribution $`C_<`$ from minihalos is computed by summing the internal clumping $`C_{\mathrm{int}}444^2`$ over all minihalos with $`T_\mathrm{J}T_{\mathrm{vir}}10^4`$K, assuming that each minihalo is fully ionized, but only exists for a time $`t_{\mathrm{pe}}`$ given by equation (3). To illustrate the importance of minihalos, the resulting clumping factors $`C_{\mathrm{IGM}}+C_>+C_<`$ and $`C_{\mathrm{IGM}}+C_>`$ are shown by the solid and dotted curves in Figure 4, respectively. Also shown for comparison is the clumping factor in a similar $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology from the numerical simulation of Gnedin & Ostriker (1997, dashed curve). Our calculations show $`C`$ as a function of the assumed reionization redshift, while the simulation result is adopted from a specific reionization history; this simple comparison is therefore somewhat inappropriate. Nevertheless, as the figure shows, the 3D simulation results are well reproduced by the ensemble of partially ionized spherical halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>10^4`$K, assuming a fixed background flux. However, when the minihalos are included, clumping sets in at a significantly higher redshift ($`z20`$ instead of $`z10`$). Although the relative importance of minihalos decreases at lower redshifts, when larger scales start to collapse, the clumping factor is still enhanced by a factor of $`2`$ at $`z6`$.

## 5. Minihalos as Photon Sinks

We will now explicitly compute the total number of ionizing photons consumed inside minihalos following the overlap epoch $`z_r`$. This equals the number of recombinations that occur while the gas is evaporated out of the minihalos. Although larger halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>10^4`$K eventually dominate the gas clumping, as emphasized in the previous section, large halos can self–shield, cool, and collapse to form disks, making it difficult to estimate their overall contribution. In order to avoid these complications, below we focus on minihalos, and simply ignore halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>10^4`$K.

Consider a post–overlap redshift $`z<z_r`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }t(z,z_r)`$ denoting the time elapsed between $`z_r`$ and $`z`$. By this redshift, the smallest minihalos have been evaporated, but those with virial temperatures above

$$T_{\mathrm{pe}}(z)=10^4\left[\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t(z,z_r)}{t_{\mathrm{pe}}(z_r,10^4\mathrm{K})}\right]^2\mathrm{K}$$
(8)
are still present (cf. eq. 3) and are contributing to the gas clumping. The contribution of minihalos to the clumping factor at redshift $`z`$ is accordingly given by

$$C_<(z)=_{M(T_{\mathrm{min}})}^{M(10^4\mathrm{K})}𝑑M\left(\frac{dN}{dM}\right)_{z_r}\left(\frac{M}{\delta _{\mathrm{int}}\rho _{\mathrm{bg}}}\right)C_{\mathrm{int}}$$
(9)
where the first term in the integrand is the Press–Schechter mass function; the second term represents the volume–filling factor of halos of mass $`M`$; and the last term is the internal gas clumping of a halo of mass $`M`$, $`C_{\mathrm{int}}(M)444`$. The lower limit of the integration corresponds to the smallest halo that has not yet been photoevaporated, whose virial temperature is

$$T_{\mathrm{min}}(z)=\mathrm{max}(T_\mathrm{J},T_{\mathrm{pe}}).$$
(10)
Since $`T_\mathrm{J}`$ is always evaluated at redshift $`z_r`$, the only $`z`$–dependence of equation (9) are through the minimum temperature of minihalos still being evaporated, and through the decrease of the background density $`\rho _{\mathrm{bg}}`$. Some of the minihalos are destroyed by mergers; however, we find from the extended Press–Schechter formalism (Lacey & Cole 1993; eq. 28) that in the relevant ranges of redshifts (corresponding to the photoevaporation time) and halo masses this fraction is always small. The total number of recombinations per hydrogen atom in the universe that takes places in minihalos between $`z_r`$ and $`z`$ is then given by

$$N_{\mathrm{rec}}=_{t(z_r)}^{t(z)}𝑑t\alpha _\mathrm{B}C_<(z)\overline{n}_{\mathrm{H},0}(1+z)^3,$$
(11)
where $`\overline{n}_{\mathrm{H},0}`$ is the present–day average density of hydrogen atoms. Figure 5 shows the evolution of $`N_{\mathrm{rec}}`$, assuming different values for the reionization redshift, $`6z_r16`$. In general, the number of recombinations associated with the photoevaporation of minihalos is significant. For popular values for the reionization redshift, the minihalos consume over $`10`$ ionizing photons per hydrogen atom. Most recombinations take place within a short time after reionization – once the minihalos are evaporated, they no longer contribute to recombinations, as demonstrated by the rapid flattening of the curves to their asymptotic values in Figure 5. We recall that smaller halos are photoevaporated more rapidly than larger ones, which makes their importance diminish towards lower masses, despite their increasing abundance. We find that $`68\%`$ of the recombinations shown in Figure 5 take place in those with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1500}`$K; and excluding halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}<1000`$K would make a negligible difference. Our results imply that if the minihalos were indeed photoevaporated (see discussion below), the ionizing sources must have produced at least $`10`$ ionizing photons per background hydrogen atom. This is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for reionization (e.g. a sudden burst of 10 ionizing photons per H atom could evaporate the minihalos and reionize the universe, but would not ensure that most of the volume is subsequently kept ionized).

An interesting feature in Figure 5 is the dependence of the number of recombinations on the assumed reionization redshift. If reionization occurs early ($`z_r>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}20}`$), i.e. by efficient ionizing photon production in rare, high–$`\sigma `$ objects, the abundance of minihalos is then still low. Since we do not allow minihalos to condense after reionization, most minihalos never form. As a result, minihalos are less important sinks of ionizing radiation. Likewise, if reionization occurs late (closer to $`z=6`$), then the minihalos have started merging into larger halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>10^4`$K. In this case, a fraction of minihalos reside in deep potential wells and can be self–shielded, reducing their role as photon sinks. The effect of minihalos are maximal if reionization occurs around the popular values of $`z810`$, the redshift when the minihalo abundance also peaks (note that this redshift depends sensitively on the assumed cosmology, and on the normalization of the power spectrum $`\sigma _8`$).

In our treatment, we assumed sudden reionization. The later stages of reionization, corresponding to the slow outside–in ionization of dense regions on larger scales, can last a considerable fraction of the Hubble time. However, the initial overlap of HII regions likely proceeds rapidly (Haiman & Loeb 1998; Miralda-Escudé et al. 1999; MHR; Gnedin 2000a). Nevertheless, one could follow the volume filling factor of ionized regions, and allow the formation of new minihalos only outside these regions (as is done in Haiman & Loeb 1998). Here we simply note that if the overlap epoch lasts between redshifts $`z_1`$ and $`z_2`$, then reading $`N_{\mathrm{rec}}`$ from Fig 5 at these two redshifts would approximately bracket the number of photons consumed.

