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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The two-dimensional string theory has proven to be a model possessing a very rich structure . It allows to address various questions inaccessible in higher dimensional string theories as well as it appears as an equivalent description of topological strings and supersymmetric gauge theories . Perhaps, its main feature is the integrability. Many problems formulated in its framework, such as calculation of $`S`$-matrix, were found to be exactly solvable.

However, this integrability is hidden in the usual CFT formulation and becomes explicit only when one uses a matrix model description of string theory. In this case the model, one has to consider, is the Matrix Quantum Mechanics (MQM) . It was successfully used to describe 2D string theory in the simplest linear dilaton background as well as to incorporate perturbations. In two dimensions there are basically two types of possible perturbations: tachyon and winding modes. The former always present in the theory as momentum modes of a massless field which, following tradition, is called “tachyon”. The latter appear when one considers Euclidean theory compactified on a time circle.

There are two ways to change the background of string theory: either to consider strings propagating in a non-trivial target space or to introduce the perturbations mentioned above. In the first case one arrives at a complicated sigma-model. Not many examples are known when such a model turns out to be solvable. Besides, it is extremely difficult to construct a matrix model realization of a general sigma-model since not much known about matrix operators explicitly perturbing the metric of the target space. Thus, we lose the possibility to use the powerful matrix model machinery to tackle our problems.

On the other hand, following the second way, we find that the integrability of the theory in the trivial background is preserved by the perturbations. Namely, when we restrict our attention only to windings or to tachyons with discrete momenta, they are described by Toda integrable hierarchy . Therefore, the backgrounds of string theory obtained by these perturbations represent a good laboratory for investigation of different problems.

One of the such interesting problems is the black hole thermodynamics. As it is well known, 2D string theory possesses an exact background which incorporates the black hole singularity . From the target space point of view, it is described just by one of the dilaton models, the so-called CHGS model . Its thermodynamical properties have been extensively studied (see, for example, the review on dilaton models ). However, to achieve the microscopical statistical description, one should deal with the full string theory so that one has to obtain the complete solution of the corresponding sigma-model.

Fortunately, there exists an alternative description of string theory in this background. It has been conjectured that the black hole background can be created also by introduction of the winding modes . Moreover, a matrix model incorporating these perturbations has been proposed . Thus, we get a possibility to describe dynamics of string theory in non-trivial backgrounds using the usual perturbations of MQM.

In this paper we consider tachyon perturbations of 2D string theory which are T-dual to perturbations by winding modes. We saw that the latter are supposed to create curvature of the target space. Do tachyon perturbations can also change the structure of the target space? The paper is devoted to addressing this question.

First of all, we explain why we study tachyon and not winding perturbations, whereas these are the windings that have the most interesting physical applications like the physics of black holes. The main reason is that it is much easier to study the tachyon modes from the MQM point of view. In this case we have a powerful description in terms of free fermions on the one hand  and the Das–Jevicki collective field theory on the other . The latter has a direct target space interpretation what allows to identify matrix model quantities with characteristics of the string background. However, this description is absent when the winding modes are included what is possibly related to the absence of a local target space interpretation of windings.

Tachyon modes do have such local interpretation and, therefore, the background, which they create, is characterized simply by a (time-dependent) condensate of these modes. However, we are looking for another description which would be dual to the one with the tachyon condensate. We expect it to be similar to the dual description of the winding perturbations, that is it should replace the time-dependent tachyon condensate by a change of the structure of the target space.

As one of justifications of why such dual description should exist, we mention that it has been shown that the tachyon perturbations lead to a finite temperature as if we had a black hole . In fact, to give rise a temperature, it is not necessary for the target space to contain a black hole singularity. The thermal description can arise in very different situations including flat spacetimes, but in any case it should be different from the usual Minkowski space .

In this paper we show that comparison of the Das–Jevicki collective theory with the low-energy effective action for the string background leads to the picture we sketched above. Instead of the tachyon condensate we get the target space with a non-trivial global structure. Non-triviality can appear either as boundaries or as a compactification. Locally spacetime remains the same as it was before the perturbation.

