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# 1 Regular pretzel orbits (run for 120 time steps) of the R and N systems with the corresponding 3-particle time evolution (truncated at 50 time steps). The collision sequences differ for these initial conditions and correspond to 𝐴𝐵³ (R) and 𝐴²𝐵³ (N).

Self-gravitating $`N`$-body systems have long been of key importance in studying both stellar dynamics (small $`N2`$) and galactic evolution (large $`N`$). Solutions to their problem of motion, complicated for $`N>2`$ even in nonrelativistic mechanics due to singularities and evaporation, are essentially intractable for $`N>1`$ in general relativity because of gravitational radiation. These difficulties are avoided in one-dimensional (or lineal) models of such systems, which describe a system of $`N`$ parallel mass sheets. Studied by astronomers and physicists for several decades , they merit special attention , since they not only admit a significantly greater level of computational and analytic analysis but can also be mapped to systems subject to experimental test .

We report here on the results of an investigation of the $`3`$-body problem for a relativistic self-gravitating lineal system. Three is the smallest number of particles for which chaotic motions are possible and so such systems are of particular interest. Non-relativistically this system is equivalent to that of a single particle moving in a hexagonal funnel  or to that of a uniformly accelerated particle undergoing elastic collisions with a wedge . While its dynamics are well-documented, ours is the first non-perturbative relativistic treatment of this problem. From the canonical formulation of lineal gravity minimally coupled to $`3`$ particles, we obtain an exact expression for the Hamiltonian (valid to all orders in the gravitational coupling $`\kappa =8\pi G/c^4`$), transcendentally expressed as a function of the four independent degrees of freedom. From this we are able to solve for the motion of the system under arbitrary initial conditions and study quasi-periodic motion and chaos in a general-relativistic self-gravitating system.

For our lineal self-gravitating system we minimally couple $`N`$ point masses to gravity in 2 spacetime dimensions

$$I=d^2x\left[\frac{\sqrt{g}}{2\kappa }\left\{\mathrm{\Psi }R+\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_\nu \mathrm{\Psi }+\mathrm{\Lambda }\right\}\underset{a=1}{\overset{N}{}}m_a𝑑\tau _a\left\{g_{\mu \nu }(x)\frac{dz_a^\mu }{d\tau _a}\frac{dz_a^\nu }{d\tau _a}\right\}^{1/2}\delta ^2(xz_a(\tau _a))\right]$$
(1)
where $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`g`$ are the metric and its determinant, $`R`$ is the Ricci scalar, $`\tau _a`$ is the proper time of $`a`$-th particle, and we incorporate a scalar (dilaton) field $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ since the Einstein action is a topological invariant in $`2`$ spacetime dimensions. The action (1) describes a generally covariant self-gravitating system (without collisional terms, so that the bodies pass through each other) that is a generalization of Jackiw-Teitelboim lineal gravity , in which the scalar curvature is equated to a (cosmological) constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$; its equations of motion are

$$R\mathrm{\Lambda }=\kappa T_\mu ^{P\mu }\frac{d}{d\tau _a}\left\{\frac{dz_a^\nu }{d\tau _a}\right\}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\alpha \beta }^\nu (z_a)\frac{dz_a^\alpha }{d\tau _a}\frac{dz_a^\beta }{d\tau _a}=0$$
(2)
$$\frac{1}{2}_\mu \mathrm{\Psi }_\nu \mathrm{\Psi }g_{\mu \nu }\left(\frac{1}{4}^\lambda \mathrm{\Psi }_\lambda \mathrm{\Psi }^2\mathrm{\Psi }\right)_\mu _\nu \mathrm{\Psi }=\kappa T_{\mu \nu }^P+\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2}g_{\mu \nu }$$
(3)
where the stress-energy due to the point masses is

$$T_{\mu \nu }^P=\underset{a=1}{\overset{N}{}}m_a𝑑\tau _a\frac{1}{\sqrt{g}}g_{\mu \sigma }g_{\nu \rho }\frac{dz_a^\sigma }{d\tau _a}\frac{dz_a^\rho }{d\tau _a}\delta ^2(xz_a(\tau _a))$$

and is conserved. Eq. (2) is a closed system of $`N+1`$ equations for which one can solve for the single metric degree of freedom and the $`N`$ degrees of freedom of the point masses. The evolution of the dilaton field is governed by the evolution of the point-masses via (3). The left-hand side of (3) is divergenceless (consistent with the conservation of $`T_{\mu \nu }^P`$), yielding only one independent equation to determine the single degree of freedom of the dilaton.

For general $`N`$ the canonical formulation of (1) has been studied previously  and a number of exact solutions to the $`2`$-body problem have been obtained . Writing the metric as $`ds^2=\left(N_0dt\right)^2+\gamma \left(dx+\frac{N_1}{\gamma }dt\right)^2`$(with $`𝑑x\sqrt{\gamma }`$ describing proper spatial distance at fixed $`t`$), the action can be canonically reduced to $`I=d^2x\left\{_{a=1}^Np_a\dot{z}_a\delta (xz_a)\right\}`$, where the reduced Hamiltonian is $`H=𝑑x=\frac{1}{\kappa }𝑑x\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }`$ , with the overdot and prime denoting $`\frac{}{t}`$ and $`\frac{}{x}`$ respectively. The field $`\mathrm{\Psi }=\mathrm{\Psi }(x,z_a,p_a)`$ is understood to be determined from the constraint equations, which become

$`\mathrm{\Psi }^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{(\mathrm{\Psi }^{})^2}{4}}+\kappa ^2\left(\chi ^{}\right)^2{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }}{2}}+\kappa {\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}\sqrt{p_a^2+m_a^2}\delta (xz_a)`$ $`=`$ $`0`$ (4)
$`2\chi ^{\prime \prime }+{\displaystyle \underset{a}{}}p_a\delta (xz_a)`$ $`=`$ $`0.`$ (5)
where $`\pi =\chi ^{}`$ and $`p_a`$ are the respective momenta conjugate to $`\gamma `$ and $`z_a`$. We have chosen the momentum conjugate to $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ to vanish and $`\gamma =1`$, fixing the frame of the physical space-time coordinates in a manner analogous to the $`(3+1)`$-dimensional case .

Remarkably eqs. (4,5) can be exactly solved when $`N=3`$. The solution for $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is a sum of exponentials, and for $`\chi `$ a linear function of $`x`$ in between each particle. Requiring finiteness of the Hamiltonian at $`x=\pm \mathrm{}`$ and a consistent match of the solutions across the delta-functions at the particle boundaries yields

$`L_1L_2L_3`$ $`=`$ $`𝔐_{12}𝔐_{21}L_3^{}e^{\frac{\kappa }{4}s_{12}[(L_1+𝔐_{12})z_{13}(L_2+𝔐_{21})z_{23}]}`$ (6)
$`+𝔐_{23}𝔐_{32}L_1^{}e^{\frac{\kappa }{4}s_{23}[(L_2+𝔐_{23})z_{21}(L_3+𝔐_{32})z_{31}]}`$
$`+𝔐_{31}𝔐_{13}L_2^{}e^{\frac{\kappa }{4}s_{31}[(L_3+𝔐_{31})z_{32}(L_1+𝔐_{13})z_{12}]}`$
where $`𝔐_{ij}=M_iϵp_is_{ij}`$, $`M_i=\sqrt{p_i^2+m_i^2}`$, $`L_i=HM_iϵ(_jp_js_{ji})`$, $`L_i^{}=(1_{j<ki}s_{ij}s_{ik})M_i+L_i`$, $`z_{ij}=(z_iz_j)`$ and $`s_{ij}=`$sgn$`(z_{ij})`$. For simplicity we have set $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=0`$. The discrete constant of integration $`ϵ=\pm 1`$ flips sign under time-reversal; it provides a measure of the flow of time of the gravitational field relative to the particle momenta.

Eq. (6) is an exact result and implicitly determines the Hamiltonian $`H`$ as a function of the two independent coordinate degrees of freedom $`(\rho ,\lambda )`$ and their conjugate momenta, which can be written as

$`z_1z_2`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}\rho \text{ }z_1+z_22z_3=\sqrt{6}\lambda `$ (7)
$`p_1p_2`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{2}p_\rho \text{ }p_1+p_22p_3=\sqrt{6}p_\lambda `$ (8)
choosing the center of momentum to vanish. The usual relations $`\dot{z}_a=\frac{H}{p_a}`$ and $`\dot{p}_a=\frac{H}{z_a}`$ yield the equations of motion, and it is straightforward to show that the Hamiltonian is time-independent when these equations hold.