## 6. The Mean Free Path of Ionizing Photons

The minihalos that formed prior to the reionization redshift $`z_r`$ contribute to the Lyman-continuum opacity of the universe and reduce the mean free path of ionizing photons at later redshifts $`z<z_r`$. No new minihalos form after reionization, and furthermore, a fraction $`1f_{\mathrm{surv}}`$ of the existing minihalos disappear by merging, as they become parts of larger halos. Assuming the minihalos to be neutral and randomly distributed in space, the comoving photon mean free path $`d`$ at redshift $`z`$ is given by

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1+z}{d}}`$ $`={\displaystyle _{M_\mathrm{J}}^{M_0}}𝑑Mn(M,z)\sigma (M)f_{\mathrm{surv}}(M,z_r,M_0,z)`$ (12)
$`={\displaystyle _{M_\mathrm{J}}^{M_0}}𝑑M\left({\displaystyle \frac{dN}{dM}}\right)_{z_r}(1+z)^3(\pi R_{\mathrm{vir}}^2)f_{\mathrm{surv}},`$
where $`\sigma (M)`$ is the geometrical cross–section, $`R_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ is the virial radius, $`n(M,z)`$ is the physical abundance at redshift $`z`$, and $`(dN/dM)_{z_r}`$ is the comoving abundance at redshift $`z_r`$ of minihalos of mass $`M`$; and $`f_{\mathrm{surv}}(M,z_r,M_0,z)`$ is the probability that a halo of mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z_r`$ has not become part of a halo of mass $`>M_0`$ by redshift $`z`$. Here and in the upper limit of the integrals in equation (12), $`M_0`$ is chosen to correspond to a virial temperature of $`10^4`$K. The survival fraction is computed as

$$f_{\mathrm{surv}}(M,z_r,M_0,z)=1_{M_0}^{\mathrm{}}𝑑M_1p(M,z_r,M_1,z),$$
(13)
where $`p(M,z_r,M_1,z)`$ is the probability that a halo of mass $`M`$ at redshift $`z_r`$ is part of a halo of mass $`M_1\pm dM_1/2`$ at redshift $`z`$, given by Lacey & Cole (1993, eq. 28).

We find that the mean free path is small compared to the Hubble distance $`ct_{\mathrm{Hub}}(z)`$. For example, taking $`z_r=10`$ as the reionization redshift, we find $`d=2.1`$(comoving) Mpc at $`z=10`$. Equation (12) also shows that the contribution to the opacity from halos of mass $`M`$ scales approximately as $`M^{1/3}`$, implying that once the low–density IGM is ionized, but the halos are still neutral, the minihalos are the dominant source of opacity. As a result, the typical fate of an ionizing photon emitted around redshift $`z10`$ is to be absorbed by a minihalo within a small fraction of the Hubble distance.

Although most ionizing photons are absorbed by minihalos, it is interesting to follow the evolution of the mean free path at $`z<z_r`$ under the assumption that the minihalos stay neutral. This could be the case, e.g. if only $``$ one ionizing photon is produced in the universe per H atom after $`z_r`$. We find that approximately half of the minihalos present at $`z=10`$ survive merging into large halos until $`z=3`$, and the surviving minihalos lead to mean free paths of $`d=10,16,`$ and $`32`$ Mpc at $`z=5,4,`$ and $`3`$, respectively. This implies the existence of $`dN/dz54,42,`$ and $`31`$ minihalos per unit redshift at these redshifts. The minihalos considered here have hydrogen column densities of $`N_\mathrm{H}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^{18}\mathrm{cm}^2`$, and their abundances should therefore be compared to that of high–redshift Lyman limit systems (LLS). Although the latter is not well measured at $`z5`$, it is inferred from high–resolution quasar spectra to be $`dN/dz2\pm 0.5`$ at $`z=3`$ and $`dN/dz3.5\pm 1`$ at $`z=4`$ (e.g. Storrie-Lombardi et al. 1994), at least a factor of $`10`$ lower than the number of surviving minihalos. We conclude that the observed relatively low number of LLS gives a strong constraint on the number of minihalos that could have survived photoevaporation. Unless future observations reveal a 10–fold increase in the abundance of Lyman limit systems from $`z=4`$ to $`z=5`$, this provides strong evidence that most minihalos were indeed photoevaporated by $`z5`$ (or at least their total geometrical cross–sections were reduced by an order of magnitude). Indeed, Abel & Mo (1998) have shown that halos with $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^4`$K already have a sufficient abundance to account for all LLS at $`z<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}4}`$; leaving no room for additional minihalos.

## 7. The Covering Factor of Minihalos

So far we have assumed that reionization occurs suddenly. Stated more precisely, in this picture reionization occurs in three stages. First, the HII regions around individual ionizing sources rapidly overlap and fill most of the volume, occupied by the low–density IGM. Second, the minihalos are photoevaporated by the background radiation. Finally, the larger–scale dense regions are gradually ionized from the outside inwards. This scenario is justified as long as the minihalos have a small covering factor $`F_{\mathrm{cov}}`$ around an ionizing source. Here $`F_{\mathrm{cov}}`$ is defined as the fraction of the $`4\pi `$ solid angle around a typical ionizing source occupied by minihalos out to a distance $`r_s`$, where $`r_s`$ is the typical separation of the ionizing sources. On the other hand, if $`F_{\mathrm{cov}}>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}1}`$, then the minihalos must be photoevaporated before the low–density regions can be ionized, since ionizing photons are necessarily absorbed in minihalos before they are able to reach most of the volume. In this case, the first two stages of reionization would be reversed, and a typical minihalo is evaporated by a neighboring UV source, rather than by a uniform background. The resulting “lopsided” photoevaporation is considerably more complicated to model than the evaporation by a uniform background, as we assumed in § 3. Although such modeling is beyond the scope of the present paper, we shall estimate the covering factor below.