The paper is organized as follows. In the next section we briefly review 2D string theory in the CFT formulation. In section 3 the Das–Jevicki collective field theory for the singlet sector of MQM is analyzed. We derive an effective action for the quantum correction to the eigenvalue density of MQM. In section 4 this correction and its action are identified with the tachyon field of string theory and the low-energy effective action for the string background, correspondingly. The identification imposes a condition which leaves us with the linear dilaton background. However, there is still a freedom to have a non-trivial global structure which is investigated in section 5. The case of the simplest Sine–Liouville perturbation is considered in detail.

## 2 Tachyon and winding modes in 2D Euclidean string theory

2D string theory is defined by the Polyakov action

$$S_\mathrm{P}=\frac{1}{4\pi }d^2\sigma \sqrt{h}[h^{ab}_aX_bX+\mu ],$$
(2.1)
where the bosonic field $`X(\sigma )`$ describes the embedding of the string into the Euclidean time dimension and $`h^{ab}`$ is a world sheet metric. In the conformal gauge $`h^{ab}=e^{\varphi (\sigma )}\widehat{h}^{ab}`$, where $`\widehat{h}^{ab}`$ is a background metric, the conformal mode $`\varphi `$ becomes dynamical due to the conformal anomaly and the world-sheet CFT action takes the familiar Liouville form

$$S_0=\frac{1}{4\pi }d^2\sigma [(X)^2+(\varphi )^22\widehat{}\varphi +\mu e^{2\varphi }+\mathrm{ghosts}].$$
(2.2)
This action is known to describe the unperturbed linear dilaton string background corresponding to the flat 2D target space parameterized by the coordinates $`(X,\varphi )`$ .

In two dimensions string theory possesses only one field-theoretic degree of freedom, which is called “tachyon” since it corresponds to the tachyon mode of the bosonic string in 26 dimensions. However, in the present case it is massless. The vertex operators for the tachyons of momentum $`p`$ are written as

$$V_p=\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(|p|)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(|p|)}d^2\sigma e^{ipX}e^{(|p|2)\varphi }.$$
(2.3)
If we consider the Euclidean theory compactified to a time circle of radius $`R`$, the momentum is allowed to take only discrete values $`p_n=n/R`$, $`n𝐙`$. In this case there are also winding modes of the string around the compactified dimension which also have a representation in the CFT (2.2) as vortex operators $`\stackrel{~}{V}_q`$.

Both tachyons and windings can be used to perturb the simplest theory (2.2)

$$S=S_0+\underset{n0}{}(t_nV_n+\stackrel{~}{t}_n\stackrel{~}{V}_n).$$
(2.4)
How do these perturbations look from the target space point of view? The presence of non-vanishing couplings $`t_n`$ (together with the cosmological constant $`\mu `$) means that we consider a string propagation in the background with a non-trivial vacuum expectation value of the tachyon. In particular, the introduction of momentum modes makes it to be time-dependent. On the other hand, the winding modes, which are defined in terms of the T-dual world sheet field $`\stackrel{~}{X}=X_RX_L`$, where $`X_R`$ and $`X_L`$ are the right and left-moving components of the initial field $`X(\sigma )`$, have no obvious interpretation in terms of massless background fields. Since windings are related to global properties of strings, they should correspond to some non-local quantities in the low-energy limit. Their condensation can result in change of the background we started with.

A particular proposal for the structure of the resulting background has been made for the simplest case of $`\stackrel{~}{t}_{\pm 1}0`$ . The CFT with the lowest winding perturbation has been conjectured to be dual to the WZW $`\mathrm{SL}(2,𝐑)/\mathrm{U}(1)`$ sigma-model, which describes the 2D string theory on the black hole background . In  it was suggested that any perturbation of type (2.4) should have a dual description as string theory in some non-trivial background, which is determined by the two sets of couplings $`t_n`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{t}_n`$. Thus, not only for winding, but also for tachyon perturbations we expect to find such a description.

Note, that the two sets of perturbations are related by T-duality on the world sheet . However, this does not mean that the corresponding string backgrounds should be the same. This is because the momentum and winding modes have different target space interpretations and it is not clear how to carry over this T-duality from the world sheet to the target space.