A post-Newtonian expansion  of (6) yields

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`3mc^2+{\displaystyle \frac{p_\rho ^2+p_\lambda ^2}{2m}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa m^2}{\sqrt{8}}}\left[\left|\rho \right|+{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}}\left(\left|\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|+\left|\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|\right)\right]{\displaystyle \frac{(p_\rho ^2+p_\lambda ^2)^2}{16m^3c^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa c^2}{\sqrt{8}}}|\rho |p_\rho ^2`$ (9)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa c^2}{16\sqrt{2}}}\left[3\sqrt{3}\left(\left|\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|+\left|\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|\right)\left(p_\lambda ^2+p_\rho ^2\right)+6\left(\left|\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|\left|\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|\right)p_\rho p_\lambda \right]`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{\kappa ^2m^3c^6}{16}}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\left|\rho \right|\sqrt{3}}{2}}\left(\left|\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|+\left|\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|\right)+{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\left|\lambda +{\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|\left|\lambda {\displaystyle \frac{\rho }{\sqrt{3}}}\right|{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}\left(\lambda ^2+\rho ^2\right)\right]`$
in the equal mass case. The first term is the total rest mass and the next two terms are equivalent to the hexagonal-well Hamiltonian of a single particle, which we refer to as the hex-particle. We see that to leading order in $`c^2`$ the hexagon potential is modified to have parabolic edges, as well as a momentum-dependent steepening of its walls. For unequal masses the hexagonal symmetry becomes distorted, with two opposite corners moving inward, changing the relative arc-lengths of the sides. The full potential (obtained from (6) by setting $`p_\rho =p_\lambda =0`$) has the shape of a hexagonal carafe with convex edges.

The system’s interesting dynamics are due to the non-smoothness of the potential along the lines $`\rho =0`$, $`\rho \sqrt{3}\lambda =0`$, and $`\rho +\sqrt{3}\lambda =0`$, respectively corresponding to the crossings of particles 1 and 2, 2 and 3, or 1 and 3. We distinguish two distinct types of motion : $`A`$-motion, corresponding to the same pair of particles crossing twice in a row (the hex-particle crossing a single sextant boundary twice in succession), and $`B`$-motion, in which one particle crosses each of its compatriots in succession (the hex-particle crossing two successive sextant boundaries). We can characterize a given motion by a sequence of letters $`A`$ and $`B`$ (called a symbol sequence), with a finite exponent $`n`$ denoting $`n`$-repeats and an overbar denoting an infinite repeated sequence.

We numerically solve the equations of motion that follow from (6) in both the exact relativistic (R) system and its non-relativistic (N) limit (ie $`c\mathrm{}`$). We impose absolute and relative error tolerances of $`10^8`$ for the numerical ODE solvers. This yields numerically stable solutions for the values of $`H6mc^2`$ that we study; beyond this the ODE solving algorithm is unstable. We test stability by checking that the energy remains a constant of the motion to within a value no larger than $`10^6`$ throughout.

For both N and R systems we find three principal classes of motion. One class, with sequence $`\overline{B}`$, describes annulus-shaped orbits encircling the origin in the $`\rho \lambda `$ plane. In the second (pretzel) class the hex-particle essentially oscillates back and forth about one of the three bisectors in a combination of $`A`$ and $`B`$ motions. Chaotic orbits constitute the third class, where the hex-particle wanders between $`A`$\- and $`B`$-motions in an apparently irregular fashion. Such orbits eventually wander into all allowed areas of the $`\rho \lambda `$ plane.

Although the orbits of the N and R systems realize the same symbol sequences, important qualitative differences exist between them. For a meaningful comparison between each system we set the total energy $`H=E_T`$ and the initial values of $`(\rho ,\lambda ,p_\rho )`$ to be the same, setting the initial value of $`p_\lambda `$ to satisfy (6) in each case. As the parameter $`\eta =H/\left(3mc^2\right)1`$ grows, we find that R trajectories have higher frequencies and extend over a smaller region of the $`(\rho ,\lambda )`$ plane than their N counterparts. Choosing initial conditions so that $`A`$-motion takes place at $`\lambda =0`$ we find that R trajectory patterns narrow with increasing $`\eta `$ in the small-$`\lambda `$ region, whereas those for the N system do not. Figure (1) illustrates a typical example with $`\eta =0.5`$ for the pretzel case, in which the trajectories for the 3 bodies and their corresponding hex-particle are shown. For each, two of the bodies form a low-amplitude/high-frequency bound state that in turn oscillates at higher amplitude and lower frequency with the third. The 3-body N oscillations are parabolic in shape whereas there is shoulder-like distortion in the R system due to the momentum-dependence of the potential (a feature seen previously in the $`2`$-body case ) illustrating that under appropriate initial conditions two bodies can tightly and stably bind together in both the N and R systems. The hex-trajectories differ substantively, with the R pattern having 50% higher frequency, and extending over a slightly smaller range than its N counterpart. The R-“boomerang” also has an indentation on the left at $`\lambda =0`$ that is absent for all corresponding N system boomerangs (not shown).

We probe the global structure of the phase-space using Poincare plots, which we construct by recording the radial $`p_r`$ and angular momentum $`j`$ each time the hex-particle crosses a hexagonal bisector, plotting their values as a series of dots in the $`(p_r,j^2)`$ plane. Periodic trajectories appear as a finite series of dots, quasi-periodic trajectories as closed loops and chaotic ones as densely filled regions. Our numerical results (see fig. 2 ) for the N system agree with previous studies , which established that a region of phase space exists in which the hex-particle circulates regularly around the origin, bounded by a thin region of chaos outside of which there is a regular structure of periodic and quasi-periodic orbits. Remarkably, we do not observe a breakdown from regular to chaotic motion as $`\eta `$ increases, despite the high degree of non-linearity in the R system. The lower regions of the Poincare map clearly display the same pattern of series of circles as occurs in the non-relativistic case. However the Poincare plot for the R system is no longer symmetric with respect to $`p_r=0`$, but instead is ‘squashed’ towards the right-hand side (compare fig. 2 to fig.3). This deformation is reminiscent of the situation for two particles, in which the gravitational coupling to the kinetic-energy of the particles causes a distortion of the trajectory from an otherwise symmetric pattern . Since (6) is invariant only under the discrete symmetry $`(p_i,ϵ)(p_i,ϵ)`$ (and not under $`p_ip_i`$), we obtain for the choice $`ϵ=\pm 1`$ a distortion towards the lower right/left-hand side of the plot relative to its N counterpart.

No sizeable connected areas of chaos are present in either the R or N systems, indicating that most trajectories are effectively restricted to move on two-dimensional surfaces in phase space. We find for all $`\eta `$ within the range investigated that chaotic orbits exist separating the annulus and pretzel regions. We therefore conjecture that the R system is not integrable, since its N counterpart is known to be non-integrable . Nonetheless, clearly some underlying feature enforces considerable structure on the phase space, preventing KAM-breakdown to global chaos typical of such Hamiltonian systems .

In general pretzel-type orbits display a remarkable richness of dynamics. As the initial angular momentum of the trajectory in question decreases, the number of successive $`A`$ collisions increases before the hex-particle sweeps around the origin in a $`B^3`$-sequence, corresponding to a 180-degree swing of the hex-particle around the origin . For example $`\overline{AB^3}`$ (the simplest sequence after $`\overline{B}`$) corresponds to a boomerang-type orbit and appears as two circles on the Poincare section. The next simplest sequence is $`\overline{A^2B^3}`$, which corresponds to a bow-tie like orbit, and generates three slightly smaller circles on the Poincare section. For each of these patterns a family of orbits exists corresponding to different widths of the ‘bands’ of phase space that the trajectory covers, and correspondingly different radii of circles in the Poincare section. Between these regions, the orbits’ sequences are mixtures of $`AB^3`$ and $`A^2B^3`$. This reasoning can be extended to more general $`A^nB^{3m}`$-motions. We conjecture that the only allowed non-chaotic orbits – relativistic and non-relativistic – are of the form $`_{n,m,j}\left(A^nB^{3m}\right)^{l_j}`$ with $`n,m`$ finite, corresponding to increasingly complex weaving patterns.