To estimate the covering factor, let us assume that the ionizing sources reside in halos with virial temperatures $`T_{\mathrm{vir}}10^4`$K, or mass $`M_0`$. Taking $`z_r=10`$, the average separation of these sources at the reionization epoch is $`r_s=[M_0(dN/dM_0)]^{1/3}=0.5`$ (comoving) Mpc. If the minihalos were randomly distributed, $`F_{\mathrm{cov}}`$ could be computed analogously to the mean free path (cf. eq. 12), and would be given simply by

$$F_{\mathrm{cov},0}=\frac{r_s}{d}\frac{0.5}{2.1}25\%.$$
(14)
However, equation (14) ignores the fact that minihalos are strongly clustered around the ionizing sources, and therefore cover a larger fraction of the sky. Taking clustering into account, the abundance of minihalos of mass $`M_1`$ at a distance $`r\pm dr`$ away from an ionizing source in a halo of mass $`M_0`$ is given approximately by

$$NN_1[1+b_0b_1\xi _m(r)],$$
(15)
where $`N_1=M_1(dN/dM_1)`$ is the average minihalo abundance, $`\xi _m(r)`$ is the mass correlation function at redshift $`z=10`$, and $`b_1=b(z_r,M_1)`$ and $`b_0=b(z_r,M_0)`$ are the bias of halos of mass $`M_1`$ and $`M_0`$ relative to mass. The smallest spatial scale we consider is the virial radius of a halo at the Jeans mass, $`1`$ (comoving) kpc, which is in the mildly non-linear regime. For simplicity, we use the linear correlation function and halo bias, although nonlinear effects could increase the clustering somewhat above the estimates below. The relevant halo masses are always above $`M^{}`$, i.e. even the smallest minihalo has a positive bias parameter $`b(z,M)`$.

For halos of a given mass $`M_1`$, clustering then increases the covering factor to

$$F_{\mathrm{cov}}=F_{\mathrm{cov},0}[1+\frac{b_0b_1}{r_s}_{R_{\mathrm{vir}}}^{r_s}𝑑r\xi _m(r)].$$
(16)
Here $`R_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ refers to the virial radius of the minihalo of mass $`M_1`$. Averaging the term in square brackets over all masses between $`M_\mathrm{J}`$ and $`M_0`$, we find that the overall increase at redshift $`z=10`$ is a factor of $`3`$. The mass-dependence is primarily through the bias parameter $`b_1`$, since the linear mass correlation function $`\xi _m(r)`$ is quite flat, and the radial integral is dominated by large radii.

In summary, our estimates imply a typical covering factor of $`F_{\mathrm{cov}}75\%`$. This relatively large value demonstrates that most ionizing photons emitted by a source are absorbed in minihalos before most of the volume of the IGM can be ionized. Our estimates are inherently uncertain, as they are based on spherical halos and the linear correlation functions. As higher resolution three–dimensional simulations become feasible in the future, it will possible to directly compute the covering factor of minihalos, and eventually to model their asymmetric photoevaporation (as done in two dimensions by Shapiro & Raga 2000).

## 8. Conclusions

We have shown that minihalos, i.e. halos with virial temperatures between the cosmological Jeans temperature, $`T_\mathrm{J}`$, and $`10^4`$K, play an important role during cosmological reionization. In the earliest stages of reionization, the minihalos dominate the average gas clumping in the universe, and can therefore dominate the overall recombination rate. Depending on the reionization redshift, up to $`20\%`$ of all baryons condense into minihalos before their formation is suppressed by the reheating feedback. The fate of the chemically pristine minihalos depends on the abundance of $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ molecules (see Haiman, Abel & Rees 2000). A sufficiently strong early X–ray background (XRB) could catalyze the formation of $`\mathrm{H}_2`$ molecules, and the minihalos could then cool and harbor internal ionizing sources, likely photo–evaporating their gas content from the inside (note that X–rays would have several additional important consequences for reionization, see Oh 2000). In absence of any early XRB, however, most minihalos would likely not have sufficient molecular abundance, and they would then remain in approximate hydrostatic equilibrium until photoevaporated by external ionizing sources.

We find that the photoevaporation of existing minihalos in the range of virial temperatures $`1000\mathrm{K}<T_{\mathrm{vir}}<\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}10}^4\mathrm{K}`$ dominates the necessary ionizing photon budget, and requires $`1020`$ ionizing photons per background hydrogen atom. This value exceeds by about an order of magnitude the number of ionizing photons produced by an extrapolation of known populations of quasars to higher redshifts. An extrapolation of the Lyman break galaxy population to high redshift comes closer to meeting the required photon budget, provided that a large fraction of the ionizing photons produced in these galaxies leak into the IGM. If the mean escape fraction is $`50\%`$ (cf. Steidel et al. 2000), then the discrepancy is only a factor of $`3`$. Our conclusions depend further on the type of sources responsible for reionization. Our results show that if the reionizing sources have typical separations of halos with virial temperatures of $`10^4`$K (or larger), then most minihalos are photoevaporated before most of the volume of the universe is reionized, because their covering factor around the ionizing sources is of order unity. If the reionizing sources are more closely packed, in principle they could ionize the low–density regions, i.e. most of the volume, before the minihalos are photoevaporated. In either case, we find that the minihalos must have been photoevaporated by $`z5`$, in order not to overpredict the number of Lyman limit systems by a factor of $`10`$.

In a previous study of inhomogeneous reionization, Miralda-Escudé et al. (2000) have suggested that $``$ one ionizing photon per hydrogen atom is sufficient to reionize most of the volume of the IGM by $`z5`$. The gas clumping in that study was adjusted to match the results of numerical simulations, which did not resolve the smallest scales, i.e. scales on which minihalos dominate the gas clumping. Our results suggest that the necessary photoevaporation of dense gas out of minihalos can raise the photon requirement at $`z>\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}5}`$ by up to an order of magnitude. In arriving at this conclusion, we have relied on a combination of a semi–analytic approach and three-dimensional simulations of individual halos, albeit without radiative transfer, and we have also made a number of simplifying assumptions. More realistic cosmological hydrodynamical simulations that include realistic sources and three–dimensional radiative transfer will be available in the near future, and will be able to test our simplified model.

The additional ionizing photons required for the photoevaporation of minihalos could arise from an early population of low–luminosity quasars (“miniquasars”), whose abundance declines significantly less than that of optically bright QSOs. Alternatively, ionizing photons could have been produced in “minigalaxies” associated with low–mass halos collapsing at high redshift. Although both types of sources could have escaped detection with present instruments, both are well within the capabilities of direct imaging with future telescopes, such as the Next Generation Space Telescope.

We thank Houjun Mo for useful discussions, and Jordi Miralda-Escudé, Martin Haehnelt, Martin Rees, Rennan Barkana, and the referee, David Weinberg, for useful comments on the manuscript. We also thank Greg Bryan and Mike Norman for permission to use their adaptive mesh refinement code enzo. This research was supported by the NSF under Grant No. PHY94-07194 at the ITP, and by NASA through the Hubble Fellowship grant HF-01119.01-99A, awarded to ZH by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS 5-26555. PM acknowledges support by NASA through ATP grant NAG5–4236.


text:
# On the volume conjecture for hyperbolic knots

## 1. Introduction

In , R.M. Kashaev introduced certain invariants of oriented links motivated by his study of quantum dilogarithm functions. Since the classical dilogarithm functions are related to the hyperbolic volumes, he naturally expected that, for hyperbolic knots, the asymptotic behaviors of his invariants determine their volumes, which is in fact confirmed for a few hyperbolic knots by himself in . Some other examples are now given in , where the asymptotic behaviors of the invariants suggestively determine not only the volumes but also the Chern-Simons invariants.

