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# Synchronized SETI - The Case for “Opposition”

## 1 Introduction

Essentially all of the current SETI (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) observing programs make only brief observations of any particular part of the sky. This means that transmitters with low duty cycles are very unlikely to be detected. However, it has been proposed by a number of authors that some type of synchronization of transmitter and receiver can result in huge energy savings to the transmitter by restricting transmissions to certain short times which can nevertheless be determined by a receiver utilizing the same synchronization scheme. One synchronization strategy, which requires substantial effort by both the transmitter and the receiver is to use some type of external astrophysical event as a synchronizer. The transmitter immediately transmits when a noteworthy event occurs and the receiver looks for the signal after the calculated time delay. The calculation of this delay requires the receiver to have the ability to both detect and localize the astrophysical event and also precisely measure the distance to a potential transmitter. In an earlier paper (Corbet, 1999) it was proposed that for this strategy gamma-ray bursts are the best of the known potential synchronizers that are available primarily because of their large apparent luminosities and very brief durations. Earlier suggestions involving for example supernovae (Tang, 1976) and novae (McLaughlin, 1977; Makovetskii, 1980) have also been made.

In this paper it is proposed that another timing scheme may also be used which requires little work on the part of the receiver but substantially more effort by the transmitter. This scheme uses a very local (to the receiver) astrophysical event and is simply that potential SETI targets should be observed when they have their maximum angular distance from the Sun as seen from the Earth, i.e. in the terminology often used to describe planetary positions, they are at “opposition.” Although the angles involved here may be substantially less than 180 (but more than 90) the term “opposition” is used for convenience. This technique requires that the transmitter must not only be able to detect the presence of the Earth but also be able to measure its orbit, distance, and proper motion sufficiently accurately for the signal to arrive at the correct time. This scheme would make a beacon relatively easy for the receiver to find while at the same time conserving energy use by the transmitter.

## 2 Why Send Synchronized Low Duty Cycle Signals?

While an omnidirectional transmitter is the simplest to consider, and may well be appropriate for at least some types of “leakage” radiation, this scheme is very inefficient and so is not likely to be desirable for a beacon transmission. If the transmitter can utilize one or more narrow beams then large increases in efficiency can be achieved. However, if beaming is used it will not be possible to send to all desired targets continuously if the number of beams that can be produced simultaneously is less than the number of targets. Restrictions on transmission duty cycle can also result if a system is used for more than just interstellar transmission, for example the system might also be used for astronomical observations.

The use of continuous transmission may also be expensive in terms of energy consumption. One way to consider this is to compare the relative costs of transmitting a signal to accelerating an interstellar probe such as proposed by Bracewell (1960). This comparison, while simplistic, is independent of the amount of energy available in that there are energy costs associated with both these means of exploration. For illustration, if the Arecibo 1 MW planetary radar is operated continuously then this corresponds to the same energy costs as accelerating 1kg masses to 1% of the speed of light approximately every 50 days. If a beacon is operated continuously for a long period of time then the total energy expenditure could be extremely large (e.g. Bracewell, 1996). Hence it may well be desirable to use the energy-saving technique of making only low duty cycle transmissions. Further, no matter what average power budget is available to the transmitting civilization, it may be possible to generate more intense signals by concentrating that power into low duty cycle signals. The detectable range of transmissions for a particular receiver sensitivity would thus be increased.

Another factor that may lead to the use of short duty cycle in a long running transmission program is the “psychological” factor that, the longer a program is continued without success, the less resources a civilization may be willing to devote to it. In this case techniques that would both save energy costs and use less time with transmission facilities that could be used for other purposes would become more important.

In addition to speculation about how an extraterrestrial transmitter may be operated, other considerations suggest that searching for low duty cycle signals should be done. These are (i) the experimental lack of strong persistent artificial radio emitters and (ii) the small number of deliberate terrestrial signals that have been sent have been extremely brief.

Searches for emission at around 1.4 GHz have covered essentially the entire sky and no persistent source has been found (see review by Tarter, 2001). While this may simply mean that extraterrestrial transmissions were too faint to be detected in these surveys, or that transmissions are not being made near this frequency, an alternative explanation may be that transmissions exist but only have low duty cycles. Weak evidence for the existence of such low duty cycle signals may come from the non-persistent candidate signals seen with Big Ear (Kraus, 1979; Gray & Marvel, 2001) and META (Horowitz & Sagan, 1993; Lazio et al., 2002).

The few deliberate transmissions that have been made from the Earth have been beamed in only one direction at a time and had extremely short transmission durations. A message sent from Arecibo in 1974 in the direction of the globular cluster M13 lasted only 169 s (The Staff at the NAIC, 1974). Although somewhat longer, the “Cosmic Call” made in 1999 (Dutil & Dumas, 1998) still only sent four transmissions, each transmission of four hour duration, to nearby stars using the Evpatoria 70 m antenna (Zaitsev & Ignatov, 1999).

The clear disadvantage of low duty cycle transmissions is that initial searches may not detect such signals. If the transmitter is only sending brief signals to a particular target it is thus advantageous to make use of one or more synchronization schemes. Without synchronization it will be very unlikely that the potential recipient will detect the signal. Although unsynchronized signals might be detected by a receiver monitoring the entire sky the entire time, such a system may not necessarily be employed by the potential recipient and, even if it is, may be of reduced sensitivity compared to a receiver with a narrow field of view.

The use of low duty cycle signaling does not necessarily exclude the presence of an additional continuous signal. A transmitting civilization might plausibly choose to combine both continuous low intensity signals with brief more intense signals. The lower-intensity signals will be accessible to receivers with sufficient sensitivity while the low duty cycle signals will be accessible to less sensitive receivers as long as observations are made at the correct time. For a transmitting civilization that presumably wishes to have its signals detected it may well to choose a mixture of techniques including both continuous and short duty cycle transmissions and for the short duty cycle signals to perhaps use a variety of synchronization techniques. This combination of different strategies would increase the overall chance of at least one type of transmission being detected.

## 3 Background to Opposition

The concept of observing targets during opposition is related, to some extent, to previously published work. Most of this related work either notes the requirements on very tightly beamed transmissions or proposes synchronization using binary systems other than the orbit of the Earth around the Sun.

For transmission to nearby targets using short wavelengths (e.g. optical) which results in very narrow beams it has been recognized for some time that information on the orbit of a target planet is required (e.g. Shklovskii & Sagan, 1966; Kingsley, 1993). Otherwise, for nearby targets, a narrow beam aimed at a star may not illuminate a planet unless the beam is deliberately defocussed.111Note that in proposing observations of anti-Sun ecliptic longitude no particular wavelength regime is suggested and this technique can be used at radio, optical, or other wavelengths.

Fillipova et al. (1991) argued that even if transmitters are using radio wavelengths they would still employ very narrow beams. These authors proposed that the transmitter would therefore aim a continuous signal directly at the target star. The potential receiver should thus observe stars close to the ecliptic plane at the time of opposition when its planet would pass through this beam. This scheme does have some problems as it assumes that the transmitter is not capable of detecting the presence of planets around the target star. The resulting time spent transmitting while the target planet is not in the path of the signal beam is thus wasteful of energy.

Pace & Walker (1974) proposed transmission to binary stars at observation of a particular binary phase of the recipient and, in the opposite direction, search for transmission from a binary star system at a particular phase. Pace (1979) extended this scheme to communication between single stars by utilizing binary systems in angular proximity to the line between the transmitter and receiver. In a similar way, Singer (1982) proposed that a transmitter could time the arrival of a signal at the Solar System to coincide with a particular phase of the orbit of Jupiter with respect to the transmitter. The orbit of Jupiter was chosen as this has the largest influence on the motion of the Sun. Singer (1980) proposed that the four phases of maximum and minimum displacement of the Sun/Jupiter system as viewed from the transmitting star should be utilized.

In addition to the more general considerations listed above, it is noted that in 1924 an attempt was organized by David Todd, an associate of Percival Lowell, to listen for artificial radio signals from Mars during the time of opposition (Dick, 1996). This, apart from the much smaller distance involved which makes signal travel time much less important, is very close to the proposal to look for transmissions from around other stars at opposition.

## 4 Proposal

It is proposed that SETI observations should be made, either of individual targets or a general sky region, for a time period which includes the exact moment when that target or region is at its maximum angular distance from the Sun as observed from the Earth. The justification for this is: (i) the scheme provides a simple way for the receiver to achieve synchronization - the transmitter can be expected to want to make it as easy as possible for its signal to be found, (ii) advances in technology should soon demonstrate feasibility through the detection and characterization of terrestrial mass extra-solar planets, and (iii) for an orbit-based synchronization scheme if the Earth is the desired target of the ETI’s transmissions (because it is the only planet in the solar system habitable zone; Kasting, Whitmire & Reynolds, 1993) then the parameters of the Earth’s orbit are much more natural to use than those of another planet or an external binary star system.