If the set of integers $`l_j`$ is finite, then the sequence is regular, leaving bands of phase space untravelled, and appearing as a series of closed crescents or ellipsoids on the Poincare section. If, however, the sequence of integers $`l_j`$ never repeats itself, then the trajectory will fill the available phase space densely, appearing as a wavy line on the surface of section. We conjecture that there is a $`11`$ correspondence between rational numbers and periodic orbits in this region of phase space, both non-relativistically and relativistically. This would give the lower section of the Poincare plot a fractal structure as the patterns of circles, ellipses and lines is repeated on arbitrarily small scales as the hex-particle’s angular momentum approaches zero.

The 3-body relativistic system provides a new theoretical laboratory for studying the interplay between relativity and chaos. While the dynamical structure of the relativisitc system bears some resemblance to well-known features of its non-relativistic counterpart (such as the self-similar structure of the pretzel class and the lack of energy dependence of the orbit topology), significant differences arise in the shape and frequency of the orbits. A full study of the large-$`\eta `$ regime should provide us with interesting new information to this end.

This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.


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# References

Henningson and Skenderis’ beautiful computation  of the Weyl anomaly of $`𝒩=4`$ $`SU(N)`$ Super-Yang-Mills theory from five dimensional gravity is a remarkable test of the Maldacena conjecture  to leading order in large $`N`$. When Super-Yang-Mills theory is coupled to a non-dynamical, external metric, $`g_{ij}`$, the Weyl anomaly, $`𝒜`$, is the response of the logarithm of the partition function, $`F`$, to a scale transformation of that metric: $`\delta F=d^4x\sqrt{g}\delta \sigma 𝒜`$ when $`\delta g_{ij}=2\delta \sigma g_{ij}`$. On general grounds $`𝒜=aE+cI`$ where $`E`$ is the Euler density, $`(R^{ijkl}R_{ijkl}4R^{ij}R_{ij}+R^2)/64`$, and $`I`$ is the square of the Weyl tensor, $`I=(R^{ijkl}R_{ijkl}+2R^{ij}R_{ij}R^2/3)/64`$. A one-loop calculation  gives $`𝒜`$ as the sum of contributions from the six scalars, two fermions and gauge vector of the Super-Yang-Mills theory, (all in the adjoint with dimension $`N^21`$)

$$𝒜=\frac{(6s+2f+g_v)(N^21)}{16\pi ^2}.$$
(1)
When the heat-kernel coefficients $`s`$, $`f`$, and $`g_v`$ are expressed in terms of $`E`$ and $`I`$ this becomes

$$𝒜=\frac{(N^21)(E+I)}{\pi ^2},$$
(2)
so $`a=c=(N^21)/(2\pi ^2)`$ and supersymmetry protects this from higher-loop corrections. Henningson and Skenderis showed that the tree-level calculation in the bulk reproduces the leading $`N^2`$ piece by solving the Einstein equations perturbatively near the boundary. We would expect that the $`1`$ piece is due to string loops in the bulk that to this order can be approximated by field theory loops, but these depend on much more than just classical General Relativity, and reproducing them provides a more stringent test of the Maldacena conjecture sensitive to the detailed particle content of the bulk IIB Supergravity theory. In  we showed that the bulk Supergravity one-loop contributions to $`ac`$ vanished when summed over each supermultiplet confirming the conjecture. In this letter we will complete this calculation of the Weyl anomaly by computing $`a`$ itself and showing that it does indeed reproduce the $`1`$ piece.

The one-loop contribution to $`𝒜`$ from bulk fields was found in  using Schrödinger functional methods that are particularly appropriate to the AdS/CFT correspondence because, being Hamiltonian, they apply four-dimensional technology to the study of fields on a five-dimensional manifold with a boundary. The result can be expressed  as

$$\delta 𝒜=\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_2}{32\pi ^2}$$
(3)
where the sum is taken over all the fields in IIB Supergravity compactified on $`AdS_5\times S^5`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the scaling dimension of the associated boundary operator, and $`a_2`$ is a four-dimensional heat-kernel coefficient (multiplied by $`1`$ for anti-commuting fields). Deriving this requires decomposing the five-dimensional components of fields into those appropriate to the four-dimensional boundary.

In deriving (3) the $`AdS`$ metric was taken to be

$$ds^2=\frac{1}{t^2}\left(l^2dt^2+\underset{i,j}{}\widehat{g}_{ij}dx^idx^j\right),t>0$$
(4)
which satisfies the Einstein equations with cosmological constant $`6/l^2`$ provided $`\widehat{g}_{ij}`$, (which is proportional to the boundary metric), is Ricci flat. In this case $`E=I`$ so that $`𝒜`$ is proportional to $`ac`$. To find $`a`$ itself it is convenient to take a constant curvature boundary for which $`R_{ijkl}=(g_{ik}g_{jl}g_{il}g_{jk})R/12`$, $`R_{ij}=Rg_{ij}/4`$, $`I=0`$ and $`E=R^2/384`$. The solution to Einstein’s equations is obtained by multiplying $`\widehat{g}_{ij}`$ in (4) by $`(1\widehat{R}t^2l^2/48)^2`$, where $`\widehat{R}`$ is the curvature constructed from $`\widehat{g}_{ij}`$. The effect of this extra piece on the decomposition of five-dimensional fields into four-dimensional variables is to introduce into the four-dimensional operators precisely those couplings to $`\widehat{R}`$ that render them conformally covariant. Thus $`a_2`$ for a five-dimensional gauge field is the heat-kernel coefficient for the operator associated with a four-dimensional gauge field, whilst that for a minimally coupled five-dimensional scalar is associated with a conformally coupled four-dimensional scalar.

The scaling dimensions $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ are related to the bulk masses which were originally worked out in . In Table 1 we display the corresponding values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }2`$. The multiplets are labelled by an integer $`p2`$, and the fields form representations of $`SU(4)SO(6)`$. The four-dimensional heat-kernel coefficients have also been known for a long time and we use the values given by . In Table 2 we list these for the cases of a Ricci flat boundary.

If we denote the values of $`a_2`$ for the fields $`\varphi `$, $`\psi `$, $`A_\mu `$, $`A_{\mu \nu }`$, $`\psi _\mu `$, $`h_{\mu \nu }`$ by $`s,f,v,a,r,`$ and $`g`$ respectively then the contribution from a generic ($`p4`$ ) multiplet is

$`\left({\displaystyle (\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_2}\right)_{p4}`$ $`=`$ $`(4s+4a+r+f+2v){\displaystyle \frac{p}{3}}+`$
$`(105sg26a8r72f48v){\displaystyle \frac{p^3}{12}}`$ $`+`$ $`(16v+20f+10a+4r+25s+g){\displaystyle \frac{p^5}{12}}`$ (5)
whilst for the $`p=3`$ multiplet it is

$$\left((\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_2\right)_{p=3}=244f+18g+266s+218v+148a+64r.$$
(6)
The $`p=2`$ multiplet contains gauge fields requiring the introduction of Faddeev-Popov ghosts. Their parameters are given in Table 3 along with the decomposition of the five-dimensional components of fields into four-dimensional pieces.

$$12v30s+6r10f+2g$$
(7)
and if we include the scalars, spinors and antisymmetric tensors the total contribution of the $`p=2`$ multiplet is

$$\left((\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_2\right)_{p=2}=12v6s+6r+6f+2g+12a$$
(8)
Substituting the values of the heat kernel coefficients for a Ricci flat boundary shows that the contribution of each supermultiplet vanishes implying that $`a=c`$ . However if we do not specialise to this case we have to deal with the sum over multiplets labelled by $`p`$. We will evaluate this divergent sum by weighting the contribution of each supermultiplet by $`z^p`$. The sum can be performed for $`|z|<1`$, and we take the result to be a regularisation of the weighted sum for all values of $`z`$. Multiplying this by $`1/(z1)`$ and integrating around the pole at $`z=1`$ gives a regularisation of the original divergent sum. This yields

$$(\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_2=8s+4f+2v$$
(9)
which remarkably depends only on the heat-kernel coefficients of fields in the Super-Yang-Mills theory. By decomposing a five-dimensional vector into longitudinal and transverse pieces and solving the Schrödinger equation for them, it can be seen that the heat-kernel coefficient for a vector field, $`v`$, is related to that for the four-dimensional (gauge-fixed) Maxwell operator, $`v_0`$, as $`v=v_0+2s2s_0`$ where $`s_0`$ is the coefficient for a minimally coupled four-dimensional scalar (Faddeev-Popov ghost), showing $`v2s=v_02s_0=g_v`$ . Therefore we finally arrive at the one-loop contribution to the Weyl anomaly

$$\delta 𝒜=\frac{(\mathrm{\Delta }2)a_2}{32\pi ^2}=\frac{6s+2f+g_v}{16\pi ^2}$$
(10)
which is precisely what is needed to reproduce the subleading term in the exact Weyl anomaly of Super-Yang-Mills theory and verify the Maldacena conjecture.