Later, in , H. Murakami and J. Murakami have shown that Kashaev’s invariant coincides with certain special value of the colored Jones function, and then reformulated Kashaev’s conjecture, that is, the asymptotic behavior of the colored Jones function determines the simplicial volume of a knot, which is now called the volume conjecture of knots. For torus knots, known as typical non-hyperbolic knots, this conjecture is recently confirmed by Kashaev and O. Tirkkonen in .

The purpose of this article is to give a rough, and so not yet complete unfortunately, proof of Kashaev’s conjecture, that is, the volume conjecture for hyperbolic knots. In fact, for a hyperbolic knot in $`S^3`$, the quantum factorials in its Kashaev’s invariant naturally correspond to the tetrahedra in an ideal triangulation of its complement, which establish a surprising correspondence between the stationary phase equations for the invariant and the hyperbolicity equations for the triangulation. Then, the asymptotic behavior of the invariant is determined by the promised solution, which is nothing but the volume of the knot complement because the quatum factorials asymptotically goes to the dilogarithm functions.

The author is grateful to Hirotaka Akiyoshi, Hitoshi Murakami and Jun Murakami for stimulating discussions. He is also grateful to all the participants in the meeting “Volume conjecture” in October, 1999 at International Institute for Advanced Studies, Kyoto.

## 2. Ideal triangulations

Throughout of this article, $`M`$ denotes the complement of a hyperbolic knot $`K`$ in $`S^3`$. In this section, associated with a diagram of $`K`$, we construct an ideal triangulation of $`M`$ from which the hyperbolicity equations for $`M`$ follows quite nicely. We suppose $`K`$ does not hit the two poles $`\pm \mathrm{}`$ of $`S^3`$ and denote $`M`$ with $`\pm \mathrm{}`$ removed by $`\dot{M}`$.

Let $`D`$ be a diagram of $`K`$ in $`S^2`$ with $`n`$ crossings and $`R_0,\mathrm{},R_{n+1}`$ its faces. Then, $`D`$ together with its dual graph gives a decomposition $`𝒟`$ of $`S^2`$ into $`n`$ octagons $`Q_1,\mathrm{},Q_n`$, where each $`Q_\nu `$ is further divided into four quadrangles as shown in Figure 1. We put $`𝒬_\nu =\{\mu |Q_\nu R_\mu \mathrm{}\}`$ and $`_\mu =\{\nu |Q_\nu R_\mu \mathrm{}\}`$, where we can suppose $`|𝒬_\nu |=4`$ for any $`\nu `$, otherwise we can reduce the number of crossings of $`D`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 1}}$$

Due to D. Thurston , $`\dot{M}`$ decomposes into ideal octahedra $`P_1,\mathrm{},P_n`$, where each $`P_\nu `$ corresponds to $`Q_\nu `$ and further decomposes into four ideal tetrahedra as shown in Figure 2. Thus, we have an ideal traiangulation $`\dot{𝒮}`$ of $`\dot{M}`$ which associates $`Q_\nu R_\mu `$ of $`𝒟`$ with an ideal tetrahedron $`S_{\nu \mu }`$. Notice that four tetrahedra corresponding to $`𝒬_\nu `$ share an edge $`\dot{E}_\nu `$ while all the tetrahedra corresponding to $`_\mu `$ also share an edge $`\dot{F}_\mu `$. As usual, we put a hyperbolic structure on $`S_{\nu \mu }`$ by assigning a complex number $`z_{\nu \mu }`$ to a pair of opposite edges of $`S_{\nu \mu }`$ corresponding to $`\dot{E}_\nu `$ and $`\dot{F}_\mu `$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 2}}$$

To make $`\dot{𝒮}`$ an ideal triangulation of $`M`$, we have to specify a non-singular point on $`D`$, where we meet an overpass $`A`$ followed by an undercrossing $`X`$ in one side and an underpass $`B`$ followed by an overcrossing $`Y`$ in the other side. Without loss of generality, we can suppose $`𝒬_1𝒬_n=\{0,n+1\}`$ and that $`A,X,Y,B`$ are covered by $`_{\nu =1}^aQ_\nu ,Q_x,Q_y,_{\nu =b}^nQ_\nu `$ respectively, where $`a<xy<b`$, otherwise we can reduce $`n`$, the number of crossings in $`D`$. For simplicity, we put $`=\{1,\mathrm{},a,b,\mathrm{},n\}`$, $`=_0_{n+1}`$ and $`𝒬=_\nu 𝒬_\nu `$. Then, we can further suppose $`=\{1,n\}`$ and $`𝒬_a𝒬_x𝒬_y𝒬_b=\mathrm{}`$, and so $`xy`$ in particular, otherwise we can reduce $`n`$ again or change the specified point to $`DQ_aQ_x`$ and so on, which should stop sometime because $`K`$ can not be a satellite of an elementary torus link.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 3}}$$

Now, we contract the ideal bigon $`P_1P_n`$ bounded by $`L=\{\pm \mathrm{}\}\dot{F}_0\dot{F}_{n+1}`$, which makes the ideal tetrahedra touching the bigon degenerate, and come up with an ideal triangulation $`𝒮`$ of $`M`$. We choose a cusp cross section $`T`$ of $`M`$ so that $`T`$ does not touch the bigon, and denote by $`\dot{𝒯}`$ and $`𝒯`$ the triangulations of $`T`$ induced by $`\dot{𝒮}`$ and $`𝒮`$ respectively. Then, $`(\dot{𝒮},\dot{𝒯})`$ and $`(𝒮,𝒯)`$ are related as follows.