The scheme proposed here is analogous to that presented by Pace & Walker (1974) but is an extension to use the Sun/Earth system itself as the binary system. While Singer (1982) argued for synchronization using Jupiter’s orbit, as this is the major perturbation to the proper motion of the Sun, we are now at the stage where, even with current technology, we will soon be able to detect nearby terrestrial planets - this is discussed in more detail in the next section. In principle, a binary system has a number of phases which might be identified as important. For example, alignment, maximum angular separation as seen by the transmitter, and, for an eccentric orbit, apastron and periastron may also be used. Thus, with Singer’s Jovian technique and the Pace-Walker binary scheme, for example, there is a lack of one specific orbital phase which is definitely preferred. However, in the case of using the Earth’s orbit it appears clear that the time of opposition is most suitable. For the receiver this orbital phase gives the minimum contamination from the emission from the Sun. At this time the receiver and target are also, by a miniscule amount, closest to each other which is arguably a “psychological” factor to justify this choice of phase.

Note that synchronizing transmissions to the Earth’s orbit does not necessarily imply that the signals can only be detected by equipment on the Earth itself. If the beam size of the transmission is sufficiently large then the signal may be detected, for example, by spacecraft located elsewhere in the Solar System. The Earth’s orbit is simply being used as a local synchronizing astrophysical event that may be regarded as important by a civilization with ties to that planet. It has been proposed before that beams would be made sufficiently broad, perhaps a few astronomical units at the target, in order to illuminate the entire habitable region around a planet (e.g. Townes, 1993) but this suggestion is based on an assumption that the transmitter would not know the location of the target planet or not be able to accurately predict its location when the signal arrives. If the presence and orbit of a target planet are known then, in principle, the ultimate limiting size of the beam might be as small as the size of the planet. However, this is not a requirement of the strategy proposed here and the transmitter may need to decide between a very narrow beam, which would be as small as possible centered on the target planet, and a broader less intense beam which could illuminate observatories far from the Earth.

## 5 Feasibility of Synchronization to Orbital Phase

### 5.1 General Considerations

If transmissions are made once per target year then the efficiency of the opposition technique depends on how brief a signal can be made compared to the length of the target planet’s year. In order for the signal to arrive at the desired orbital phase the transmitter must know precisely: (i) the orbital period and phase of the target (e.g. the Earth), (ii) the distance to the target, (iii) the proper motion and rate of change of the distance to the target, and (iv) if necessary, the rate of change of the orbital period. We can gain some insight into the feasibility of this scheme by considering current technology and that presently under development. It should be kept in mind, however, that it is usually expected that any civilization that we make contact with will have significantly more advanced technology. This is because we ourselves only recently acquired the ability to signal across interstellar distances and, unless the lifetimes of communicating civilizations are very short, it is statistically unlikely that we would make contact with another similarly young civilization (Shklovskii & Sagan, 1966). It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that the transmitting civilization has much better technology for detecting and measuring the parameters of terrestrial planets.

### 5.2 Planet Finding Missions

Although numerous extra-solar giant planets are now known to exist (e.g. Marcy & Butler, 1998; Naef et al., 2001), with the exception of the objects around the pulsar B1257+12 (Wolszczan & Frail, 1992; Konacki, Maciejewski, & Wolszczan, 2000) no terrestrial mass planets have yet been found. However, this lack of such planets may be ascribed to the insensitivity of the technique used so far (high precision optical radial velocity measurements) and there are several missions under development which it is anticipated will find terrestrial mass objects. An overview of the basic techniques to be employed and some of the missions under consideration in the search for Earth-like planets is given by Woolf & Angel (1998). In NASA’s program, for example, the Space Interferometer Mission (SIM), currently proposed to launch in 2009, is expected to have the capability of finding planets with masses not that much greater than the Earth around nearby stars by measuring stellar parallaxes to precisions of micro-arcseconds. Following on from SIM may be the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF; Beichman, Woolf & Lindensmith, 1999) proposed for launch in 2012. By using nulling interferometry (Bracewell, 1978) in the infrared or a visible light coronagraph the TPF should be able to directly observe planets around stars up to 15 pc away with sizes as small as the Earth. The European Space Agency (ESA) is also considering missions with similar objectives. ESA’s GAIA mission (e.g. Gilmore et al., 1998) will perform high precision astrometry and the Darwin mission (e.g. Penny et al., 1998) is being investigated for later launch, perhaps in or after 2015. As proposed for the TPF, Darwin may also perform nulling interferometry in the infrared with the primary aim of detecting Earth-like planets. Following on from these missions, if the substantial technology demands can be met, may be a “Planet Imager” mission.222See http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/missions.html A “Planet Imager” would have sufficient resolution that an Earth-like planet could be imaged with multiple pixels and might require arrays of TPF-like interferometers separated by distances of thousands of kilometers. For the special case of terrestrial size planets viewed close to their orbital plane, the Kepler Mission (Koch et al., 1998; Borucki, Koch, & Jenkins, 2001), currently scheduled for launch in 2006, should be able to detect these systems at much greater distances by the photometric detection of planetary transits.

From a consideration of the missions currently being constructed and designed it is clear that primarily through space-based interferometry our terrestrial planet detection abilities will soon enormously increase. With their high precision astrometry these missions will also provide significantly improved distance estimates. In addition to the expected significantly higher technology expected for an alien transmitter, if multiple ETIs exist and are in communication with each other then, by sharing star catalog data, they can obtain vastly improved distance, proper motion, and velocity information. Their parallax baselines would then be measured in parsecs rather than astronomical units and, for the opposition technique, it is the precision with which the transmitter, not the receiver, can measure the distance which is relevant. For determining proper and radial motion of the target the expected larger age of any transmitter should also enable it to be able to obtain very precise measurements. It is emphasized again that the discussion of Earth’s current technology level for detecting terrestrial planets is simply to demonstrate that the proposed strategy is likely to be feasible.

### 5.3 Specifics

The minimum duration of the transmitted message ($`t_m`$) depends on how well the transmitter knows the parameters of the system transmitted to. For example, consider a planet at a distance $`D`$ from the transmitter, a mean radial velocity of $`v`$, an orbital period around its star of $`P_{orb}`$, and a proper motion of $`\mu `$. The associated measurement errors on these parameters being given by $`\delta D`$, $`\delta v`$, $`\delta P_{orb}`$, and $`\delta \mu `$. The signal travel time $`T`$ is simply $`D/c`$ but, for changes in the system, the relevant timescale is $`2T`$, the combination of light travel time from the receiver to the transmitter plus the signal travel time from the transmitter to the receiver. The first order constraints arise from the uncertainties in the distance to the star and the orbital period and phase. The distance uncertainty simply yields:

$$t_m>\delta D/c$$
(1)
During the duration $`2T`$ there will be $`2T/P_{orb}`$ orbital cycles yielding:

$$t_m>(\delta P_{orb}/P_{orb})(2D/c)$$
(2)
The signal duration must also be greater than the uncertainty in the orbital phase, $`\varphi `$. i.e.:

$$t_m>\delta \varphi P_{orb}$$
(3)
Second order effects arise from the radial velocity between the transmitter and receiver and the proper motion. The radial velocity changes the relative distance during twice the signal travel time:

$$t_m>\delta v2D/c^2$$
(4)
The uncertainty in the change in alignment caused by the proper motion gives a constraint which is the time taken for the receiving planet to move it its orbit sufficiently to bring about alignment again. For the worst case situation where the proper motion is entirely in the target’s orbital plane:

$$t_m>(\delta \mu /360)P_{orb}(2D/c)$$
(5)
where $`\mu `$ is measured in degrees per time unit.

For illustration we may see what constraints result from the levels of precision that are available with technology that is currently available or is expected to soon become available.

#### Equation 1):

With micro-arcsecond level parallax errors, such as aimed for with SIM and GAIA, rather small signal arrival errors could be achieved for the nearest stars. For example, the errors are about half an hour at 5 pc ($``$15 ly) and about 3 days at 50pc ($``$150 ly).

#### Equations 2) & 3):

No extra-solar terrestrial mass planets are yet known around normal stars and so no orbital periods have yet been measured for such systems. Consider, however, the case of the gas giant planet 47 UMa b which has a 1089$`\pm `$3 day orbital period measured from 13 years of data (Fischer et al., 2002) and is at a distance of 14.1 pc (45.9 ly). These parameters yield an arrival time error of about 90 days. While this is large, the size of this error, even without any improvement in the measurement precision, decreases directly as the length of observations increases. For example, a 1,000 year baseline alone reduces the error to less than one day. For 47 UMa b the current phase uncertainty given by Fischer et al. (2002) is about 34 days which could again be reduced by a larger data set or more precise measurements. Even without improvement the 90 day arrival time uncertainty is $``$10% of the orbital period yielding a factor of 10 efficiency gain over a continuous transmission. For terrestrial mass planets orbital periods may be determined in the relatively near future, not by radial velocity measurement, but by astrometry of the parent star (SIM/GAIA) or astrometry of the planet itself (TPF/Darwin and perhaps the Planet Imager).

#### Equation 4):

If a star has a radial velocity of, for example, 10 km s-1 then, at 5 pc and 50 pc the change in the star’s distance over twice the light travel time would be about 7 light-hours and 3 light-days respectively. If 3 m s-1 precision radial velocity measurements are available (e.g. Butler et al., 1996) then the distance changes can be predicted to about 10 and 100 light-seconds respectively. The signal arrival time errors caused by velocity errors are thus smaller than the effects of the distance errors predicted by Equation 1).