It is worth emphasising that $`a`$ received non-trivial contributions from all the supermultiplets, not just the $`p=2`$ multiplet containing gauge fields, in contrast to . This indicates that although bulk tree-level solutions might be constructed by a ‘consistent’ truncation of the full IIB Supergravity to this single multiplet, as in studies based on gauged $`𝒩=8`$ Supergravity, such a procedure would miss loop effects in the bulk that contribute to the Super-Yang-Mills theory at sub-leading order. So, for example, the application of (3) to the spectrum of  fails to produce the expected subleading correction to the coefficient $`c`$ for the infra-red fixed point of the RG flow driven by adding certain mass terms to the $`𝒩=4`$ Super-Yang-Mills theory to break the supersymmetry down to $`𝒩=1`$.


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# Magnetic white dwarfs in the Early Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

## 1 Introduction

The population of magnetic white dwarfs spans an enormous parameter space in magnetic field strength $`B`$, effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, rotational period $`P_{\mathrm{rot}}`$, atmospheric abundances, and mass $`M_{\mathrm{wd}}`$ – with the number of accurate measurements per parameter dimension decreasing in this sequence. Despite intense spectroscopic and polarimetric surveys carried out over the last two decades (e.g. Schmidt & Smith 1995; Putney 1995, 1997; Hagen et al. 1987; Reimers et al. 1994, 1996, 1998), only $`65`$ magnetic white dwarfs are known at present (Jordan 2001; Wickramasinghe & Ferrario 2000). The small size of this sample seriously hampers the progress of our understanding of the origin of the strong magnetic fields found in a small fraction (few %) of all white dwarfs, as well as of the evolution of these exotic stars.

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), the largest spectroscopic survey carried out to date, samples a great variety of galactic and extragalactic objects at high galactic latitudes. Due to the partial overlap in colour space between white dwarfs and quasars, it can be expected that the SDSS will result in the identification of a large number of white dwarfs and, hence, in a significantly increased sample of known magnetic white dwarfs. Here we describe the sample of magnetic white dwarfs identified in the Early Data Release of the SDSS.

## 2 Sloan Digital Sky Survey observations

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is an ambitious project which will provide deep CCD imaging of $`\mathrm{10\hspace{0.17em}000}\mathrm{deg}^2`$ of the north Galactic cap in five optical bands, as well as low-resolution spectroscopy for $`10^6`$ astronomical objects selected on the base of their colours derived from the imaging data. Both, imaging and spectroscopy are carried out with the purpose-built SDSS 2.5 m telescope located at Apache Point Observatory. The SDSS follow-up spectroscopy is obtained using two fibre-fed spectrographs that allow to observe more than 600 objects simultaneously. The spectrographs cover 3800–9200 Å at a spectral resolution of $`R1800`$. The reduction of the spectral data is performed by an automated software pipeline. For a technical description of the survey, see York et al. (2000). Even though the main purpose of this project is to produce the most comprehensive galaxy and quasar redshift survey to date (the majority of the spectrograph fibres are allocated to galaxy/quasar candidates) it delivers a vast amount of data for detailed studies of the galactic stellar population. A few recent examples of such studies are the discoveries of a very cool white dwarf (Harris et al. 2001), of a sample of cataclysmic variables (Szkody et al. 2002), and of a sample of carbon stars (Margon et al. 2002).

The Early Data Release (EDR) of the SDSS (Stoughton et al. 2002) contains imaging data for 462 $`\mathrm{deg}^2`$ and a total of 54008 fibre spectra obtained in that region.

## 3 Selection strategy

We have used the SDSS Science Archive Query Tool (sdssQT) to select all entries from the EDR spectroscopic data base that were classified as “star” by the processing pipeline (specClass = 1 or 6). A total of 7072 spectra were downloaded111http://sdssdp7.fnal.gov/cgi-bin/das/spectra as FITS files. All spectra were visually inspected for peculiar absorption structures, especially for broad absorption troughs near $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ as possible indicators for Zeeman splitting in a magnetic field of a few to a few tens MG. Discarding a number of spectra with very poor signal-to-noise ratio, six objects were selected (those marked “S” in Table 1). The details of the observations are listed in Table 1. A cross-check with the Simbad database revealed that SDSS J033145.69+004517.0 is a known magnetic DA white dwarf, discovered by Wegner et al. (1987) during follow-up observations of the Kiso survey for UV-excess objects.

Figure 1 shows colour-colour diagrams for all 7072 “stellar” objects from the EDR spectroscopic database. It is apparent that all six magnetic white dwarfs candidates fall well within the “hot star” quadrant of the $`u^{}g^{}`$ vs. $`g^{}r^{}`$ diagram – the vast majority of objects in this colour space are white dwarfs and subdwarfs. Based on the colour space confinement of the objects selected among the “stellar” EDR fraction, we extended our search for magnetic white dwarfs to the spectra classified as “non-stellar” by the SDSS processing pipeline (specClass = 0, 2, 3 or 4). We downloaded and visually inspected 3224 spectra whose associated imaging data satisfies $`u^{}g^{}<0.6`$ and $`g^{}i^{}<0.5`$, and selected four additional magnetic white dwarf candidates (Table 1), all of which were classified as “unknown” (specClass = 0). Cross correlation with Simbad showed that SDSS J033320.37+000720.7 is a known magnetic white dwarf discovered in the Hamburg/ESO Survey, probably with a helium-rich atmosphere (Reimers et al. 1998; Schmidt et al. 2001).

The SDSS fibre spectra of the objects listed in Table 1 are displayed in Figs. 2 to 4. We have checked the $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ magnitudes derived from the EDR spectrum and found the spectroscopic magnitudes to be $`0.2`$ mag fainter than the photometric magnitudes for all but the faintest objects, which is in good agreement with the accuracy of the absolute flux calibration of the SDSS spectroscopy quoted by Stoughton et al. (2002). Monochromatic fluxes at the effective wavelengths of the $`g^{}`$, $`r^{}`$, and $`i^{}`$ filters derived from the associated SDSS imaging data are plotted along with the fibre spectra.

## 4 Analysis

We have used the code of Euchner et al. (2002) to confirm the magnetic white dwarf nature of the candidates selected from the SDSS EDR, and to derive their fundamental properties. In brief, this code computes flux and circular polarisation spectra for a magnetic white dwarf with an almost arbitrary field topology by adding up appropriately weighted model spectra for a large number of surface elements. To save time, the code makes use of a library of several 10 000 synthetic spectra calculated with the stellar atmosphere program developed by Jordan between 1988 and 2002, covering a wide range in magnetic field strength $`B`$, effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ and angle between the line of sight and the direction of the magnetic field at the stellar surface, $`\psi `$. Limb darkening is accounted for by a simple linear scaling law. The magnetic field configuration of the white dwarf is described by a multipole expansion of the scalar magnetic potential. The individual multipole components may be independently oriented with respect to the rotation axis of the white dwarf and offset with respect to its centre, allowing for rather complex surface field topologies. Additional parameters are the white dwarf effective temperature and the inclination of either the rotation or the magnetic axis with respect to the line of sight. Observed spectra can be fitted using an evolutionary strategy with a least-squares quality function.

For the analysis of the SDSS fibre spectra presented here, we assumed the simplest field topology, a centred dipole, resulting in four free parameters: the magnetic dipole field strength $`B_\mathrm{d}`$, the effective temperature $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$, the inclination of the magnetic axis against the line of sight, $`i`$, and the flux normalisation.

We were not able to obtain in all cases a fit that consistently satisfies both the continuum flux distribution and the strength of the Zeeman absorption features. A similar discrepancy between the strength of the Balmer lines and the optical continuum slope has been reported by Achilleos et al. (1991) for the low-field white dwarfs WD 0159–032 ($`B_\mathrm{d}=6`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{26\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K) and, to a lesser degree, for WD 0307–428 ($`B_\mathrm{d}=10`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=25000`$ K).