If $`\nu \{1,n\}`$, then $`P_\nu `$ intersects the bigon in two triangles and so is truncated by $`T`$ as shown in Figure 4a. Thus, no tetrahedron in $`P_\nu `$ survives in $`𝒮`$ as shown in Figure 4b. In particular, $`S_{\nu 0}`$ and $`S_{\nu (n+1)}`$ degenerate into an edge in $`𝒮`$. Note that $`𝒬_\nu 𝒬=\mathrm{}`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 4}}$$

If $`\nu \{1,n\}`$, then two edges of $`P_\nu `$ are identified with an edge in the bigon, and so is truncated by $`T`$ as shown in Figure 5a. Thus, no tetrahedron in $`P_\nu `$ survives in $`𝒮`$ as shown in Figure 5b, and $`𝒬_\nu 𝒬=\mathrm{}`$ again.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 5}}$$

If $`\nu \{x,y\}`$, then $`P_\nu `$ intersects the bigon in two edges, and so is truncated by $`T`$ as shown in Figure 6a. Thus, one tetrahedron, $`S_{\nu c}`$ say, in $`P_\nu `$ survives in $`𝒮`$ as shown in Figure 6b. Note that $`𝒬_\nu 𝒬=\{c\}`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 6}}$$

If $`\nu \{x,y\}`$, then $`P_\nu `$ intersects the bigon in one edge, and so is truncated by $`T`$ as shown in Figure 7a. Thus, two tetrahedra, $`S_{\nu e},S_{\nu f}`$ say, in $`P_\nu `$ survive in $`𝒮`$. Note that $`𝒬_\nu 𝒬=\{e,f\}`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 7}}$$

If $`\nu \{1,x,y,n\}`$, then $`P_\nu `$ intersects the bigon in one edge, and so is truncated by $`T`$ as shown in Figure 8a. Thus, three tetrahedra other than $`S_{\nu g}`$, where $`g`$ is 0 or $`n+1`$, in $`P_\nu `$ survive in $`𝒮`$ as shown in Figure 8b. Note that $`𝒬_\nu 𝒬=𝒬_\nu \{g\}`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 8}}$$

Otherwise, that is, if $`\nu \{x,y\}`$, $`P_\nu `$ does not touch the bigon, and so no degeneration occurs as shown in Figure 9. Note that $`𝒬_\nu 𝒬=𝒬_\nu `$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 9}}$$

Such observations enable us to write down $`𝒯`$ and so the hyperbolicity equations for $`M`$ explicitly. In what follows, we illustrate how to do this through an example depicted in Figure 10.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 10}}$$

Let $`N(K),N(L),N(\pm \mathrm{})`$ be the regular neighborhoods of $`K,L,\pm \mathrm{}`$ in $`S^3`$, and $`\dot{𝒦},\dot{},𝒟_\pm `$ the decompositions of $`N(K),N(L),N(\pm \mathrm{})`$ induced by $`\dot{𝒮}`$ respectively. Then, it is not difficult to write down $`\dot{𝒦}`$ which associates an edge of $`D`$ with either an annulus or a pinched annulus, divided into four triangles anyway, according as the edge is alternating or not.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 11}}$$

On the other hand, $`𝒟_+`$ is $`𝒟`$ with the overpasses of $`D`$ contracted, while $`𝒟_{}`$ is the mirror image of $`𝒟`$ with the underpasses of $`D`$ contracted, and $`\dot{}`$ is then given by gluing $`𝒟_+`$ and $`𝒟_{}`$ along $`\dot{F}_0`$ and $`\dot{F}_{n+1}`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 12}}$$

In $`S^3`$ with $`N(K)N(L)`$ removed, the bigon becomes a properly embedded annulus and so $`\dot{𝒯}`$ is obtained by gluing $`\dot{𝒦}`$ and $`\dot{}`$ along the annulus as shown in Figure 13. Then, by contracting a number of edges, the dotted ones in Figure 13, in $`\dot{𝒯}`$ as we have observed above, we obtain $`𝒯`$ which naturally decomposes into two triangulations $`𝒦`$ and $``$ of annuli corresponding to $`\dot{𝒦}`$ and $`\dot{}`$. Note that $`𝒦`$ represents two meridians of $`K`$ each of which consists of two edges.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 13}}$$

To describe the hyperbolicity equations for $`M`$, we consider a diagram $`G`$ with two trivalent vertices which is obtained from $`D`$ by removing the simple arc between $`X`$ and $`Y`$. Let $`m`$ denote the number of crossings of $`G`$, and $`_0\mathrm{}_{m+1}`$ a partition of $`\{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$ so that $`_{\mu _\lambda }R_\mu `$ form a face of $`G`$ other than $`R_0R_{n+1}`$, where we can suppose $`𝒬_a𝒬_x_0`$, $`𝒬_b𝒬_y_{m+1}`$. Let $``$ denote the sets of edges of $`G`$ and $``$ the set of edges of $`G`$ lying in $`R_0R_{n+1}`$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 14}}$$

If $`\nu \{x,y\}`$, $`\dot{E}_\nu `$ survives alone as an edge $`E_\nu `$ in $`𝒮`$, which connects two vertices in $`𝒦`$, and the edge relation around $`E_\nu `$ reads

$$\underset{\mu 𝒬_\nu 𝒬}{}z_{\nu \mu }=1.$$

On the other hand, if $`\lambda \{0,m+1\}`$, the edges in $`\{\dot{F}_\mu |\mu _\lambda \}`$ reduce to an edge $`F_\lambda `$ in $`𝒮`$, which connects two vertices in $`𝒦`$, and the edge relation around $`F_\lambda `$ reads

$$\underset{\mu _\lambda }{}\underset{\nu _\mu }{}z_{\nu \mu }=1.$$

If $`\nu \{x,y\}`$ and $`\lambda \{0,m+1\}`$, $`\dot{E}_\nu `$, together with some other edges in $`\dot{𝒮}`$, survives as an edge $`E_\nu `$ in $`𝒮`$, connecting two vertices in $`𝒦`$ and $`𝒦`$, while the edges in $`\{\dot{F}_\mu |\mu _\lambda \}`$, together with some other edges in $`\dot{𝒮}`$ too, reduce to an edge $`F_\lambda `$ in $`𝒮`$, connecting two vertices in $`𝒦`$ and $`𝒦`$. Thus, the edge relations around $`E_x,E_y`$ should be read from $`𝒦`$, and those around $`F_0,F_{m+1}`$ may be substituted with the cusp conditions along the two annuli lying on the borders of $`𝒦`$ and $``$, which read

$$\underset{\mu _0}{}\underset{\nu _\mu }{}z_{\nu \mu }=\underset{\mu 𝒬_x𝒬}{}z_{x\mu },\underset{\mu _{m+1}}{}\underset{\nu _\mu }{}z_{\nu \mu }=\underset{\mu 𝒬_y𝒬}{}z_{y\mu }.$$

Note that the set of solutions to these equations coincides with the set of functions from $``$ to $``$ which take 1 on $``$. In fact, for such $`z`$, $`z_{\nu \mu }`$ is given by $`z(\phi _{\nu \mu })/z(\psi _{\nu \mu })`$, where $`\phi _{\nu \mu },\psi _{\nu \mu }`$ touch $`Q_\nu R_\mu `$ as shown in Figure 15. We here put $`ϵ(\nu ,\mu )=1`$ or $`1`$ according as $`\psi _{\nu \mu }`$ is over $`\phi _{\nu \mu }`$ in $`D`$ or not.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 15}}$$