#### Equation 5):

For an example of the effects of proper motion on alignment again consider the case of 47 UMa b. The proper motion of the parent star measured with Hipparcos is about 320$`\pm `$1 milli-arcseconds yr-1. This yields a corresponding minimum signal duration of $`t_m>1.8`$ hours. With the availability of micro-arcsecond yr-1 precision proper motions this would then shrink by a factor of one thousand.

For the nearest stars even current/near future Earth technology gives interestingly small signal arrival time errors from all parameters apart from the effects of the uncertainty in the orbital period. However, this figure could be reduced simply by extended observation durations. It thus appears feasible that an extraterrestrial transmitter could use the opposition technique for at least nearby stars. The major unknown is the maximum distance at which this technique could be used which depends on the level of technology available to the transmitter for finding, and measuring the orbits of, terrestrial mass planets.

It is noted that the high precision stellar proper motion measurements available with a SIM/GAIA type system enable very fine beams to be utilized by a transmitter. It was earlier argued by some authors such as Oliver (1993) that uncertainties in the proper motion place strong constraints on the minimum size of a beam that could be employed. However, with proper motion measured to micro-arcseconds yr-1 the corresponding error on the angular motion of a star at 50 pc during twice the light travel time is about 0.3 milli-arcseconds ($``$1.6 $`\times `$ 10-9 radians). Constraints on beam width due to stellar proper motion uncertainties are thus extremely weak and the primary requirement for a narrow beam instead becomes a knowledge of the orbit of the target planet.

## 6 Alternative Simplified Transmission Strategy

For an Earth-based transmitter it will be for some time challenging to undertake the type of signaling proposed here. Certainly the number of known extra-solar terrestrial planets will be much smaller than the number of stars that it might be worthwhile considering transmitting to. Instead, a related but simpler scheme could be employed if desired. This would be to simply transmit at the time of opposition of a target star as seen from the Earth. In this case the detection of the signal, if the potential receiver is not constantly monitoring for transmissions from the Earth, relies on the receiver knowing the orbit of the Earth. The receiver will need to take into account the relative proper motion of the two stellar systems during the signal travel time as this would change the apparent time of opposition. This technique shares some qualities of the suggestion by Shostak (1997) to look for leakage from internal communication in binary star systems.

## 7 Opposition Coverage in Current All-Sky Surveys

Many all-sky SETI surveys such as META/BETA (Horowitz & Sagan, 1993; Leigh & Horowitz, 2000) operate with a transit telescope at a fixed hour angle. Complete coverage of the observable sky is achieved by moving the telescope in declination at most once per day. Thus at local midnight (for a telescope set to an hour angle of zero) objects on the ecliptic longitude line running through the center of the field of view will be at “opposition.” These types of surveys have thus already automatically performed some synchronized opposition observations. However, the coverage of opposition is very small compared to the total amount of sky surveyed.

For simplicity in obtaining a very crude estimate of the amount of opposition sky surveyed, as exact values are not important here, the offset between the ecliptic and equatorial coordinate systems is ignored. Consider, for example, a detector with a “rectangular” field of view (FOV) $`\theta `$$`\times `$ $`\psi `$ in longitude and latitude respectively then, at a declination of $`\delta `$, approximately $`\theta `$/(360 cos($`\delta `$)) of a 360 scan would contain observations of the anti-Sun ecliptic longitude. So for a 0.5 $`\times `$ 0.5 detector (comparable to Project META’s circular 0.5 beam at 21 cm), and observations made for $`30`$ $`<\delta <+60`$, this FOV yields an anti-solar coverage of roughly $``$0.2% or about three days from 5 years of observations. However, this figure is just the amount of time spent with observations containing opposition data in the FOV and not the fraction of data which is anti-solar.

To calculate the amount of opposition data consider that, as the FOV crosses the anti-Sun line, this line is itself slowly moving at slightly less than one degree per day. The time taken for the detector to scan across the line is $`\theta `$/(360 cos($`\delta `$)) days. The anti-solar longitude will move about (360/365) $`\theta `$/(360 cos($`\delta `$)) degrees during this time and the area of sky that is anti-solar during a single scan is thus about $`\theta \psi `$/(360 cos($`\delta `$)) degrees2. For a 0.5 $`\times `$ 0.5 FOV detector at the equator this is thus about 7$`\times `$10-4 degrees2 in one scan compared to up to $``$180 degrees2 total scanned (some of the potential observation time will typically not be usable when the telescope points too close to the Sun). In the approximately 180 steps required to survey 90 of declination then about 0.15 degrees2 of anti-Sun sky would be observed. So, for example, in covering the observable sky five times there would thus be about 0.5 degrees2 of exactly anti-solar sky surveyed. Similarly, for the planned Harvard all-sky optical survey (Howard, Horowitz, & Coldwell, 2000) which will have a 0.2 (Right Ascension) $`\times `$ 1.6 (declination) FOV, the reduced size in longitude yields a roughly 0.05% fractional time coverage but this is compensated for by the larger size of the FOV in latitude.

The very small size of these opposition “micro-surveys” compared to the total sky coverage illustrates the importance, even for an all-sky survey, of finding the correct synchronization scheme if such is being employed by the transmitter. So far no all-sky survey has resulted in a clear detection of a signal but existing data sets might be used to investigate whether there is any excess of candidate signals for the anti-solar observations compared to the remainder of the dataset. For future observations it might be be advantageous to either store the raw data from anti-solar pointings or use a lower threshold for candidate signals from this region and then compare the number of candidates with other parts of the sky. Note that the “wow” signal reported from survey observations made with the Ohio State University (OSU) Big Ear telescope did not occur when the signal location was anti-solar but more than 30 degrees from this longitude (Gray & Marvel, 2001).

## 8 Proposed Opposition Searches

### 8.1 General Considerations

For the receiver the coordinates of the anti-Sun ecliptic longitude on the sky are easily calculated. For any particular time find the position of the Sun in ecliptic coordinates (including the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit), the line of potential target positions is then those for which the ecliptic longitude is 180 from the Sun and the ecliptic latitude goes from $`+`$ to $``$ 90. The coordinates of this line can then be converted to equatorial coordinates if desired. For observing particular targets the equatorial coordinates of a target at the estimated epoch of observations can be translated to ecliptic coordinates, and the time when the Sun will be at that ecliptic longitude +180 can be calculated.

### 8.2 Targeted Opposition Searches

In targeted SETI programs “opposition” observations may have durations as short as desired as long as they include the exact time of opposition. Signals sent by a competent transmitter using this technique will be long enough to be guaranteed to include this time. However, for a single ground-based observatory, or satellite in low Earth orbit, it will in general not be possible to obtain observations at exact opposition for all desired targets in the course of one year. It may thus be profitable to employ multiple telescopes located at different longitudes on the Earth (as well as in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres). If the transmission duration is sufficiently long that observation at the exact time of opposition is not required, then multiple observatories may not be required. However, it is impossible to know how accurately the transmitter knows the parameters of the Earth/Sun system which determines the minimum transmission duration with this technique.

### 8.3 All-Sky Opposition Surveys

A full opposition survey would observe all areas of the sky when they are anti-solar at least once. An individual telescope might track the anti-Sun ecliptic longitude for as long as possible at a selected ecliptic latitude, perhaps moving to observations at a higher latitude when the original target field falls below the horizon. The size of the field of view of the telescope in longitude probably need not be very large as long as the telescope is tracking the anti-solar longitude as this dimension only gives the length of time during which a signal would be detected. Since the anti-Sun ecliptic longitude is moving at less than one degree per day, a 0.5 field of view for example can give observation times for post-opposition longitudes of greater than half a day if the “leading edge” of the field of view is near the opposition line. Additionally, if a signal is detected in real time then the sky survey would be suspended for extended observations of the region from which the signal is coming. The coverage in latitude, however, gives a direct reduction in the time required to complete a full survey with all times of exact opposition covered. This type of survey with a limited field of view detector would be very slow as it takes a complete year to survey a 360 strip on the sky at a particular latitude. This is unlike the meridian all-sky surveys where a 360 sky strip is completed within a single day. A 0.5 field of view telescope would thus take 180 years for an opposition survey covering 90 in latitude.

A survey based on the assumption that a signal would have a duration of a particular minimum time could allow a telescope to move in ecliptic latitude between its observation limits while remaining pointed at the drifting opposition longitude. This telescope might then detect signals that had a duration longer than the time taken to scan in latitude. It would naturally be necessary to be able to both collect data and maintain reasonable knowledge of the telescope’s pointing direction during this “nodding” motion.

Neither scheme (nodding or staring) using a single telescope of limited field of view is ideal for an all-sky survey. Staring takes a long time to complete a survey and nodding might miss extremely brief signals. Instead it may be advantageous to make use of the techniques considered for all-time all-sky surveys. Such projects, whose ultimate goal is to continuously monitor the entire sky, could thus have as an intermediate less ambitious goal monitoring the anti-Sun line. Two of these projects are the similarly named Project Argus from the SETI League (Shuch, 1997) and the Argus Telescope being developed at Ohio State University (Dixon, 1995). While both projects have the ultimate aim of continuously observing the entire sky at radio wavelengths it will be challenging for either team to achieve this goal.