## 3 Das–Jevicki collective field theory

The 2D string theory can be described using Matrix Quantum Mechanics in the double scaling limit (for review see). The matrix model Lagrangian corresponding to the unperturbed CFT (2.2) is

$$L=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{Tr}\left(\dot{M}^2u(M)\right),$$
(3.1)
where $`u(M)=\frac{1}{2}M^2`$ is the inverse oscillator potential. It is known also how to introduce tachyons and windings into this model . In the following we restrict ourselves to the tachyon perturbations. In this case it is enough to consider only the singlet sector of MQM, where the wave function is a completely antisymmetric function of the matrix eigenvalues $`x_i`$. Due to this the system has an equivalent description in terms of free fermions in the potential $`u(M)`$.

The fermionic description is very powerful and allows to calculate many interesting quantities in the theory. However, to make contact with the target space description of string theory, another representation has proven to be quite useful. It is obtained by a bosonization procedure and leads to a collective field theory developed by Das and Jevicki . The role of the collective field is played by the density of matrix eigenvalues

$$\phi (x,t)=\mathrm{Tr}\delta \left(xM(t)\right).$$
(3.2)
If to introduce the conjugated field $`\mathrm{\Pi }(x)`$ such that

$$\{\phi (x),\mathrm{\Pi }(y)\}=\delta (x,y),$$
(3.3)
the effective action for the collective theory is written as

$`S_{\mathrm{coll}}`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑t\left[𝑑x\left(\mathrm{\Pi }_t\phi \right)H_{\mathrm{coll}}\right]},`$ (3.4)
$`\mathrm{where}H_{\mathrm{coll}}`$ $`={\displaystyle 𝑑x\left(\frac{1}{2}\phi (_x\mathrm{\Pi })^2+\frac{\pi ^2}{6}\phi ^3+(u(x)+\mu )\phi \right)}`$
and we added the chemical potential $`\mu `$ to the action. The classical equations of motion read

$`_x\mathrm{\Pi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\phi }}{\displaystyle 𝑑x_t\phi },`$ (3.5)
$`_t\mathrm{\Pi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(_x\mathrm{\Pi })^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\pi ^2}{2}}\phi ^2+(u(x)+\mu ).`$ (3.6)
Due to the first equation one can exclude the momenta and pass to the Lagrangian form of the action

$$S_{\mathrm{coll}}=𝑑t𝑑x\left(\frac{1}{2\phi }\left(𝑑x_t\phi \right)^2\frac{\pi ^2}{6}\phi ^3(u(x)+\mu )\phi \right)$$
(3.7)
with the following equation for the classical field

$$_t\left(\frac{𝑑x_t\phi }{\phi }\right)=\frac{1}{2}_x\left(\frac{𝑑x_t\phi }{\phi }\right)^2+\frac{\pi ^2}{2}_x\phi ^2+_xu(x).$$
(3.8)
Let us consider a function $`\frac{1}{\pi }\phi _0(x,t)`$, which is a solution of the classical equation of motion (3.8). We expand the collective field around the background given by this solution

$$\phi (x,t)=\frac{1}{\pi }\phi _0(x,t)+\frac{1}{\sqrt{\pi }}_x\eta (x,t).$$
(3.9)
The action takes the form

$$S_{\mathrm{coll}}=S_{(0)}+S_{(1)}+S_{(2)}+\mathrm{},$$
(3.10)
where $`S_{(0)}`$ is a constant, $`S_{(1)}`$ vanishes due to the equation (3.8), and $`S_{(2)}`$ is given by

$$S_{(2)}=\frac{1}{2}𝑑t\frac{dx}{\phi _0}\left[(_t\eta )^22\frac{𝑑x_t\phi _0}{\phi _0}_t\eta _x\eta \left(\phi _0^2\left(\frac{𝑑x_t\phi _0}{\phi _0}\right)^2\right)(_x\eta )^2\right].$$
(3.11)
We want to use the quadratic part of the action to extract information about the background of string theory corresponding to the solution $`\phi _0(x,t)`$. For that we will identify the quantum correction $`\eta `$ with the tachyon field and interpret (3.11) as the kinetic term for the tachyon in the low-energy string effective action. Therefore, we will need the properties of the matrix standing in front of derivatives of $`\eta `$. The crucial property is that for any $`\phi _0`$ its determinant is equal to $`1`$. As a result, the action can be represented in the following form