Now, any other equation can be read from $`𝒦`$. Let $`\dot{𝒜}_\phi `$ be an annulus, which may be pinched, in $`\dot{𝒦}`$ corresponding to $`\phi `$ and $`𝒜_\phi `$ denote $`\dot{𝒜}_\phi `$ in $`𝒦`$. Furthermore, $`𝒰`$ denotes the set of vertices in $`𝒦`$ correponding to $`E_\nu `$’s and $`𝒱`$ denotes the set of vertices in $`𝒦`$ which does not lie in $`𝒜_\phi `$ for any $`\phi `$. If $`\phi `$, then $`𝒜_\phi `$ is a circle or a pinched annulus in $`𝒦`$ such that $`𝒜_\phi 𝒱=\mathrm{}`$, and so no equation arises. We then suppose $`\phi `$ is surrounded by $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta `$ as shown in Figure 16, and put

$$ϵ(\phi )=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{if }\phi \text{ is over }\alpha \beta \text{ and }\gamma \delta \text{ in }D\text{,}\hfill \\ 1\hfill & \text{if }\phi \text{ is under }\alpha \beta \text{ and }\gamma \delta \text{ in }D\text{,}\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 16}}$$

If $`ϵ(\phi )=1`$, then $`𝒜_\phi `$ is a pinched annulus with $`𝒜_\phi 𝒱\mathrm{}`$ as shown in Figure 17, and so the edge relation around $`𝒜_\phi 𝒱`$ reads

$$\frac{1z(\alpha )/z(\phi )}{1z(\beta )/z(\phi )}\frac{1z(\delta )/z(\phi )}{1z(\gamma )/z(\phi )}=1,$$

where $`z(\epsilon )/z(\phi )`$ is deleted if $`\epsilon \{\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta \}`$ is empty.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 17}}$$

If $`ϵ(\phi )=1`$, then $`𝒜_\phi `$ is a pinched annulus with $`𝒜_\phi 𝒱\mathrm{}`$ too as shown in Figure 18, and so the edge relation around $`𝒜_\phi 𝒱`$ reads

$$\frac{1z(\phi )/z(\beta )}{1z(\phi )/z(\alpha )}\frac{1z(\phi )/z(\gamma )}{1z(\phi )/z(\delta )}=1,$$

where $`z(\phi )/z(\epsilon )`$ is deleted if $`\epsilon \{\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma ,\delta \}`$ is empty.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 18}}$$

If $`ϵ(\phi )=0`$, we can suppose $`\phi `$ is over $`\alpha \beta `$ and under $`\gamma \delta `$ in $`D`$. Then, $`𝒜_\phi `$ is an annulus in $`𝒦`$ as shown in Figure 19, and the cusp condition along $`𝒜_\phi `$ reads

$$\frac{1z(\alpha )/z(\phi )}{1z(\beta )/z(\phi )}=\frac{1z(\phi )/z(\gamma )}{1z(\phi )/z(\delta )},$$

where $`z(\epsilon )/z(\phi )`$ is deleted if $`\epsilon \{\alpha ,\beta \}`$ is empty and $`z(\phi )/z(\epsilon )`$ is deleted if $`\epsilon \{\gamma ,\delta \}`$ is empty. The edge relations around the vertices not in $`𝒰𝒱`$ may be substituted with these cusp conditions, and so we obtain a complete system of hyperbolicity equations for $`M`$ which has $`2m+3`$ unknowns and $`2m+3`$ equations corresponding to $``$.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 19}}$$

To be more precise, we shall introduce a potential function for these equations by using Euler’s dilogarithm function

$$\text{Li}_2(\omega )=_0^\omega \frac{\mathrm{log}(1w)}{w}𝑑w.$$

For $`z:`$, we put

$$V(z)=\underset{\nu }{}\underset{\mu 𝒬_\nu 𝒬}{}V_{\nu \mu }(z)2\pi \sqrt{1}\underset{\phi }{}ϵ(\phi )\mathrm{log}z(\phi ),$$

where

$$V_{\nu \mu }(z)=ϵ(\nu ,\mu )\{\text{Li}_2(z(\phi _{\nu \mu })^{ϵ(\nu ,\mu )}/z(\psi _{\nu \mu })^{ϵ(\nu ,\mu )})\pi ^2/6\}.$$

Then, a simple calculation shows

$$\text{Im}V(z)=\underset{\nu }{}\underset{\mu 𝒬_\nu 𝒬}{}D(z(\phi _{\nu \mu })/z(\psi _{\nu \mu }))+\underset{\phi }{}\mathrm{log}|z(\phi )|\text{Im}z(\phi )\frac{V(z)}{z(\phi )},$$

where

$$D(\omega )=\text{Im}\text{Li}_2(\omega )+\mathrm{log}|\omega |\mathrm{arg}(1\omega ).$$

It is well-known that the hyperbolic volume of $`S_{\nu \mu }`$ is given by $`D(z(\phi _{\nu \mu })/z(\psi _{\nu \mu }))`$, and so our observations can be summarized as follows.

###### Proposition 1

The hyperbolicity equations for $`M`$ associated to $`D`$ are given by

$$\left\{V_0(z)/z(\phi )=0\right|\phi \},$$

where $`V_0(z)`$ is a branch of $`V(z)`$, and the volume $`\text{vol}(M)`$ of $`M`$ is then given by

$$\text{vol}(M)=\text{Im}V_0(z_0),$$

where $`z_0`$ is the promised solution to the hyperbolicity equations.

## 3. Kashaev’s invariants

Let $`N`$ be a positive integer, which will be sent to $`\mathrm{}`$, and $`𝒩=\{0,1,\mathrm{},N1\}`$. For $`h`$, we denote by $`[h]𝒩`$ the residue modulo $`N`$. In this section, we compute Kashaev’s invariant $`K_N`$ of $`K`$, which is nothing but the $`N`$-colored Jones function of $`K`$ evaluated at $`q=\mathrm{exp}2\pi \sqrt{1}/N`$ due to , and detect its asymptotic behavior. Put

$$R_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1(kj)(il+1)}\theta _{ijkl}}{(\overline{q})_{[ij]}(q)_{[jl]}(\overline{q})_{[lk1]}(q)_{[ki]}},\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1+(il)(kj+1)}\theta _{ijkl}}{(q)_{[ij]}(\overline{q})_{[jl]}(q)_{[lk1]}(\overline{q})_{[ki]}}$$

for $`i,j,k,l𝒩`$, where $`(\omega )_{[h]}=(1\omega )(1\omega ^2)\mathrm{}(1\omega ^{[h]})`$ and

$$\theta _{ijkl}=\{\begin{array}{cc}1\hfill & \text{if }[ij]+[jl]+[lk1]+[ki]=N1\text{,}\hfill \\ 0\hfill & \text{otherwise.}\hfill \end{array}$$

Furthermore, we write $`k[i,j]`$ if $`[ik]+[ki]=[ij]`$.