For non-magnetic white dwarfs, the effective temperature can be derived very reliably from fitting the Balmer line profiles (e.g. Bergeron et al. 1992; Finley et al. 1997)222Generally, in both magnetic and non-magnetic white dwarfs with $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ exceeding $`\mathrm{20\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K the slope of the continuum is becoming insensitive to the temperature as it gradually approaches a Rayleigh-Jeans distribution.. However, in the case of magnetic white dwarfs, is is presently not yet possible to compute detailed line profiles because there exists no theory that consistently describes Stark broadening in the presence of substantial magnetic fields (see, e.g., Jordan 1992), and, as a result, the computed equivalent widths of the individual Zeeman components are subject to systematic uncertainties. Consequently, effective temperatures which are derived from fitting the Balmer lines alone are less reliable in the case of magnetic white dwarfs than in the case of non-magnetic white dwarfs, and may be in apparent disagreement with temperature estimates derived from the continuum slope.

We provide below effective temperature estimates derived from (a) fitting only the Balmer lines (normalising the continuum slope of the model spectrum to that of the observed spectrum), and (b) fitting the continuum slope.

SDSS J030407.40+002541.7: The EDR spectrum of SDSS 0304 contains the $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ Zeeman triplet split by $`\pm 200`$ Å, as well as numerous Zeeman components of $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\gamma `$ (Fig. 2). The data are well-fit with a $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{15\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K white dwarf with a dipole field strength $`B_\mathrm{d}=10.8`$ MG and a magnetic inclination $`i=50^{}`$ (where $`i=90^{}`$ corresponds to an equator-on view). The model spectrum provides a good match for both the continuum slope and the strength of the Zeeman absorption lines. The most noticeable shortcoming of this fit is the poor agreement in the $`\sigma ^{}`$ component of $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$. The lack of a consistent description of the combined Zeeman and Stark effects in this magnetic field range prevents a perfect fit to the line profiles.

SDSS J033145.69+004517.0 = KUV 03292+0035: The spectrum of SDSS 0331 is remarkably similar to that of SDSS 0304, and we find from a fit to the Balmer lines $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{26\hspace{0.17em}500}`$ K, $`B=12.1`$ MG, and $`i=55^{}`$. A fit to the continuum slope suggests a similar temperature, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}25\mathrm{30\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K. Jordan (1993) derived for KUV 03292+0035 $`B_\mathrm{d}=12`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{19\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, and a magnetic inclination of $`i=20^{}`$, which is in general agreement with the Balmer line analysis presented here. The difference in $`i`$ between the two analyses might be suggestive of a rotational variation of the Zeeman pattern, but the presently available data are not sufficient to convincingly confirm this possibility.

Similar to SDSS 0304, our fit to the Zeeman absorption structures fails to reproduce the strength of the $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ $`\sigma ^{}`$ component. Close inspection of the EDR spectrum of SDSS 0331 reveals in addition sharp $`\sigma ^{+/}`$ components of $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ at 6435 Å and 6691 Å, respectively (see inset in Fig. 2). These narrow features cannot be reproduced by our simple dipole model, suggesting a more complex field topology. Their position corresponds to a field of $`5.5`$ MG, substantially lower than the dipole field strength derived from our fit. A more detailed investigation of the field topology has to await additional data and would be especially promising if a rotational variation of the Zeeman features will be detected by future measurements.

SDSS J033320.37+000720.7 = HE 0330–0002: SDSS 0333 is one of the four magnetic white dwarfs that we have selected among the objects classified as “unknown” by the SDSS processing pipeline. It has been identified before as a peculiar white dwarf in the Hamburg/ESO survey for bright quasars (HE 0330–0002, Reimers et al. 1998). Reimers et al. (1998) noted that the absorption features observed in HE 0330–0002 are not readily explained with either hydrogen or helium transitions. Schmidt et al. (2001) confirmed HE 0330–0002 as a magnetic white dwarf by the detection of circular polarisation and suggested a helium-dominated atmosphere for this star. Considering the previous analyses of this object, we did not attempt to fit the observed spectrum with our pure hydrogen atmosphere models.

It is interesting to note that HE 0330–0002 appeared to be a rather cool white dwarf in the observations of both Reimers et al. (1998) and Schmidt et al. (2001). The latter authors suggested $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}60007000`$ K based on the energy distribution of the continuum. While the magnitudes derived from the SDSS imaging data are consistent with such a low temperature, the SDSS fibre spectrum displays a significantly bluer slope, corresponding to $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}12000`$ K. Considering that the SDSS imaging data was obtained on 1998 September 25, whereas the SDSS spectroscopy was obtained on 2000 September 23, the discrepancy in flux may suggest intrinsic variability. We also note that the USNO-A2.0 catalogue lists HE 0330–0002 with $`B=16.2`$, whereas Reimers et al. (1998) give $`B_J=16.8`$. Schmidt et al. (2001) observed HE 0330–0002 twice over a few days and reported no noticeable change on that time scale. Photometric and/or spectroscopic monitoring HE 0330–0002 is encouraged to test for long-term variability.

SDSS J034511.11+003444.3: SDSS 0345 is the star with the lowest field in our sample, we find $`B1.5`$ MG and $`i0^{}`$ from a fit to the $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ Zeeman components. It is also the coldest star in our sample, the strength of the Balmer lines suggests $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}8000`$ K, whereas a fit to the continuum results in $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}9000`$ K.

SDSS J121635.37–002656.2: SDSS 1216 has been selected as a magnetic white dwarf candidate among the objects classified as “unknown” in the SDSS EDR database because of the complex absorption structure near $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\gamma `$ seen in its spectrum. A dipole fit to the Balmer lines confirms the object as a magnetic white dwarf with $`B_\mathrm{d}=63`$ MG, the highest field in the sample of magnetic white dwarfs presented here, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{20\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, and $`i=75^{}`$. The effective temperature derived from the fit to the Balmer lines is somewhat higher than that derived from the continuum slope, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{15\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K.

SDSS J122209.44+001534.0: SDSS 1222, classified as “unknown” in the SDSS EDR database, is the faintest object in our sample of SDSS magnetic white dwarfs and the signal-to-noise ratio of the fibre spectrum is consequently very low. Nevertheless, the Zeeman triplet of $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ split in a moderate field is clearly recognised, and we find $`B=12`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{20\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, and $`i=40^{}`$. The effective temperature derived from the fit to the Balmer lines is broadly consistent with the continuum slope.

SDSS J172045.37+561214.9: The spectrum of SDSS 1720, the fourth magnetic white dwarf candidate selected from the “unknown” class in the SDSS EDR database, displays a broad $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ triplet. The parameters derived from a dipole fit to the Balmer lines are are $`B_\mathrm{d}=21`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=22500`$ K, and $`i=85^{}`$. The slope of the continuum is consistent with a temperature in the range 20–30 000 K.

SDSS J172329.14+540755.8: SDSS 1723 has been selected because of the broad $`\mathrm{H}\alpha `$ triplet and the complex $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ absorption detected in its spectrum. The turnover of the continuum at $`\lambda 4200`$ Å indicates a relatively low temperature. Our dipole fit to the Balmer lines results in $`B_\mathrm{d}=33`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{16\hspace{0.17em}500}`$ K, and $`i=35^{}`$. Fitting the continuum slope of the spectrum of SDSS 1723 results in a significantly lower value for the effective temperature, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{10\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K.

SDSS J232248.22+003900.9: The fibre spectrum of SDSS 2322 contains relatively weak but broad absorption structures near $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\gamma `$ in a blue continuum. A dipole fit confirms the object as a magnetic white dwarf with $`B_\mathrm{d}=13`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{39\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, and $`i=25^{}`$. The temperature derived from the continuum slope is $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}25\mathrm{30\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K.

SDSS J232337.55–004628.2: The spectrum of SDSS 2323 resembles that of SDSS 1222 with broad absorption features of $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$/$`\mathrm{H}\gamma `$ and a blue continuum. However, we were not able to find a satisfying fit with our dipole models. Figure 4 shows the fibre spectrum of SDSS 2323 along with an illustrative dipole model computed for $`B=30`$ MG, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}=\mathrm{20\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, and $`i=0^{}`$. Close inspection of the spectrum reveals that a number of the narrow absorption lines present in the spectrum could be explained with He I transitions. However, while the width of the $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\gamma `$ absorption troughs clearly suggests the (magnetic?) white dwarf nature of this object, the potential He I lines are too narrow for an origin in a high gravity atmosphere. Inspection of the SDSS $`r^{}`$ image did not reveal anything suspicious about this object (e.g. a close visual companion). Additional observations of SDSS 2323 are needed to clarify the nature of this object.