The SETI League project aims to cover the entire sky by using many small diameter radio telescopes. The problem here is the large number of dishes required, 5000 will be needed for complete coverage but, by the middle of 2002, only 115 had been reported as operating. The OSU telescope has a design which employs an antenna array whose elements are combined via software to form beams that would cover the entire sky visible from a single site. The limitation with this technique is the enormous computing power that is required to cover the entire sky with both good spatial and spectral resolution when a large number of elements, required for good sensitivity, is employed. By restrciting either of these projects to just monitoring the anti-Sun range of ecliptic latitudes the difficulties would be much reduced. Either telescopes (SETI League) or software formed beams (OSU) could monitor just this line to the exclusion of most of the rest of the sky. The number of telescopes/beams required is determined by the beam size along the latitude line. The small telescopes employed by the SETI League have fields of view of a few degrees across and so the number of telescopes required for an opposition survey to be completed in the course of a few years does not seem unreasonable (even though not all SETI League telescopes are steerable which is required to track the anti-Sun line). For an OSU type telescope for a full survey of even one hemisphere to be completed within a single year would require multiple versions of this telescope at different longitudes on the Earth. However, it is of course not a requirement that such a survey is completed within a single year.

In principle another system that could be employed to give a very large field of view would be if the separate components of the Allen Telescope Array (ATA, formerly 1hT; Welch & Dreher, 2000) were operated and pointed individually instead of operating as a coordinated array. However, in contrast to the OSU and Project SETI systems, operating the ATA in a mode suited to a rapid opposition survey results in a substantial decrease in sensitivity. For it to be worthwhile to split an array such as the ATA into smaller units the power transmitted by the sender at the time of opposition compared to other times must be sufficiently greater than the relative reduction in sensitivity of the detector. However, this power difference cannot be known in advance and, if transmissions are only sent at the time of opposition then observing at this time is essential.

At optical wavelengths a telescope of the OSU type with software formed beams cannot be made and so one or more telescopes of large field of view are required. One possibility may be to use a system incorporating a Luneburg lens (also known as a “Luneberg” lens; Luneberg, 1944) which in principle may have up to a 2$`\pi `$ steradian field of view.333A single Luneburg lens may itself have a 4$`\pi `$ steradian field of view but the presence of detectors on the lens obstructs that part of the lens. A system which is already continuously optically monitoring a large fraction of the nighttime sky for astronomical purposes is the CONCAM project (Nemiroff & Rafert, 1999) which utilizes CCD cameras together with fish-eye lenses. However, the sensitivity and time resolution of CONCAM are presently rather low and so unlikely to be useful for SETI studies.

## 9 Conclusion

With only somewhat more advanced technology than we currently posses, an extraterrestrial transmitter could plausibly send signals timed to arrive at a particular phase of the Earth’s orbit. The natural phase for this is when the Earth is nearest to the apparent position of the transmitter. Targeted searches timed to coincide with this phase seem feasible. All-sky searches are also possible but, if complete exact opposition observations are to be achieved in a reasonable amount of time, then one or more telescopes capable of providing extensive ecliptic latitude coverage are required. In general, if synchronization techniques are to be used in a targeted SETI program then it is still advocated that the external astrophysical synchronization technique (e.g. Corbet, 1999 and references therein) should also be considered as well as the opposition technique. Using, for example, gamma-ray bursts as external synchronizers enables all transmissions to be made at least as short as the brief burst timescale whereas opposition transmissions require precise astronomical measurements of the target and the signal arrival time accuracy decreases with increasing distance444With an external synchronizer the effect of larger distances is to require longer observing times rather than transmission durations.. The external astrophysical synchronizer technique is only well suited for targeted and not all-sky searches. However, the external synchronizer technique could be used by an extraterrestrial transmitter with approximately our current level of technology. In contrast, the opposition technique is most productive if a transmitter has substantially more advanced technology. The opposition technique permits a complete all-sky or targeted survey to be done within a predetermined period of time whereas with the external astrophysical synchronizer, with events occurring at random, it is not possible to predict when a particular target would be observable.

A technique that would combine part of the philosophy of both of these synchronization techniques would be for the transmitter to send a message when it was at its closest point to the target. The receiver would then calculate the expected arrival time. This strategy is, however, only currently advocated for Earth-based transmission rather than observing programs - for observing programs it is not even possible yet, if we are only interested in terrestrial mass extra-solar planets, as none have yet been detected.

I thank an anonymous referee for useful comments including the suggestion of using Luneburg lenses at optical wavelengths.


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# Untitled Document

hep-th/0208167 BROWN-HET-1329

Initial state effects on the cosmic microwave background and trans-planckian physics

Kevin Goldstein and David A. Lowe

Department of Physics

Brown University

Providence, RI 02912, USA

kevin, lowe@het.brown.edu

Abstract

There exist a one complex parameter family of de Sitter invariant vacua, known as $`\alpha `$ vacua. In the context of slow roll inflation, we show that all but the Bunch-Davies vacuum generates unacceptable production of high energy particles at the end of inflation. As a simple model for the effects of trans-planckian physics, we go on to consider non-de Sitter invariant vacua obtained by patching modes in the Bunch-Davies vacuum above some momentum scale $`M_c`$, with modes in an $`\alpha `$ vacuum below $`M_c`$. Choosing $`M_c`$ near the Planck scale $`M_{pl}`$, we find acceptable levels of hard particle production, and corrections to the cosmic microwave perturbations at the level of $`HM_{pl}/M_c^2`$, where $`H`$ is the Hubble parameter during inflation. More general initial states of this type with $`HM_cM_{pl}`$ can give corrections to the spectrum of cosmic microwave background perturbations at order 1. The parameter characterizing the $`\alpha `$-vacuum during inflation is a new cosmological observable.

August, 2002

1. Introduction

Inflation magnifies quantum fluctuations at fundamental length scales to astrophysical scales, where their imprint is left on the formation of structure in the universe. In conventional slow roll inflation, the universe undergoes an expansion of at least $`10^{26}`$ during the inflationary phase. With such a huge expansion factor, modes which give rise to observable structures apparently started out with wavelengths much smaller than the Planck length. This is the so-called trans-planckian problem in inflation \[15\].

In the past year, there has been much debate about whether potential modifications to physics above the Planck scale could actually be observed \[617\]. By considering the local effective action at the Hubble scale $`H`$ (which we will take to be $`10^{13}10^{14}`$ GeV),  has argued that trans-planckian corrections to the spectrum of cosmic microwave background perturbations could at best be of order $`(H/M_{pl})^2`$ which is typically far too small to be observed in conventional inflationary models. However others \[613\] have obtained a correction of order $`H/M_{pl}`$ by considering a variety of methods for modeling trans-planckian effects. Such a correction is potentially observable in the not too distant future.

In the present work we represent the effect of trans-planckian physics simply by allowing for nontrivial initial vacuum states for the inflaton field, which we treat as a free scalar field moving in a de Sitter background. The most natural vacuum states to consider are the de Sitter invariant vacuum states constructed by Allen and Mottola \[18,,19\]. The vacuum states are known as $`\alpha `$-vacua. We find these all lead to infinite energy production at the end of inflation, with the exception of the Bunch-Davies (Euclidean) vacuum state.

We go on to consider non-de Sitter invariant vacuum states constructed by placing modes with comoving wavenumber $`k>M_ca(\eta _f)`$ in the Bunch-Davies vacuum, where $`a(\eta _f)`$ is the expansion factor at the end of inflation. Modes with $`k<M_ca(\eta _f)`$ are placed in a non-trivial $`\alpha `$ vacuum. These states have a particularly simple evolution in de Sitter space – the length scale at which the patching occurs simply expands as the scale factor grows. Many more complicated initial states asymptote to such states as the universe expands.

For $`M_c`$ of order $`M_{pl}`$ it is possible to find initial states that do not overproduce hard particles, and produce corrections to the cosmic microwave background spectrum at order $`H/M_c`$ in agreement with . For $`HM_cM_{pl}`$ there are initial states that produce corrections to the spectrum at order 1.

In \[11,,13\] an initial state was constructed by placing modes in their locally Minkowskian vacuum states as the proper wavenumber passed through the scale of new physics $`M_c`$. This turns out to be a special case of the class of initial states we consider. To avoid large backreaction problems in this case, we show the condition $`M_cM_{pl}`$ must hold. This condition is rather easy to satisfy. Our more general initial states may be viewed in a similar way as an initial state that puts modes in a $`k`$-independent Bogoliubov transformation of the locally Minkowskian vacuum as proper wavenumber passes through the scale $`M_c`$.

2. General setup

We will conduct our analysis using linearized perturbation theory in a de Sitter (dS) background. Planar coordinates covering half of dS, with flat spacial sections, result in the metric

$$ds^2=dt^2e^{2Ht}d\stackrel{}{x}^2=dt^2a^2(t)d\stackrel{}{x}^2.$$

It will be more convenient to use conformal coordinates, giving

$$ds^2=\frac{1}{(\eta H)^2}\left(d\eta ^2d\stackrel{}{x}^2\right)=a^2(\eta )\left(d\eta ^2d\stackrel{}{x}^2\right)$$

where $`\eta =_t^{\mathrm{}}𝑑t^{}/a(t^{})=\mathrm{exp}(Ht)/H`$. So $`t\mathrm{}`$ and $`\eta \mathrm{}`$, and $`t\mathrm{}`$ as $`\eta 0`$.