In what follows, we suppose $`D`$ is a closed braid, where $`A,X,Y,B`$ are arranged in this order along its orientation, and put $`D`$ in $`^2`$ by removing the specified point. Then, we can suppose $`|𝒬_\nu |=4`$, $`\{x,y\}=\mathrm{}`$ and $`=\{1,n\}`$ as before, otherwise we can reduce the number of strings of $`D`$. Of course, we can suppose $`𝒬_a𝒬_x𝒬_y𝒬_b=\mathrm{}`$.

Let $`𝒳`$ be the set of maxima of $`D`$ where $`D`$ is oriented clockwise and $`𝒴`$ the set of maxima of $`D`$ where $`D`$ is oriented counter-clockwise. In what follows, such maxima and minima are regarded as vertices of $`D`$ together with crossings, and the set of the edges of $`D`$ is then denoted by $`\dot{}`$. Furthermore, as shown in Figure 20, $`\alpha _\nu ,\beta _\nu ,\gamma _\nu ,\delta _\nu `$ denote the four edges in $`\dot{}`$ incident to the crossing with sign $`ϵ(\nu )`$ in $`Q_\nu `$ while $`\alpha _\xi ,\delta _\xi `$ and $`\alpha _\eta ,\delta _\eta `$ denote the edges in $`\dot{}`$ incident to $`\xi 𝒳`$ and $`\eta 𝒴`$ respectively.

$$\overline{)\text{Figure 20}}$$

A state of $`D`$ is a function $`\sigma :\dot{}𝒩`$ which assigns 0 to the non-compact edges of $`D`$. For such $`\sigma `$, we put

$$D|\sigma _\nu =\{\begin{array}{cc}R_{\sigma (\gamma _\nu )\sigma (\delta _\nu )}^{\sigma (\alpha _\nu )\sigma (\beta _\nu )}\hfill & \text{if }ϵ(\nu )=+1\text{,}\hfill \\ \overline{R}_{\sigma (\delta _\nu )\sigma (\gamma _\nu )}^{\sigma (\beta _\nu )\sigma (\alpha _\nu )}\hfill & \text{if }ϵ(\nu )=1\text{.}\hfill \end{array}$$

for $`\nu \{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$. Then, Kashaev’s invariant $`K_N`$ of $`K`$ is given by

$$K_N=\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{n}{}}q^{ϵ(\nu )/2}\underset{\sigma 𝒵}{}D|\sigma ,$$

where $`𝒵`$ denotes the set of states of $`D`$ and

$$D|\sigma =\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{n}{}}D|\sigma _\nu \underset{\xi 𝒳}{}\{q^{1/2}\delta _{\sigma (\alpha _\xi )+1,\sigma (\delta _\xi )}\}\underset{\eta 𝒴}{}\{q^{1/2}\delta _{\sigma (\alpha _\eta )+1,\sigma (\delta _\eta )}\}.$$

However, a lot of states do not contribute to $`K_N`$ at all. To describe them, in what follows, we denote

$$\{[ϵ(\nu )\sigma (\alpha _\nu \beta _\nu )],[ϵ(\nu )\sigma (\beta _\nu \delta _\nu )],[ϵ(\nu )\sigma (\gamma _\nu \alpha _\nu )],[ϵ(\nu )\sigma (\delta _\nu \gamma _\nu )1]\}$$

by $`\{\sigma (\nu ,\mu )|\mu 𝒬_\nu \}`$ for $`\nu \{1,\mathrm{},n\}`$, where $`\sigma (\phi \psi )`$ stands for $`\sigma (\phi )\sigma (\psi )`$.

###### Lemma 2

If $`D|\sigma 0`$,

$$\underset{\mu 𝒬_\nu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )=\underset{\nu _\mu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )=N1.$$

Furthermore, $`\sigma (\nu ,0)=0`$ for $`\nu _0`$ and $`\sigma (\nu ,n+1)=0`$ for $`\nu _{n+1}`$.

###### Demonstration Proof

By definition, we have

$$\underset{\mu 𝒬_\nu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )=N1,\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{n}{}}\underset{\mu 𝒬_\nu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )=\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n+1}{}}\underset{\nu _\mu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )$$

and so

$$\underset{\mu =0}{\overset{n+1}{}}\underset{\nu _\mu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )=n(N1).$$

On the other hand, we can observe

$$\underset{\nu _\mu }{}\sigma (\nu ,\mu )N1$$

unless $`\mu \{0,n+1\}`$, and so Lemma 2 follows immediately. ∎

Lemma 2 definitely reduces the definition of $`K_N`$ but not enough. We can further reduce certain $`q`$-factorials in $`K_N`$ by using

###### Lemma 3

We have

$$\begin{array}{c}\underset{i[k,j]}{}q^i\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\delta _{j,k}q^{1l},\underset{j[i,l]}{}q^jR_{kl}^{ij}=\delta _{i,l}q^{1k},\\ \underset{k[l,i]}{}q^k\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\delta _{i+1,l}q^j,\underset{l[j,k]}{}q^lR_{kl}^{ij}=\delta _{j,k+1}q^i\end{array}$$

and

$$\begin{array}{c}\underset{i[k,j]}{}q^iR_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1k}}{(\overline{q})_{[jl]}(q)_{[lk1]}},\underset{j[i,l]}{}q^j\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1l}}{(\overline{q})_{[lk1]}(q)_{[ki]}},\\ \underset{k[j,l]}{}q^kR_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1+i}}{(q)_{[ij]}(\overline{q})_{[jl]}},\underset{l[k,i]}{}q^l\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1+j}}{(\overline{q})_{[ij]}(q)_{[ki]}}.\end{array}$$

###### Demonstration Proof

We shall prove

$$\underset{i[k,j]}{}q^i\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\delta _{j,k}q^{1l},\underset{i[k,j]}{}q^iR_{kl}^{ij}=\frac{Nq^{1k}}{(\overline{q})_{[jl]}(q)_{[lk1]}}.$$