## 5 Discussion & Conclusions

The population of known magnetic white dwarfs presently comprises $`65`$ stars (Wickramasinghe & Ferrario 2000). Considering that the first magnetic white dwarf (Grw$`+70^{}8047`$) has been discovered nearly 60 years ago, the “average” discovery rate of these stars has been $`1`$ per year. As outlined in the Introduction, this sample is still far too small to stringently test theoretical models for the origin of the magnetic field and for the evolution of magnetic white dwarfs.

Unfortunately, discovering new magnetic white dwarfs is a tedious process. Figure 1 shows colour-colour diagrams for all “stellar” objects from the EDR spectroscopic database. It is apparent that the magnetic white dwarfs discussed are well distributed over the locus of hot stars – mainly white dwarfs and subdwarfs. It is, hence, not possible to select magnetic white dwarfs by their colour alone, the availability of a large spectroscopic data set is essential for a significant increase in the number of known magnetic white dwarfs.

In this paper, we have presented fibre spectroscopy of 10 magnetic white dwarf candidates identified in the EDR of the SDSS. We confirm eight of these objects as magnetic DA white dwarfs, of which seven are new discoveries spanning a wide range of magnetic field strengths. This represents a substantial addition to the population of known magnetic white dwarfs. The spectrum of SDSS 2323 contains relatively broad $`\mathrm{H}\beta `$ and $`\mathrm{H}\gamma `$ absorption troughs, however, we were not able to confirm the magnetic nature of this star from the SDSS data alone. Finally, we recovered the peculiar magnetic white dwarf HE 0330–0002.

Our eye ball inspection of the SDSS fibre spectra is certainly biased in a number of ways. In white dwarfs with weak magnetic field strengths ($`B12`$ MG) the resolution and the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio of the SDSS spectra becomes insufficient to detect the Zeeman splitting of the Balmer lines. Insufficient S/N of the SDSS also lowers the probability of detecting the weak Zeeman absorption components in both hot or high field white dwarfs ($`T_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, $`B80`$ MG). Finally we have restricted or analysis to magnetic white dwarfs with a pure hydrogen atmosphere – and discarded a handful of SDSS spectra with absorption features that could not be identified either with typical stellar transitions or with hydrogen Zeeman components for a wide range of field strengths. We are, however, confident that our selection of magnetic white dwarfs is complete for stars with pure hydrogen atmospheres, magnetic fields of a few MG to a few tens MG, and effective temperatures $`\mathrm{10\hspace{0.17em}000}T_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K. An a posteriori check of the EDR database using the lists of Jordan (2001) and Wickramasinghe & Ferrario (2000) confirmed that KUV 03292+0035 and HE 0330–0002 are the only previously known magnetic white dwarfs with spectroscopic coverage.

The Early Data Release represents $``$5% of the final SDSS data set. Accounting for our selection bias, we conservatively estimate that the complete SDSS will increase the number of known magnetic white dwarfs by at least a factor 3. Scaling the number of white dwarfs identified by Stoughton et al. (2002) in the EDR sample (734) to the complete SDSS, and assuming $`24\%`$ as ratio of magnetic to non-magnetic white dwarfs (Jordan 2001; Wickramasinghe & Ferrario 2000), suggests that a careful exploitation of the entire SDSS data base, including intense spectroscopic and polarimetric follow-up observations, may well lead to the discovery of several hundred new magnetic white dwarfs.

###### Acknowledgements.

BTG was supported by a PPARC Advanced Fellowship, FE was supported by the DLR under grant 50 OR 99 03 6, SJ was supported by the DLR under grant 50 OR 0201. We thank the referee, Pierre Bergeron, for suggesting the comparison of the observed SDSS EDR colours with the theoretical white dwarf cooling tracks, and for providing the synthetic $`u^{}g^{}r^{}i^{}z^{}`$ colours used in the bottom panel of Fig. 1. Susanne Friedrich is acknowledged for providing the coordinates of most previously known white dwarfs. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) is a joint project of the University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, the Johns Hopkins University, the Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, New Mexico State University, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington. Apache Point Observatory, site of the SDSS, is operated by the Astrophysical Research Consortium. Funding for the project has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the SDSS member institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, Monbusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS World Wide Web site is http://www.sdss.org/.


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# 1 GRS 1915+105 from GRANAT to RossiXTE

## 1 GRS 1915+105 from GRANAT to RossiXTE

As practically all articles about GRS 1915+105 start, the source was discovered ten years ago, in 1992, with the Watch instrument on board GRANAT . Figure 1 shows the original discovery light curve from that work, where one can see that the source was very variable from the beginning. As a comparison, the full RossiXTE/ASM light curve up to 2002 July is shown in the bottom panel of Fig. 1. Already from these plots, it is evident that the variability of GRS 1915+105 is rather unique and that in this source we are observing something which is not observed in other sources.

When examining the variability at shorter time scales, as observed with the RossiXTE/PCA, things become even more complex (see Fig. 2), showing a definite structure, which in this particular case repeats almost unchanged after about 25 minutes. The complexity of these light curves, first shown by , is analyzed and categorized by , who classify the light curves in a dozen variability classes and identify three basic spectral states called A, B and C. In these ten years, many papers have been devoted to the analysis and interpretation of the X-ray observations of GRS 1915+105, and it is not possible to review them all here. What I want to do is to put this unique source in perspective, comparing it with other transient BHCs. First, I will emphasize the similarities with other systems, then I will concentrate on the peculiarities.

## 2 GRS 1915+105 as a transient

Looking at GRS 1915+105 as an X-ray transient, if we ignore the most obvious peculiarities, we can identify some common features which the system shares with all other BH systems. One is the shape of the Power Density Spectra (PDS) above, say, 1 Hertz (see e.g. ). A second one is the shape of the broad-band energy spectra as observed with BeppoSAX and RossiXTE: the presence of a soft thermal component plus a hard component that at times can extend to very high energies (see e.g. ).

In order to compare the shape of the PDS, let us consider three representative cases, corresponding to time intervals when the source is not wildly variable as in Fig. 2, corresponding to the A, B and C states identified by  (Fig 3, left panel). They can be compared to the PDS observed from the microquasar GRO J1655-40, which are typical from the so-called canonical states of BHC . One can see that the similarities are rather strong, indicating a connection between the states of GRS 1915+105 and the “canonical” states of other BHCs. A more detailed analysis is presented in .

Turning to the energy spectra, a comparison based on X-ray colors is also considered in . However, more interesting here is to notice that the 1-10 Hz QPO observed in the C state of GRS 1915+105 follows the same correlation with the slope of the power-law component in the energy spectrum which is observed in a number of other sources . The correlation can be see in Fig. 4 for GRS 1915+105 and for the bright transient XTE J1550-564. Also in this case there are striking similarities, including the indication of a turnoff of the relation at high QPO frequencies.

All this indicates that, when ignoring intervals of strong and peculiar variability, GRS 1915+105 behaves in a rather similar way to other transient systems and, if these were the only available data, would be indistinguishable from them.

## 3 GRS 1915+105 as a peculiar source

Of course it is not really possible to ignore the most interesting parts of the observations of this source. Therefore, let’s turn to the peculiarities of GRS 1915+105 and consider what we can learn from it. The observed oscillations in flux and energy spectrum, occurring on time scales from a few minutes to months, have been interpreted as due to the onset of an instability which causes the innermost region of the accretion disk to switch between a visible and a non-visible state . This idea has been recently developed theoretically by a number of authors, who tried to reproduce the observed light curves with some success . However, only the most basic features of the observations are taken into account by these works.

A more detailed observational approach has been followed by , who analyzed a large number of spectra of GRS 1915+105 and presented correlation between timing and spectral parameters. Recently, a complete analysis of a large number of RossiXTE/PCA observations, with the production of energy spectra on the time scale of 16 seconds, has been presented by . An example of this analysis is shown in Fig. 5, where an observation interval is shown, together with the time history of the spectral parameters. A clear evolution in spectral parameters is observed. These parameters can be correlated with each other and can give important clues to detailed theoretical models as those mentioned above. An important example is shown in Fig. 6. Here the best-fit inner radius and temperature of the accretion disk are plotted versus each other (notice that although the absolute value of the inner disk cannot be taken at face value, its variations are a more solid measurement ).The points, corresponding to different $`\chi `$ (state C only) observations, follow a power-law correlation with index $`\alpha `$0.4, much flatter than the value $`\alpha =3/4`$ expected from a Shakura & Sunyaev disk at constant mass accretion rate. This indicates that moving from large radii to smaller radii, the measured local accretion rate through the disk at that radius decreases. The possible association of this decrease in local accretion rate and the generation of jets should be considered.