$$S_{(2)}=\frac{1}{2}𝑑t𝑑x\sqrt{g}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \eta _\nu \eta .$$
(3.12)
In a more general case we would have to introduce a dilaton dependent factor coupled with the kinetic term.

The action (3.12) is conformal invariant. Therefore, one can always choose coordinates where the metric takes the usual Minkowski form $`\eta _{\mu \nu }=\mathrm{diag}(1,1)`$. Unfortunately, we do not know the explicit form of this transformation for arbitrary solution $`\phi _0`$. Note, however, that one can bring the metric to another standard form which is of the Schwarzschild type. Indeed, it is easy to check that if one changes the $`x`$ coordinate to

$$y(x,t)=\phi _0(x,t)𝑑x,$$
(3.13)
the metric becomes

$$g_{\mu \nu }=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\phi _0^2& 0\\ 0& \phi _0^2\end{array}\right).$$
(3.14)
## 4 Low-energy effective action and background of 2D string theory

Now we turn to the string theory side of the problem. In a general background the string theory is defined by the following $`\sigma `$-model action

$$S_\sigma =\frac{1}{4\pi \alpha ^{}}d^2\sigma \sqrt{h}\left[G_{\mu \nu }(X)h^{ab}_aX^\mu _bX^\nu +\alpha ^{}\widehat{}\mathrm{\Phi }(X)+T(X)\right],$$
(4.1)
where $`X(\sigma )`$ is a two-dimensional field on the world sheet. As it is well known the condition that the conformal invariance of this theory is unbroken reduces to some equations on the background fields: target space metric $`G_{\mu \nu }`$, dilaton $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and tachyon $`T`$. These equations can be obtained from the effective action which in the leading order in $`\alpha ^{}`$ is given by

$$S_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{1}{2}d^2X\sqrt{G}e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }}\left[\frac{16}{\alpha ^{}}+R+4(\mathrm{\Phi })^2(T)^2+\frac{4}{\alpha ^{}}T^2\right].$$
(4.2)
Here the covariant derivative $`_\mu `$ is defined with respect to the metric $`G_{\mu \nu }`$ and $`R`$ is its curvature. The first term comes from the central charge and in $`D`$ dimensions looks as $`\frac{2(26D)}{3\alpha ^{}}`$ disappearing in the critical case. The equations of motion following from the action (4.2) are equivalent to

$`\beta _{\mu \nu }^G`$ $`=`$ $`R_{\mu \nu }+2_\mu _\nu \mathrm{\Phi }_\mu T_\nu T=0,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\alpha ^{}}}\beta ^\mathrm{\Phi }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{16}{\alpha ^{}}}R+4(\mathrm{\Phi })^24^2\mathrm{\Phi }+(T)^2{\displaystyle \frac{4}{\alpha ^{}}}T^2=0,`$ (4.3)
$`\beta ^T`$ $`=`$ $`2^2T+4\mathrm{\Phi }T{\displaystyle \frac{8}{\alpha ^{}}}T=0.`$
Let us concentrate on the tachyonic part of the action (4.2). We want to relate it to the action (3.12) for the collective theory obtained form Matrix Quantum Mechanics. In particular, the tachyon field $`T`$ and quantum fluctuation of density $`\eta `$ should be correctly identified with each other. We see that the main difference between (4.2) and (3.12) is the presence of the dilaton dependent factor $`e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }}`$. To remove this factor, we redefine the tachyon as $`T=e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta `$. Then the part of the action quadratic in the tachyon field reads

$$S_{\mathrm{tach}}=\frac{1}{2}d^2X\sqrt{G}\left[(\eta )^2+m_\eta ^2\eta ^2\right],$$
(4.4)
where