Klein-Gordon Equation in curved space is

$$(\mathrm{}+m^2+\zeta R)\varphi =0$$

for a scalar field with mass $`m`$ and non-minimal coupling to $`R`$ given by $`\zeta `$. In momentum space we can solve this equation by defining

$$\varphi _k=\frac{e^{i\stackrel{}{k}\stackrel{}{x}}}{(2\pi )^{\frac{3}{2}}a(\eta )}\chi _k(\eta )$$

which leads to

$$\chi _k^{\prime \prime }+\left(k^2+\frac{M^2}{H^2\eta ^2}\right)\chi _k=0$$

with

$$M^2=m^2+(\zeta \frac{1}{6})R$$

so $`M^2`$ is not necessarily positive. The general solution is

$$\chi _k(\eta )=\frac{1}{2}\sqrt{\pi \eta }H_\nu ^{(2)}(k\eta )\chi _{Ek}(\eta )$$

together with its complex conjugate, where $`\nu =\frac{9}{4}\frac{m^2}{H^2}12\zeta =\frac{1}{4}M^2`$.

Such a complete set of orthonormal modes may be used to define a Fock vacuum state by taking the field operator

$$\widehat{\chi }=\underset{k}{}\chi _k(\eta )a_k+\chi _k^{}(\eta )a_k^{}$$

and demanding $`a_k|0=0`$. As shown by Allen  and Mottola , the general family of de Sitter invariant vacuum states can be defined using the modes

$$\chi _k=\mathrm{cosh}\alpha \chi _{Ek}(\eta )+e^{i\delta }\mathrm{sinh}\alpha \chi _{Ek}^{}(\eta )$$

with $`\alpha [0,\mathrm{})`$ and $`\delta (\pi ,\pi )`$. $`\alpha =0`$ is the Bunch-Davies vacuum (a.k.a. Euclidean vacuum).

For a massless minimally coupled scalar, this solution takes a particularly simple form

$$\chi _{Ek}(\eta )=\frac{e^{ik\eta }}{\sqrt{2k}}(1\frac{i}{k\eta }).$$

As discussed in  this case gives rise to difficulties in canonical quantization, and there is no de Sitter invariant Fock vacuum. Nevertheless, we will use this simple example in the following with the understanding a small mass term could be added to eliminate this problem, and the expressions we derive will not be substantially changed.

We will need to extract two physical quantities from the expression (2.1). The first is the number of particles produced in the mode $`k`$ defined with respect to the $`\alpha =0`$ vacuum. This is simply equal to

$$n_k=\mathrm{sinh}^2\alpha .$$

This will be a good approximation to the number of particles produced at the end of inflation, when a transition is made to a much more slowly expanding universe, provided the wavelength of the modes in question are much smaller than the Hubble radius. This follows simply from the fact that at high wavenumber, the wave equation for $`\chi _k`$ reduces to that of flat space, so we can approximate the final geometry by Minkowski space. We wish to count particles with respect to the Lorentz invariant vacuum state, which corresponds to the $`\alpha =0`$ vacuum in this regime.

The second physical quantity of interest is the contribution of this mode to the spectrum of CMBR perturbations. We compute this by examining $`|\varphi _k(\eta )|^2`$ in the distant future $`\eta 0`$ for the massless scalar (2.1). The contribution is then

$$P_k=\frac{k^3}{2\pi ^2a^2}|\chi _k|^2=\left(\frac{H}{2\pi }\right)^2|\mathrm{cosh}\alpha e^{i\delta }\mathrm{sinh}\alpha |^2.$$

3. Initial state effects

We begin by reviewing what happens for the usual Bunch-Davies vacuum, $`\alpha =0`$. Clearly the particle production at high frequencies (2.1) vanishes. Fluctuations in the scalar field modes mean different regions of spacetime expand at slightly different rates, which gives rise to density perturbations after inflation has ended. The amplitude of these perturbations are frozen in as these modes expand outside the Hubble radius during inflation, and become density perturbations once they reenter the horizon after the end of inflation. For $`\alpha =0`$, $`P_k=(H/2\pi )^2`$ is independent of $`k`$ and hence scale invariant. When one allows for the detailed shape of the inflaton potential, $`H`$ becomes effectively $`k`$ dependent, leading to small deviations from the scale invariant spectrum of perturbations, which in general are highly model dependent.

For a nontrivial $`\alpha 0`$ vacuum we immediately see a problem. At the end of inflation there will be a large amount of particle production at wavelengths smaller than the Hubble radius (2.1). Since this production is independent of $`k`$ , this will lead to an infinite energy density, and singular backreaction on the geometry. We conclude then that at wavelengths below some scale, the modes must be in a local $`\alpha =0`$ vacuum state.1  also concludes that only the Euclidean vacuum smoothly patches onto the Lorentz invariant Minkowski vacuum, in the context of two-dimensional de Sitter space. They also point out that for all $`\alpha 0`$ the vacuum state picks up a nontrivial phase under de Sitter isometries, which cancels in expectation values. Actually, $`\alpha `$ need not be exactly zero for the high wavenumber modes. We will return to this point at the end of this section.

Nevertheless, we can still consider initial states that involve modes in an $`\alpha 0`$ state, provided their wavelengths are sufficiently large. Perhaps the simplest such initial state is to place modes at some fixed conformal time $`\eta _0`$ in the $`\alpha =0`$ state for $`k>M_ca(\eta _f)`$ where $`\eta _f`$ is the conformal time at the end of inflation, and $`M_c`$ is some scale at which physics changes, and we have in mind taking $`M_cH`$. Modes for $`k<M_ca(\eta _f)`$ can be placed in an $`\alpha 0`$ state.

In order that the particle production at the end of inflation be irrelevant versus the energy stored in the inflaton, we must have

$$M_c^4\mathrm{sinh}^2\alpha \mathrm{\Lambda }=\frac{3M_{pl}^2H^2}{4\pi }$$

where $`M_{pl}`$ is the Planck mass.2 This condition is necessary to avoid large back-reaction on the geometry. It would also be interesting to consider the limit when this energy is not irrelevant, and to use this particle production as a source for reheating. If we saturate this bound, $`\mathrm{sinh}\alpha HM_{pl}/M_c^2`$. The correction to the CMBR spectrum $`P_k`$ (2.1) will then be of order $`HM_{pl}/M_c^2`$. This is linear in $`H`$ in agreement with the estimates of \[6,,7,,11\] and is potentially observable. Of course, since we have done the computation in pure de Sitter space, the effect appears as a $`k`$-independent modulation of the $`\alpha =0`$ result, which on its own would require an independent determination of $`H`$ to measure directly. However, in inflation $`H`$ is actually slowly changing, which will translate into $`k`$-dependence of $`H`$, and hence $`\alpha `$. This will show up as $`k`$-dependent corrections to the cosmic microwave background spectrum $`P_k`$ which are potentially more easily distinguishable from the $`\alpha =0`$ case \[6,,12\].

To obtain an upper bound on the size of the correction to the CMBR spectrum, we can imagine taking $`M_c`$ to be much smaller than $`M_{pl}`$, which is certainly plausible. This allows $`\alpha `$ to be of order 1, and still consistent with negligible hard particle production (3.1). This limit will lead to corrections to the CMBR spectrum (2.1) at order 1.

3.1. Transition at proper energy $`M_c`$

Now let us consider a more detailed model for the initial state where we assume the initial condition is fixed due to some change in physics at the proper energy scale $`M_c`$. Let us review the computation of \[11,,13\]. The essential idea was to note the $`\alpha `$-vacuum satisfying

$$\begin{array}{cc}\hfill \mathrm{cosh}\alpha & =e^{i(\gamma \beta )}\frac{2\beta i}{2\beta }\hfill \\ \hfill e^{i\delta }\mathrm{sinh}\alpha & =e^{i(\gamma +\beta )}\frac{i}{2\beta }\hfill \end{array}$$

with $`\beta =M_c/H`$ and $`\gamma `$ real, can be interpreted as an initial state which places modes in their locally Minkowskian vacuum as the proper wavenumber $`k/a`$ passes through the scale $`M_c`$. This is seen by noting that at time $`\eta =M_c/Hk`$ the field $`\varphi _k`$ (with $`\chi _k`$ given by (2.1)) satisfies $`\pi _k=ik\varphi _k`$ where $`\pi _k`$ is the conjugate momentum. Such a relation is satisfied by the Lorentz invariant vacuum in Minkowski space. One may also interpret the state at time $`\eta =M_c/Hk`$ as a minimum uncertainty state .

For sufficiently large $`k`$, the above prescription does not apply, because the relevant time $`\eta `$ will be after the end of inflation. These modes may safely be placed in the Bunch-Davies vacuum.

This initial state is a special case of the type described above. High frequency particle creation at the end of inflation gives an energy density of order $`M_c^4\mathrm{sinh}^2\alpha `$. Since here $`\mathrm{sinh}\alpha H/M_c`$, we require

$$M_c^2H^2M_{pl}^2H^2.$$

This will hold whenever $`M_cM_{pl}`$, which is easy to satisfy. This condition was also obtained in .