To put these variations in a broader perspective, we can expand the plot of Fig. 6 and include the corresponding state-A and state-B intervals. This is done in Fig. 7, where also two lines at constant mass accretion rate are plotted. In addition to the $`\alpha `$0.4 described before for state C (notice that this branch is followed twice, in opposite directions), we can see that as the radius decreases further (state A), the points follow precisely a $`\alpha =3/4`$ correlation, indicating that here the local mass accretion rate is indeed constant. Notice that the soft state A takes place after the radio event starts, indicating that state A comes after a jet emission . After state A, the source enters state B, where the radius has reached its minimum value and the temperature slowly increases, thereby increasing again the local mass accretion rate (see also ). Once again, the behavior shown in Fig. 7 needs to be addressed together with the shape of the light curves by any theoretical model that aims at the interpretation of the peculiarities of GRS 1915+105.

## 4 The biggest challenges

As I have shown in the previous sections, there are a number of detailed observational results that can provide inputs to theoretical models for the understanding of GRS 1915+105, and for connecting them to what is observed from other BHCs. In this last section I would like to show two of the most outstanding features of this source, features which I consider as the biggest challenges for any theoretical model to be applied to the peculiarities of this source. The first is the presence of extreme variability on time scales down to 0.2 seconds (see Fig. 8, top panel). This variability is accompanied by changes in the X-ray colors, i.e. the spectrum softens when the flux decreases . These changes can be attributed to changes in the temperature of the inner disk, and therefore to variations in the local mass accretion rate. This can happen on a local viscous time scale, which is in the observed range. The cause of this variability, spectrally different from the disk oscillations commonly considered, needs to be understood.

The second challenge is the extreme degree of similarity between light curves (and corresponding spectral evolution) of observations from different variability classes (see ). The dozen pattern that have been identified in the light curves of GRS 1915+105 might seem many, but in reality they are surprisingly few, considering all possibilities for the oscillations. The fact that the source locks itself in this relatively small set of patterns might be a key for the understanding of the origin of the variability. Moreover, not only the general shape of the light curve, but also specific details can be found in observations years apart. As an example (from ), in the bottom panels of Fig. 8 I show two light curves well distant in time where the pattern of variability is followed even to some (albeit not all) details. Notice that one of the two light curves (the top one) has been rescaled in time in order to match the time scale of the other, indicating that some time scale underlying the whole process must have been different. Of course it is not realistic to ask for a theoretical model that explains and reproduces the exact shape of the light curves in Fig. 8. However, the simple fact that such complex shapes are in some way characteristic of the system should be taken into account when developing models. For instance, models like that of , which produce encouraging light curves, should as a next step keep into account more details of the observations (like those in Fig. 8) without running the risk of trying to interpret noise in the system.

## 5 Conclusions

GRS 1915+105 is a peculiar black-hole transient in at least two ways. First, it can hardly be considered a transient, since it is in “outburst” since ten years at large values of the accretion rate. Second, as shown before, the variability of its flux and spectral properties are unique and extremely complex. However, not all its properties are unique (as in the case of XTE J0421+56, see ), indicating that we are not dealing with a source completely different from the others. This can be turned to our advantage: by linking “normal” and peculiar characteristics, we can learn something general about accretion onto black holes.

## Acknowledgments

I thank the Cariplo Foundation for financial support.


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# Phase Mapping as a Powerful Diagnostic of Primordial Non-Gaussianity

## I Introduction

One of the key challenges facing modern cosmology is the complete statistical characterization of the primordial density fluctuations believed to be the seeds of the large-scale structure of the Universe we see today. According to the prevailing orthodoxy, these initial perturbations were generated as quantum phenomena during an inflationary epoch . If this is the case they should display Gaussian statistics. Among other potentially testable consequences of this is that the small angular variations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky should have the same statistical form . Testing the hypothesis of primordial Gaussianity using maps of the CMB thus provides an opportunity to make experimental tests of ideas about the physics of the early universe. It is also necessary to devise robust statistical descriptors for the identification of foreground contaminations and systematic instrumental artifacts.

Searches for non-Gaussian (NG) signals within the COBE-DMR data have yielded positive detections that are at least partly explained by systematics . The need to devise more powerful statistical probes has been recognized and acted upon, with key ideas focusing on the bispectrum  and higher-order polyspectra . Some of these methods have been developed as far as practical implementation on real data sets . These techniques are sensitive only to particular types of NG signal , so in this paper we present a new method that is both extremely general and extremely robust.

## II Phase Mapping

One of the most basic properties of a Gaussian random field (GRF)  is that the Fourier phases are random and uniformly distributed between 0 and $`2\pi `$. The Central Limit Theorem virtually guarantees that a superposition of a large number of Fourier modes with random phases will be Gaussian, so the random-phase hypothesis even serves as a definition of a form of Gaussianity.

Testing the randomness of measured phases therefore provides a direct diagnostic of the statistical form of a fluctuation field. There are, however, some problems in using phases as a statistic. The foremost is that they are circular variables, only defined modulo $`2\pi `$. Traditional measures of association, such as covariances of the form $`\varphi _𝒌\varphi _𝒌^{}`$, are based on the assumption that the related measure is linear and are therefore inappropriate. Another problem is that phases are direct indicators of the morphology and location of specific features , so are themselves not translational-invariant. As the first attempt to use phases as the basis of a statistical test, ref.  used a quantity formed by taking the phase differences of neighboring Fourier modes in $`k`$-space. This idea is the first step towards our new “phase-mapping” technique . We counter the problem of the circular nature of the phases by applying phases on to a “return map”, as follows.

For a set of phases $`\varphi _k`$ from the Fourier transform of a one-dimensional process, a possible return map is a plot of $`\varphi _k`$ against $`\varphi _{k+1}`$ (neighboring phases) for all available pairs $`(\varphi _k,\varphi _{k+1})`$ up to the Nyquist frequency $`k_{N/2}`$ where $`N`$ is the length of the process . When the phases are random this will be a scatter plot with points distributed randomly within the bounded square of both axes $`[0,2\pi ]`$. For a realization of two or more dimensions, we can extend the return mapping between neighboring phases to any fixed scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌(\mathrm{\Delta }k_x,\mathrm{\Delta }k_y)(m,n)`$ (so mapping of neighboring phases is simply the mapping for $`|\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌|=1`$). Therefore, this method forces to test randomness between all pairs of $`\varphi _𝒌`$ and $`\varphi _{𝒌+\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌}`$, for all fixed $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$ scales in the Fourier domain. What results is a “super-map”, each pixel of which represents a return map with a fixed scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$.

## III Statistical Analysis of Phase Maps

Having rendered the phase information in a pattern onto the phase map, we have to consider the construction of a statistical test using it. Our null hypothesis at each $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$ case is a random (Poisson) distribution on the mapping square, so the randomness of phases is tested through $`2\times m_{\mathrm{max}}\times n_{\mathrm{max}}`$ squares, where $`m_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`n_{\mathrm{max}}`$ are the maximal scale in $`k_x`$ and $`k_y`$ direction, respectively. For simplicity and computational ease , we apply a test (similar to the $`\chi ^2`$ test) of the uniformity of the pixelized mapped phases for different scales $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$ as follows. A mean $`\chi ^2`$ statistic is defined as

$$\overline{\chi ^2}=\frac{1}{M}\underset{i,j}{}\frac{\left[p(i,j)\overline{p}\right]^2}{\overline{p}}\sigma ^2\overline{p},$$
(1)
where $`M`$ is the number of pixels on the return map, $`\overline{p}`$ is the mean value for each pixel, and $`\sigma ^2=(1/M)_{i,j}\left[p(i,j)/\overline{p}1\right]^2`$ is the variance of the contrast of the return map.

The return mapping of random phases will result in a Poisson distribution over all the map squares. For a Poisson distribution of integer $`p(i,j)`$, its variance $`(\mathrm{\Delta }p)^2_{\mathrm{Poisson}}=_{p=0}^{\mathrm{}}(p\overline{p})^2(\overline{p}^pe^{\overline{p}}/p!)=\overline{p}`$. Hence in this case $`\overline{\chi ^2}_{\mathrm{Poisson}}=1`$, and from Eq. (1), $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Poisson}}^2=(\overline{p})^1`$. One could use this result to test the return map for consistency with pure discreteness fluctuations. However, such a test is not so useful as it does not probe the spatial arrangement of the pattern. The individual return maps tend to display particular patterns to which this would not be sensitive. We could, for example, populate the pixels with a Poisson distribution of counts but then rearrange them arbitrarily over the grid without changing the statistical properties mentioned above. One could sort the counts in ascending order, for example, producing a clearly non-uniform distribution that has the same statistics as the starting case.