By Lemma A.1 of , we have

$$\underset{k[i,j]}{}\frac{q^{k(ij)}}{(q)_{[ik]}(\overline{q})_{[kj]}}=\delta _{i,j},\underset{k[i,j]}{}\frac{q^{k(ij+1)}}{(q)_{[ik]}(\overline{q})_{[kj]}}=(1)^{ij}q^{(i+j)(ij+1)/2},$$

and so

$$\underset{i[k,j]}{}q^i\overline{R}_{kl}^{ij}=\underset{i[k,j]}{}\frac{q^{i(jk)}}{(q)_{[ij]}(\overline{q})_{[ki]}}\frac{Nq^{1+l(jk1)}}{(q)_{[lk1]}(\overline{q})_{[jl]}}=\delta _{j,k}q^{1l},$$

$$\underset{i[k,j]}{}q^iR_{kl}^{ij}=\underset{i[k,j]}{}\frac{q^{i(kj+1)}}{(q)_{[ki]}(\overline{q})_{[ij]}}\frac{Nq^{1(jk)(l1)}}{(q)_{[jl]}(\overline{q})_{[lk1]}}=\frac{Nq^{1k}}{(\overline{q})_{[jl]}(q)_{[lk1]}}.\mathit{}$$

Let $`[\sigma ]`$ denote the set of states of $`D`$ which coincide with $`\sigma `$ on the edges lying in $`G`$. Then, by Lemma 3,

$`{\displaystyle \underset{\tau [\sigma ]}{}}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu \{x,y\}}{}}`$ $`D|\tau _\nu ={\displaystyle \underset{\nu =1}{\overset{a}{}}}\delta _{\sigma (\alpha _\nu ),\sigma (\delta _\nu )}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu =b}{\overset{n}{}}}\delta _{\sigma (\beta _\nu ),\sigma (\gamma _\nu )+ϵ(\nu )}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu }{}}q^{ϵ(\nu )}`$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N^2}{(q^{ϵ(x)})_{[ϵ(x)\sigma (\delta _x\gamma _x)1]}(q^{ϵ(y)})_{[ϵ(y)\sigma (\alpha _y\beta _y)]}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu \{x,y\}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^{ϵ(\nu )}}{(q^{ϵ(\nu )})_{[ϵ_\nu \sigma (\beta _\nu \delta _\nu )]}}},`$
and so we come up with the following definition. A state $`\sigma `$ of $`D`$ is said to be simple if $`\sigma (\phi )=0`$ for $`\phi DG`$ and

$$\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{a}{}}\delta _{\sigma (\alpha _\nu ),\sigma (\delta _\nu )}\underset{\nu =b}{\overset{n}{}}\delta _{\sigma (\beta _\nu ),\sigma (\gamma _\nu )+ϵ(\nu )}\underset{\xi 𝒳}{}\delta _{\sigma (\alpha _\xi )+1,\sigma (\delta _\xi )}\underset{\eta 𝒴}{}\delta _{\sigma (\alpha _\eta )+1,\sigma (\delta _\eta )}0.$$

Thus, a simple state can be considered as a function from $``$ to $`𝒩`$ and

$`D|\sigma =`$ $`(q^{1/2})^{|𝒳||𝒴|}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu }{}}q^{ϵ(\nu )}\times {\displaystyle \underset{\nu \{x,y\}}{}}D|\sigma _\nu `$
$`\times `$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{N^2}{(q^{ϵ(x)})_{[ϵ(x)\sigma (\delta _x\gamma _x)1]}(q^{ϵ(y)})_{[ϵ(y)\sigma (\alpha _y\beta _y)]}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\nu \{x,y\}}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{q^{ϵ(\nu )}}{(q^{ϵ(\nu )})_{[ϵ(\nu )\sigma (\beta _\nu \delta _\nu )]}}}.`$
for a simple state $`\sigma `$. Furthermore, by using

$$(q)_{[h]}=\pm (1)^hq^{h(h+1)/2}(\overline{q})_{[h]},$$

we have

$$R_{ij}^{kl}=\frac{\pm Nq^{ik1}\theta _{ijkl}}{(q)_{[ij]}(\overline{q})_{[jl]}(q)_{[lk1]}(\overline{q})_{[ki]}},\overline{R}_{ij}^{kl}=\frac{\pm Nq^{jl+1}\theta _{ijkl}}{(\overline{q})_{[ij]}(q)_{[jl]}(\overline{q})_{[lk1]}(q)_{[ki]}}$$

and

$$D|\sigma _\nu =\frac{Nq^{\sigma (\alpha _\nu \gamma _\nu )ϵ(\nu )}}{_{\mu 𝒬_\nu 𝒬}(q^{ϵ(\nu ,\mu )})_{\sigma (\nu ,\mu )}}.$$

Consequently, $`K_N`$ can be rewritten as

$$(N)^{nab}(q^{1/2})^{|𝒳||𝒴|}\underset{\nu =1}{\overset{n}{}}q^{ϵ(\nu )/2}\underset{\sigma 𝒵_0}{}\underset{\nu }{}\frac{q^{(N1)\sigma (\alpha _\nu \gamma _\nu )}}{_{\mu 𝒬_\nu 𝒬}(q^{ϵ(\nu ,\mu )})_{\sigma (\nu ,\mu )}},$$

where $`𝒵_0`$ denotes the set of simple states of $`D`$. It should be noted that the $`q`$-factorials above curiously corresponds to the tetrahedra in $`𝒮`$.

From now onward, we suppose $`N`$ is sufficiently large so that

$$\frac{1}{(q^{\pm 1})_{[h]}}\mathrm{exp}\frac{N\{\pm \text{Li}_2(q^{\pm [h]})\pi ^2/6\}}{2\pi \sqrt{1}}.$$

Then, due to Kashaev , $`K_N`$ can be approximated by the integral

$$\mathrm{}\mathrm{exp}\frac{NV(z)}{2\pi \sqrt{1}}\underset{\phi }{}dz(\phi ),$$

where $`\{z(\phi )|\phi \}`$ correspond to $`\{q^{\sigma (\phi )}|\phi \}`$ in $`K_N`$. The maximal contributions to this integral comes from the solutions to the stationary phase equations for the branches of $`V(z)`$ which of course contain the solution $`z_0`$ to

$$\{V_0(z)/z(\phi )=0|\phi \},$$

the hyperbolicity equations before. Let $`z_1`$ be such a solution other than $`z_0`$ which is derived from the stationary phase equations for a branch $`V_1(z)`$ of $`V(z)`$. Then, the following assumption is likely to be true, see p. 367 in , but the author has no proof.

###### Demonstration Assumption

$`\text{Im}V_1(z_1)<\text{Im}V_0(z_0)`$.

If this is true, the integral is simply approximated by

$$\mathrm{exp}\frac{NV_0(z_0)}{2\pi \sqrt{1}}$$

by the saddle point method, where we have to use another assumption.

###### Demonstration Assumption

There is a deformation of the contour to apply the saddle point method.

Then, the absolute value of the invariant exponentially grows like

$$e^{\frac{N}{2\pi }\text{Im}V_0(z_0)}=e^{\frac{N}{2\pi }\text{vol}(M)},$$

by Proposition 1, which proves the volume conjecture for hyperbolic knots.