Note that the general class of initial states described above may be reinterpreted in the same way as states arising from a boundary condition placed at a fixed proper energy scale. Rather than imposing the condition that the initial state corresponds to a locally Minkowski vacuum as the wavenumber $`k/a`$ passes through $`M_c`$, one instead demands the mode be in a general $`k`$-independent Bogoliubov transformation of the locally Minkowski vacuum. This corresponds to a generic boundary condition at the scale $`M_c`$ that is independent of time. In this way, modes are placed in a nontrivial $`\alpha `$-vacuum when $`k/a(\eta _f)`$ at the end of inflation is below the scale $`M_c`$. Higher $`k`$ modes will remain in the Bunch-Davies vacuum. This is precisely the type of state we described above.

It is interesting to view this boundary condition in the context of the nice slice argument of  used to define effective field theory in a curved background. The conformal time slicing (2.1) satisfies the criteria for a “nice slicing”. This mean we may define fields with, for example, a spatial lattice cutoff on proper wavelengths below $`1/M_c`$. As one moves forward on these time slices, the proper wavelength of a given mode (2.1) expands, so new modes descend from above the cutoff scale, and we assume these are placed in their ground state. The main difference with asymptotically flat space, is that we now have the option of placing these modes in one of the nontrivial de Sitter invariant $`\alpha `$-vacua. Any other choice would lead to continuous creation of particles at the cutoff scale which would cause drastic back-reaction on the geometry.

Provided interacting quantum field theory in de Sitter is consistent in a general $`\alpha `$ vacuum, there seems to be no dynamics that prefers one value of $`\alpha `$ over another. Only when we patch de Sitter space onto standard cosmology at the end of inflation do we generate observable consequences of the $`\alpha `$ parameter in the form of extra particle production, and imprint on the CMBR. In the context of slow roll inflation, we should therefore regard the value of $`\alpha `$ during inflation as a new cosmological observable which encodes information about trans-planckian physics.

At the end of inflation we make a transition from the de Sitter geometry to a standard cosmological geometry. To describe the UV cutoff in this more general context, we need to replace the simple $`\alpha `$-vacuum suitable for de Sitter, by a boundary condition fixed by some more general dynamical condition such as the locally Minkowskian boundary condition of \[11,,13\] described above (3.1). The effective value of $`\alpha `$ will then change as the effective value of $`H`$ changes. Note for us $`H`$ determines the vacuum energy density, and is not related to the Hubble parameter outside the de Sitter phase. In the limit that the cosmological constant becomes very small (the effective $`H`$ decreases by a factor of $`10^{30}`$ or so to match with today’s vacuum energy density), we make a smooth transition to a $`\alpha 10^{30}H/M_c`$ boundary condition at the cutoff scale after the end of inflation. If we regard the present state of the universe as a de Sitter phase with very small cosmological constant, this type of boundary condition does not lead to continuous particle creation, so is not subject to the constraints explored in .

The value of $`\alpha `$ during inflation may be selected by local physics at Planckian energies, but in general $`\alpha `$ may also be influenced by the initial state of the universe. This initial state is not necessarily completely determined by physics at Planckian energies. For example the initial state may emerge as a special state of very high symmetry as a result of dynamics on much higher energy scales, which will leave their imprint on the value of $`\alpha `$ in the de Sitter phase.

4. Conclusions

We have constructed a very simple class of initial states for the inflaton field which can be used to model effects of trans-planckian physics. A new cosmological observable emerges from this analysis in the context of slow-roll inflation, namely the $`\alpha `$ parameter characterizing the vacuum state during inflation.

Other previous approaches have typically assumed some definite model for the trans-planckian physics which led to particular states of this type at momenta much below the Planck scale. We have found for certain ranges of parameters, the initial states do not lead to excess particle production at the end of inflation, and lead to potentially observable corrections to the cosmic microwave background spectrum.

Acknowledgments We thank R. Brandenberger, R. Easther, B. Greene and B. Lehmann for helpful discussions and comments. D.L. thanks the Aspen Center for Physics for hospitality during the completion of this work, and the participants at the Center for stimulating discussions. This research is supported in part by DOE grant DE-FE0291ER40688-Task A and by BSF grant 2000359.

References

relax R. H. Brandenberger, “Inflationary cosmology: Progress and problems,” arXiv:hep-ph/9910410. relax R. H. Brandenberger and J. Martin, “The robustness of inflation to changes in super-Planck-scale physics,” Mod. Phys. Lett. A 16, 999 (2001) \[arXiv:astro-ph/0005432\]. relax J. Martin and R. H. Brandenberger, “The trans-Planckian problem of inflationary cosmology,” Phys. Rev. D 63, 123501 (2001) \[arXiv:hep-th/0005209\]. relax J. Martin and R. H. Brandenberger, “The Corley-Jacobson dispersion relation and trans-Planckian inflation,” Phys. Rev. D 65, 103514 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0201189\]. relax A. A. Starobinsky, “Robustness of the inflationary perturbation spectrum to trans-Planckian physics,” Pisma Zh. Eksp. Teor. Fiz. 73, 415 (2001) \[JETP Lett. 73, 371 (2001)\] \[arXiv:astro-ph/0104043\]. relax R. Easther, B. R. Greene, W. H. Kinney and G. Shiu, “Inflation as a probe of short distance physics,” Phys. Rev. D 64, 103502 (2001) \[arXiv:hep-th/0104102\]. relax R. Easther, B. R. Greene, W. H. Kinney and G. Shiu, “Imprints of short distance physics on inflationary cosmology,” arXiv:hep-th/0110226. relax R. H. Brandenberger and J. Martin, “On signatures of short distance physics in the cosmic microwave background,” arXiv:hep-th/0202142. relax R. Brandenberger and P. M. Ho, “Noncommutative spacetime, stringy spacetime uncertainty principle, and density fluctuations,” Phys. Rev. D 66, 023517 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0203119\]. relax F. Lizzi, G. Mangano, G. Miele and M. Peloso, “Cosmological perturbations and short distance physics from noncommutative geometry,” JHEP 0206, 049 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0203099\]. relax U. H. Danielsson, “A note on inflation and transplanckian physics,” Phys. Rev. D 66, 023511 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0203198\]. relax R. Easther, B. R. Greene, W. H. Kinney and G. Shiu, “A generic estimate of trans-Planckian modifications to the primordial power spectrum in inflation,” Phys. Rev. D 66, 023518 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0204129\]. relax U. H. Danielsson, “Inflation, holography and the choice of vacuum in de Sitter space,” JHEP 0207, 040 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0205227\]. relax N. Kaloper, M. Kleban, A. E. Lawrence and S. Shenker, “Signatures of short distance physics in the cosmic microwave background,” arXiv:hep-th/0201158. relax J. C. Niemeyer, R. Parentani and D. Campo, “Minimal modifications of the primordial power spectrum from an adiabatic short distance cutoff,” arXiv:hep-th/0206149. relax A. Kempf and J. C. Niemeyer, “Perturbation spectrum in inflation with cutoff,” Phys. Rev. D 64, 103501 (2001) \[arXiv:astro-ph/0103225\]. relax A. A. Starobinsky and I. I. Tkachev, “Trans-Planckian particle creation in cosmology and ultra-high energy cosmic rays,” arXiv:astro-ph/0207572. relax B. Allen, “Vacuum States In De Sitter Space,” Phys. Rev. D 32, 3136 (1985). relax E. Mottola, “Particle Creation In De Sitter Space,” Phys. Rev. D 31, 754 (1985). relax R. Floreanini, C. T. Hill and R. Jackiw, “Functional Representation For The Isometries Of De Sitter Space,” Annals Phys. 175, 345 (1987). relax D. A. Lowe, J. Polchinski, L. Susskind, L. Thorlacius and J. Uglum, “Black hole complementarity versus locality,” Phys. Rev. D 52, 6997 (1995) \[arXiv:hep-th/9506138\].


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# Galaxy Formation Now and Then

## 1. Introduction

The past couple of years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the quantity and quality of observations on the formation and evolution of galaxies. Galaxies are routinely identified at redshifts exceeding three and high resolution imaging allows us to study their internal structure. These data are complemented by high resolution spectroscopy of QSO absorption systems that provide further clues on the evolution of baryons in the universe. In fact, this increase has been so rapid that observations have outgrown their theoretical framework. Traditional approaches, which rely heavily on the morphological classification of galaxies and which intend to disentangle the star formation history of galaxies, seem outdated if compared with the much richer structure seen in galaxies at different redshifts.

Motivated by the increasing body of evidence that most of the mass of the universe consist of invisible “dark” matter, and by the particle physicist’s inference that this dark matter consists of exotic non-baryonic particles, a new and on the long run much more fruitful approach has been developed: rather than to model the formation and evolution of galaxies from properties of present day galaxies, it is attempted to prescribe a set of reasonable initial conditions. The evolution of galaxies is then modeled based on physical processes that are considered to be relevant such as gravity, hydrodynamics, radiative cooling and star formation. The outcome at different epochs is then confronted against observational data. One scenario that has been extensively tested in this way is the model of hierarchical clustering, currently the most successful paradigm of structure formation.

In this contribution I review the main successes but also some of the generic problems of models in which structure forms by hierarchical clustering. I briefly compare the current state of the field with that 10-15 years ago followed by some speculations in which direction the field may develop in the next decade and how a large optical-UV telescope in space may support such developments.