In order to apply this method more usefully we have to take into account the spatial correlations, which we can do using smoothing. For a 2D square $`p(i,j)p(𝒙)`$, we use the form

$$p(𝒙,R)=\frac{d^2𝒙^{^{}}}{2\pi R^2}p(𝒙^{^{}})\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{|𝒙𝒙^{^{}}|^2}{2R^2}\right),$$
(2)
where $`p(𝒙,R)`$ is the smoothed square and $`R`$ is the smoothing scale.

To obtain the expectation value of $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ statistic of GRFs, we calculate first the variance of the contrast of the smoothed square, using a Gaussian window filter as in Eq. (2). For a 2D field with power spectrum $`P(k)=Ak^n`$, the variance of the contrast of the smoothed square  is $`\sigma ^2(R)=(A/4\pi )\mathrm{\Gamma }(n+2/2)R^{(n+2)}`$, where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(n)`$ is the Euler Gamma function and $`R`$ is the smoothing scale in Eq. (2). A Poisson distribution has a power spectrum which is independent of wave number, i.e., its spectral index $`n=0`$. So originally the variance of the contrast $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Poisson}}^2=A=(\overline{p})^1`$, after smoothing, becomes $`\sigma _{\mathrm{Poisson}}^2(R)=(4\pi R^2\overline{p})^1`$. According to Eq. (1), we can obtain the $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ from the variance of the smoothed return map and the $`\overline{p}`$, so for an ensemble of Poisson distributions, the expectation mean $`\chi ^2`$

$$\overline{\chi ^2}=\frac{1}{4\pi R^2}.$$
(3)
Thus, any smoothed return map of phase pairs at a fixed $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$ that generates a $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ value much higher than $`(4\pi R^2)^1`$ should be interpreted as a diagnostic of phase coupling at that particular scale in phase space. To apply phase mapping technique as a NG test, the null hypothesis requires that phase mapping for any fixed scale $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌(m,n)`$ should result in Poisson distribution in a return map. Therefore, for a Gaussian realization, we have an ensemble of $`2\times m_{\mathrm{max}}\times n_{\mathrm{max}}`$ smoothed return squares which are subject to statistical fluctuations around $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$. Although phase mapping extracts all the information between phase pairs, we have to know whether the value obtained from $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ statistic is due to non-randomness or statistical fluctuation. As the $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ statistic is related to the ‘variance’ of the smoothed Poisson-distributed return map, the problem now is equivalent to finding the distribution of sampling variance from normal samples. The statistical significance of the departure of a measured value of $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ can be assessed using standard techniques for the sampling distribution of the variance in normal samples. When the sampling number is large enough, it behaves as Gaussian. We have $`M`$ independent variables $`p_i\overline{p}/\sqrt{\overline{p}}`$, each of which is distributed normally with zero mean and variance $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$. We are now looking for the distribution of sampling variance $`w\overline{\chi ^2}=(1/M)_i(p_i\overline{p})^2/\overline{p}`$, which can be obtained as ,

$$dF=\frac{(M/2\overline{\chi ^2})^{(M1)/2}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }[(M1)/2]}\mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{Mw}{2\overline{\chi ^2}}\right)w^{(M3)/2}dw.$$
(4)
Therefore, the variance of the sampling $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ measurements ($`M1`$) is $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^2=_0^{\mathrm{}}(w\overline{\chi ^2})^2𝑑F=\overline{\chi ^2}^2/(M/2)`$. The dependence of $`\mathrm{\Sigma }^2`$ on $`R`$ can be obtained through Eq. (3), and the change of the effective pixel number $`M`$ to $`(\pi /2)^2M/(4\pi R^2)`$ due to smoothing. Therefore,

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }^2=\frac{1}{\pi ^3R^2(M/2)}.$$
(5)
We can examine NG signals in two ways. A pixel in the “super-map” which corresponds to $`\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }`$ with $`\nu 5`$, say, would be extremely unlikely if the null hypothesis held. As well as easily identifying such hotter pixels, we can also retrieve the corresponding $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$ scale of the signal from the map. One could look at modes flagged in this way more carefully using other statistics if necessary. On the other hand, we can also inspect the global property of the distribution curve with $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ when the number of $`2\times m_{\mathrm{max}}\times n_{\mathrm{max}}`$ is large. Even when all signals are below $`5\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, the underlying obscure NG part could cause the distribution curve to skew, albeit no signal is above $`5\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ due to possible ’Gaussianization’ by the noise.

## IV Application to simulated CMB maps

We apply this method to a simulated NG CMB map (Fig.1(a)), which is a realization of $`12.8\mathrm{deg}^2`$ CMB anisotropies due to the Kaiser-Stebbins effect from cosmic strings . We will test the non-Gaussianity by applying our method not only directly to the original manifestly NG map (S), but also to the combined map of itself plus Gaussian white noise (N) with 5 different fluctuation levels, as NG part may be embedded in white noise. The Gaussian white noise level are chosen with rms ratio $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}=8`$, 4, 2, 1 and 1/2.

From the Fourier transform of a $`N^2`$-mesh realization, we have $`N^2/2`$ valid modes: $`k_x[N/2+1,N/2]`$ and $`k_y[1,N/2]`$. In general, the phase basis used to extract NG signals is flexible with the constraint $`|𝒌|_{\mathrm{max}}+|\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌|_{\mathrm{max}}k_{\mathrm{Nyquist}}`$. We have taken phases from the inner quarter of valid modes as a basis, i.e., $`k_x[N/4+1,N/4]`$, and $`k_y[1,N/4]`$. As the Gaussian noise normally dominates the power spectrum at large $`k`$’s, we can opt to avoid that part of ‘Gaussianized’ phases by shrinking the upper limit $`|𝒌|_{\mathrm{max}}`$ of the phase base (not the upper limit of $`(m,n)`$).

In Fig. 2 we show the histogram of the measured $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$ statistics. Those above $`5\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ are caused by phase coupling of some $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$, which can be viewed in the $`(m,n)`$-map as in Fig.1 (b). As a NG test, we are interested only in the amplitude of phase coupling in terms of $`\overline{\chi ^2}`$, whatever the $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$.

## V Comparison to the Analysis of Minkowski Functionals

We now compare this method with a more standard morphological analysis of temperature contours, based on Minkowski functionals (MFs). The 3 MFs in 2D are the area ($`V_0`$), circumference ($`V_1`$), and the Euler characteristic ($`V_2`$) of excursion regions . The excursion region is the region on the sky map above a certain threshold amplitude . In Fig. 3 we show the 3 MFs for the noise-contaminated cases: CMB plus noise with $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}=4`$ and 2 shown by solid curves. The shaded areas are from $`10^3`$ realizations of the same power spectrum of the corresponding noise–contaminated CMB map but with random phases, which thus represents the statistical fluctuations of GRFs. We avoid quoting $`1\sigma `$ around the mean MFs as the distribution function for each threshold is not normal (e.g. for high thresholds $`\nu `$, $`V_2\nu e^{\nu ^2/2}`$ ). The case of $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}=4`$ is out of the shaded area, a definite NG manifestation, but $`\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N}=2`$ is right on the edge. The dashed curves are taken from one Gaussian realization in order to show the variation of the MFs and the ambiguity that would result.

Other types of NG signals localized in harmonic space, e.g., artifacts from systematics such as slowly–rotating elliptical beam of the planck mission will produce NG signals around $`\mathrm{}_{\mathrm{pix}}`$, which is more easily detected with harmonic analyses than real-space ones. By “localized in harmonic space” we mean the phases correlate mainly from large $`𝒌`$. The contrary example is the simulations of spectral index $`n=2`$ , where phases correlate first at large $`\mathrm{\Delta }𝒌`$ from all $`𝒌`$.

These results show that the phase-mapping technique is able to detect certain forms of non-Gaussianity even in the presence of noise, more effectively than the MF approach. The theoretical ground for phase mapping we have developed as a powerful NG diagnostic can be directly applied not only on spherical analysis, but also on time-ordered scans of the upcoming planck mission.

This paper was supported in part by Danmarks Grundforskningsfond through its support for the establishment of TAC by grants RFBR 17625. PC acknowledges support from PPARC. We are grateful to A. A. Starobinsky for useful discussions.