## 2. The state of the field

Hierarchical clustering is at present the most successful model for structure formation in the universe. In this scenario, structure grows as objects of progressively larger mass merge and collapse to form newly virialized systems (Figure 1). Probably the best known representative of this class of models is the Cold Dark Matter (CDM) scenario. The initial conditions consist of the cosmological parameters ($`\mathrm{\Omega },\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{baryon}},\mathrm{\Lambda },H_0`$) and of an initial density fluctuation spectrum such as the CDM spectrum. The remaining free parameter, the amplitude of these initial fluctuations, is calibrated by observational data, e.g., the measured anisotropies of the microwave background. Since the CDM model was introduced in the early 80s the values of these parameters have been revised and tuned to match an ever growing list of observational constraints, from the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$, $`H_0=50`$km s-1Mpc-1, and $`\sigma _8=0.6`$ of the former “standard” Cold Dark Matter model to the currently popular “concordance” $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model. This $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model envisions an eternally expanding universe with the following properties (Bahcall et al. 1999): (i) matter makes up at present less than about a third of the critical density for closure ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_00.3`$); (ii) a non-zero cosmological constant restores the flat geometry predicted by most inflationary models of the early universe ($`\mathrm{\Lambda }_0=1\mathrm{\Omega }_00.7`$); (iii) the present rate of universal expansion is $`H_070`$ km s-1 Mpc-1; (iv) baryons make up a very small fraction of the mass of the universe ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_b0.04\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$); and (v) the present-day rms mass fluctuations on spheres of radius 8 $`h^1`$ Mpc is of order unity ($`\sigma _80.9`$). The hierarchical structure formation process in this $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM scenario is illustrated in Figure 1, which depicts the growth of structure within a $`50`$Mpc box between redshifts nine and zero. The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM model is consistent with an impressive array of well-established fundamental observations such as the age of the universe as measured from the oldest stars, the extragalactic distance scale as measured by distant Cepheids, the primordial abundance of the light elements, the baryonic mass fraction of galaxy clusters, the amplitude of the Cosmic Microwave Background fluctuations measured by COBE, BOOMERANG, MAXIMA and DASI, the present-day number density of massive galaxy clusters, the shape and amplitude of galaxy clustering patterns, the magnitude of large-scale coherent motions of galaxy systems, and the world geometry inferred from observations of distant type Ia supernovae, among others.

The hierarchical build-up is also thought to determine the morphology of a galaxy, most noticeably the difference between disk–like systems such as spiral galaxies (some of them barred) and spheroidal systems such as elliptical galaxies and bulges. This picture envisions that whenever gas is accreted in a smooth fashion, it settles in rotationally supported disk-like structures in which gas is slowly transformed into stars. Mergers, however, convert disks into spheroids. The Hubble type of a galaxy is thus determined by a continuing sequence of destruction of disks by mergers, accompanied by the formation of spheroidal systems, followed by the reassembly of disks due to smooth accretion (Figure 2). This picture of a hierarchical origin of galaxy morphology has been schematically incorporated in so-called semi-analytical galaxy formation models used to study the evolution of the galaxy population, but its validity in a cosmological setting has only just recently been directly demonstrated (Steinmetz & Navarro 2002).

Numerical simulations have been an integral part in the detailed analysis of the virtues of the CDM scenario. Only numerical techniques can account for the highly irregular structure formation process and for at least some of the complicated interaction between gravity and other relevant physical processes such as gas dynamical shocks, star formation and feedback processes. Simulations also provide the required interface to compare theoretical models with observational data and are able to link together different epochs. While simulations of structure formation on the larger scales have mainly used large massively parallel supercomputers, studies how individual structures such as galaxies or clusters of galaxies form in the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM scenario have heavily used special purpose hardware like the GRAPE (=GRAvity PipE) family of hardware N-body integrators (Sugimoto et al. 1990).

Although gas dynamical simulations were considerably successful in explaining some details of the galaxy formation process, the largest impact so far has been in the field of QSO absorption systems. Numerical simulations can reproduce the basic properties of QSO absorbers covering many orders of magnitude in column density (Cen et al. 1994; Zhang, Anninos & Norman 1995; Hernquist et al. 1996; Haehnelt, Steinmetz & Rauch 1996). Indeed, gas dynamical simulations were even responsible for a paradigm shift, as QSO absorbers are no longer considered to be caused by individual gas clouds. Absorbers of different column density (Ly-$`\alpha `$ forest, metal line systems, Lyman–limit systems and damped Ly-$`\alpha `$ absorption systems) are rather reflecting different aspects of the large-scale structure of the universe. While the lowest column density systems ($`\mathrm{log}N1214`$) arises from gas in voids and sheets of the “cosmic web”, systems of higher column density are produced by filaments ($`\mathrm{log}N1417`$) or even by gas that has cooled and collapsed in virialized halos ($`\mathrm{log}N>17`$).

Even though the above list of achievements appears quite impressive, it mainly addresses structures on scales exceeding a few hundred kpc. On smaller scales, theoretical models have at best provided some qualitative insights in the physics of the galaxy formation process, but we are still far from being able to make quantitative predictions of the properties of the galaxies now or at higher redshifts on those small scales. For example, even though we have some qualitative insight how the Hubble sequence has formed, we are still unable to account in detail for the mix of morphologies at different redshifts. To a lesser extent we still do not have the computing power in order to study the small scale properties for a cosmologically representative sample of galaxies, but the more important factor is likely our rather poor understanding of the astrophysical processes acting on such scales such as star formation, and energetic feedback from supernovae and stellar winds.

Furthermore, a list of findings has surfaced in the past few years that seem to be at odds with the model predictions: (i) Because of their negligible primordial velocity dispersion, cold dark matter particles can achieve enormous phase space densities. As a result, numerical simulations have consistently shown that near the centers of halos the density profiles of virialized CDM halos diverge as $`r^1`$ (Navarro, Frenk & White 1996) or perhaps even as steeply as $`r^{3/2}`$ (Moore et al. 1999a). These divergent profiles are at odds with the usual interpretation given to the “solid-body” HI rotation curves reported for some low surface brightness (LSB) dwarf galaxies (Flores and Primack 1994, Moore 1994). (ii) Another generic prediction of CDM models is that virialized galactic halos will typically be triaxial and have dense cores. Yet in a number of galaxies where detailed stellar and gas dynamical observations are possible, the dark matter contribution within the optical radius appears to be rather small: many disks, perhaps including the Milky Way, are “maximal” (see, e.g., Debattista & Selwood 1999). (iii) High resolution N-body simulations indicate that, if the dark halo of our own Milky Way is made up of CDM, it should contain several hundred dark matter sub-condensations; a number that climbs to roughly one thousand if all halos within the Local Group are considered (Klypin et al. 1999, Moore et al. 1999b). On the other hand, observations of the Milky Way surroundings and of the Local Group reveal an order of magnitude fewer galaxies than expected in this picture (Mateo 1998). (iv) A difficulty indirectly related to the substructure problem concerns the angular momentum of gaseous disks assembled in hierarchical clustering scenarios. In the absence of heating, most of the mass of a galactic disk forming within a CDM halo is accreted through mergers of proto galaxies whose own gas components have previously collapsed to form centrifugally supported disks. Numerical simulations (Navarro & Benz 1991, Navarro, Frenk & White 1995, Navarro & Steinmetz 1997) show that most of the angular momentum of the gas is transferred to the surrounding halos during mergers. As a result, the spin of gaseous disks formed by hierarchical mergers is much lower than those of observed spirals.

It should be clear from this list that a considerable concerted effort is required by the community in order to promote our cosmological concordance model to a concordance model of galaxy formation. Considering the complexity of the processes involved, progress is likely to continue to be drive by observations.

## 3. Where did we come from ?

Before speculating what the state of the field may be like in 10–15 years, it may be illustrative to reconsider how the current state described above compares to the state of the field 10–15 years ago, i.e. before the advent of the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based 8m class telescopes. Cosmological parameters were only very poorly constrained, the Hubble constant was known to only within a factor of 2, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ at best to within a factor of ten. Hierarchical clustering in the form of a $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$ CDM model was already favored by most theorists, but it was certainly not accepted within the larger community as it is today. Similar statements can be made concerning the more basic concept that the morphological type of a galaxy may primarily reflect its merging history. From the observational side, barring some episodic evidence of very high redshift objects (radio galaxies, QSOs) and some indirect evidence for evolution (e.g. Butcher-Oemler effect), whose relationship to regular galaxies was quite unclear, galaxy properties were mainly determined only at very low redshift. In fact, most galaxy models did not, or if so only very schematically, include a cosmological context. Similarly, galaxy populations were mainly discussed in terms of non-evolution vs passive evolution models. It should be clear from this listing how rapidly the field of galaxy formation has changed in the past decade.

## 4. Prospects

Considering this rapid progress it seems (and probably is) impossible to make sound predictions how the field may change over the next ten or even fifteen years. Nevertheless, the exercise may be entertaining especially if one comes back for an evaluation after ten years. Assuming that the field continues to progress at the same pace and that basic concepts (like $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM as a cosmological concordance model) remain unchanged, the following list appears to be “fair bets”:

* Microwave background experiments, in particular satellite missions like MAP and PLANCK, will accurately determine the cosmological parameters. Extragalactic astronomy will therefore be dominated by the quest to understand the formation and evolution of galaxies and the astrophysics behind it, and will no longer be just a tool to measure cosmological parameters.
* The Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST) will provide us with a look at the so-called dark ages of the universe, i.e. the universe at redshift larger than six. Furthermore, NGST will allow us to study the evolution of the stellar component between redshift 3 and 1, the epoch in which galaxies appear to have developed from some irregular bright clumps into the Hubble sequence.
* Astrometric missions like GAIA will provide a detailed dynamical and chemical record of how the Milky Way has been built up and how it transformed its gas into stars.
* In ground-based astronomy, the second generation of instrumentation on 8m-class telescopes will be routinely used, and (from an optimist’s point of view) first data may already come in from 30m optical telescopes.
* Galaxy formation models will largely benefit from the increase in computing power. According to Moore’s law, the speed of computers doubles every 18 month. If this trend continues to hold, then standard PCs in 15 years will have a speed comparable to the largest supercomputers today. By then numerical simulation should be capable of simulating cosmologically representative volumes (a few hundred Mpc) of the universe at a resolution better than a kpc. The understanding of astrophysics rather than the availability of sufficient CPU power will limit our insight into the details of the galaxy formation process.

What will be the role of a 8m optical/UV space telescope in this framework ? Two potential applications that depend critically on the availability of large UV-sensitive instruments are:

* Observe the development of the Hubble sequence. Deep high-resolution imaging of UV dropout galaxies between redshift 3 and 1 will unravel the building blocks of typical L galaxies at the present day epoch. Furthermore the transition from clumps at $`z3`$ to Hubble-type galaxies at $`z1`$ can be observed. By low-resolution spectroscopy, the kinematics and thus the development of scaling relations like the fundamental plane or the Tully-Fisher relation can be investigated.
* Create a 3D-map of the baryons in the universe between z=3 and z=0. Using fainter QSOs (as obtained, e.g., by the Sloan Survey) as background sources, several patches of the night sky can be probed by many lines-of-sight. High-resolution spectroscopy of these background sources will map out the distribution of baryons in the IGM and eventually provide detailed 3D maps of the gas density, temperature, metallicity and ionization state. The current paradigm that galaxies preferentially form at the intersections of filaments in the cosmic web can be directly probed. Studies of the transverse proximity effect measure in detail the evolution of the cosmic UV background and thus on the reionziation history of the universe. Furthermore they can constrain the amount of beaming in the UV flux of QSOs.

Should these developments be accompanied by a corresponding increase in our understanding of how stars form, how they release energy to the ISM and thus how star formation interacts with the evolution of galaxies, we may indeed make a major step toward a standard model of galaxy formation by 2020.


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# FERMILAB-Conf-02/181-E UASLP-IF-02-007 SELEX RICH Performance and Physics ResultsContributed talk at the Fourth Workshop on RICH Detectors, June 5-10, 2002, Pylos, Greece. To be published in NIMA.

## 1 Introduction

The Fermilab experiment E781 (SELEX): A Segmented Large $`x_F`$ Baryon Spectrometer , which took data in the 1996/97 fixed target run at Fermilab, is designed to perform high statistics studies of production mechanisms and decay physics of charmed and charmed-strange baryons such as $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_c`$, $`\mathrm{\Xi }_c`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_c`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c`$. The physics goals of the experiment require good charged particle identification to look for the different baryon decay modes. One must be able to separate $`\pi `$, $`K`$ and $`p`$ over a wide momentum range when looking for charmed baryon decays like $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+pK^{}\pi ^+`$.

A RICH detector with a 2848 phototube photocathode array has been constructed  to do this. The detector begins about $`16\text{m}`$ downstream of the charm production target, with two analysis magnets with $`800\text{MeV/c}`$ $`p_t`$-kick each in-between, and is surrounded by multi-wire proportional and drift chambers which provide particle tracking. The average number of tracks reaching the RICH is about 5 per event. First results from this detector can be found in . A detailed description of the detector itself is given in .

In this article we first describe shortly the main parts of the detector (vessel, mirrors, photon detector), after this we will review its stability during the run and performance for physics analyses. Finally we report about physics results obtained with the help of the RICH up to now.

## 2 Description of the detector

A detailed description can be found in . Here we will repeat the main features only. The SELEX RICH detector consists of a $`10.22\text{m}`$ long vessel with $`93\text{in. }`$diameter, filled with pure Neon at atmospheric pressure. After initial filling to a slight ($`1\text{psi}`$) overpressure, the vessel was perfectly tight for a period of more than 15 months.

At the end of the vessel an array of 16 hexagonal spherical mirrors is mounted on a low-mass hex-panel with 3-point mounts to form a sphere of $`19.8\text{m}`$ radius. Each mirror is $`10\text{mm}`$ thick, made out of low-expansion class, and has a reflectivity $`>85\text{\%}`$ at $`160\text{nm}`$. Before evaporating, the quality of every mirror was measured .

The phototube matrix at the focal plane consists of 2848 $`1/2\text{in. }`$photomultipliers in a hexagonal closed packed matrix of 89 columns in 32 rows. One column of 32 phototubes is connected to one common high voltage. In the center part, alternating columns of Hamamatsu R760 and FEU60 tubes are employed, and in the outer part only FEU60 tubes are used. Every phototube is connected to a preamplifier-discriminator-ECL driver hybrid chip, and the readout of the signals is performed with a standard wire-chamber electronics  with $`170\text{nsec}`$ integration time.

The whole vessel is tilted by $`2.4^{}`$ so particles are not passing through the phototubes.

## 3 Performance of detector

The detector performance over the 15 month running period was very stable.

In the central region (mixed R760 and FEU60) we observed on average 13.6 photons for a $`\beta =1`$ particle, corresponding to a figure of merit  $`N_0=104\text{cm}^1`$, and in the outside (only FEU60) we obtained $`N_0=70\text{cm}^1`$.

The refractive index, measured in several different ways, was stable to better than $`0.6\text{\%}`$, which would change the ring radius at $`\beta =1`$ by less than $`10\text{\%}`$ of its resolution.

The single photon resolution was estimated to be $`5.5\text{mm}`$, with the biggest contribution coming from the size of the phototubes. The ring radius resolution for the typical multitrack environment was measured at $`1.56\text{mm}`$.

In fig. 1 we show the distribution of ring radii for single track events, where one can identify eight particles and eight anti-particles, demonstrating the huge dynamic range of this detector. With the same dataset we measured the noise of the detector, by counting the number of hits not assigned to a ring, taking into account the integration time of the readout electronics.

The result is shown in fig. 2, for the two different types of phototubes used. For beam-off events we observed on average 6 hits.

For particle identification, we calculate likelihoods for different particle hypotheses , using information from the tracking system. With the help of kinematically reconstructed signals we measure the identification efficiency for different cuts. For protons (using $`\mathrm{\Lambda }p\pi ^{}`$ decays) in the momentum range $`100\text{GeV}/c<p_p<200\text{GeV}/c`$, the identification efficiency is around $`98\text{\%}`$, and even below proton threshold ($`90\text{GeV}/c`$), the efficiency is above $`90\text{\%}`$ , with a mis-identification rate of a few percent, which can be attributed to tracking errors. The same is true for kaons .

Pions from charm decays have usually lower momenta than other decay products; for that reason in SELEX we accept as pions in charm analysis also tracks which do not reach the RICH. Should the track be within the RICH acceptance, we require the ratio of the likelihood of that track to be a pion to all other particles to be $`0.1`$. In fig. 3 we show that the identification efficiency is above $`90\text{\%}`$ without a sharp turn-on.

## 4 Physics Results

SELEX submitted first publications in 1999, after first reports at conferences in 1998. To date SELEX has published seven papers and two more are submitted. Some papers on mesons and hyperons do not use the RICH in their analyses , but for charm physics the RICH proved to be essential in the analysis, reducing the background significantly but still having high efficiency.

SELEX published measurements of the $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^+`$  and $`D_s^\pm `$  lifetimes, where the RICH was essential in suppressing reflection below the mass peak stemming from mis-identified daughter particles.

The measurement of production properties of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_c^\pm `$  with 4 different beam particles ($`\mathrm{\Sigma }^{}`$, $`\pi ^{}`$, $`p`$, $`\pi ^+`$) also benefitted largely from the RICH. More hadroproduction results for $`D^0`$, $`D^\pm `$, and $`D_s^\pm `$ are in preparation .

SELEX also observed for the first time a Cabbibo suppressed decay mode of a charmed strange baryon, the $`\mathrm{\Xi }_c^+pK^{}\pi ^+`$ .

Just recently, SELEX reported on the first observation of doubly-charmed baryons .

## 5 Summary and Outlook

The RICH detector is an essential part of the physics analysis in SELEX, due to its high efficiency and large dynamic range. It fulfilled all the design criteria.

With seven papers already published plus two submitted, the collaboration is preparing at this moment several more publications to be submitted in the near future. After a first pass over all data taken ($`1510^9`$ interactions, $`10^9`$ events on tape) in 1998/9, from which all of the publications to date were obtained, we finished a second pass with improved reconstruction software in 2001. The analysis of these data is just starting and many more results are expected.

## Acknowledgments

The authors are greatful for stimulating discussions with the SELEX collaboration members. They wish to thank the technical staff of their Institutes for their support. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy under contract NO. DE-AC02-76CHO3000, the Russian Ministry of Science and Technology, and Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (Mexico).