$$m_\eta ^2=(\mathrm{\Phi })^2^2\mathrm{\Phi }4\alpha ^1.$$
(4.5)
We denoted the new tachyon by the same letter as the matrix model field since they should be identical. However, comparing two actions (4.4) and (3.12), we see that for this identification to be true, one must require the vanishing of the tachyonic mass

$$m_\eta ^2=0.$$
(4.6)
This equation plays the role of an additional condition for the equations of motion (4.3) and allows to select the unique solution. It is easy to check that the linear dilaton background

$$G_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu },\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1,\eta =0$$
(4.7)
satisfies all these equations. Besides, we argue that it is the unique solution of the equations (4.3) and (4.6). It means that for any solution of MQM restricted to the singlet sector we always get the simplest linear dilaton background. Since the theory (4.2) is a model of two-dimensional dilaton gravity with non-minimal coupled scalar field, it is not exactly solvable . Therefore, we are not able to prove our statement rigorously. However, in Appendix A we show that there are no solutions which can be represented as an expansion around the linear dilaton background (4.7).111Of course, this result is valid only for the equations of motion obtained in the leading order in $`\alpha ^{}`$. For example, the background described by the CFT (2.2) or even (2.4) with $`\stackrel{~}{t}_n=0`$ corresponds to the linear dilaton background with a non-vanishing tachyon field. Such background does not satisfy the equations (4.3). However, it was suggested that it satisfies the exact equations which include all corrections in $`\alpha ^{}`$ . We are interested in the existence of a dual description where the non-vanishing tachyon vacuum transforms into expectation values of other fields. Our results show that the curvature of the target space and the dilaton can not be changed in the leading order in $`\alpha ^{}`$.

Thus, any tachyon perturbation can not modify the local structure of spacetime. However, the found solution does not forbid modifications of the global structure. There are, in principle, two possibilities to change it. Either something can happen with the topology, for example, a spontaneous compactification, or there can appear boundaries. We argue that just these possibilities are indeed realized in our case.

To understand why this can happen, note that in the initial coordinates $`(t,x)`$ of MQM the metric is non-trivial, although flat. We can represent it as

$$G_{\mu \nu }=e^{2\rho }g_{\mu \nu },$$
(4.8)
where $`g_{\mu \nu }`$ is the matrix coupled with the derivatives of $`\eta `$ in (3.11), whose determinant equals $`1`$. It takes the usual form $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$ only after a coordinate transformation. Under this transformation, the image of the $`(t,x)`$-plane is, in general, not the whole plane, but some its subspace. Depending on boundary conditions, it will give rise either to a compactification, or to the appearance of boundaries.

## 5 Target space of string theory with integrable tachyon perturbations

In this section we analyze the structure of the target space of 2D string theory in the presence of tachyon perturbations with discrete momenta. Such perturbations correspond to the admissible perturbations of the Euclidean theory described in section 2. Nevertheless, our analysis is carried out in spacetime of the Minkowskian signature.

The case, we consider here, was shown to be exactly integrable and described by Toda Lattice hierarchy . Therefore, it is possible to find explicitly the classical solution $`\phi _0`$, playing the role of the background field in the Das–Jevicki collective theory. Moreover, as we will show, the integrability manifests itself at the next steps of the derivation, what allows to complete the analysis of this case.

### 5.1 Background field from matrix model solution

First, we show how the classical solution $`\phi _0`$ determining the string background can be extracted from MQM. As it was noted, it represents the density of eigenvalues. The latter is most easily found from the exact form of the Fermi sea formed by fermions of the MQM singlet sector. To see how this works, let us introduce the left and right moving chiral fields :

$$p_\pm (x,t)=_x\mathrm{\Pi }\pm \pi \phi (x,t).$$
(5.1)
They have the following Poisson brackets

$$\{p_\pm (x),p_\pm (y)\}=\pm 2\pi _x\delta (xy)$$
(5.2)
and bring the Hamiltonian to the form

$$H_{\mathrm{coll}}=\frac{dx}{2\pi }\left(\frac{1}{6}(p_+^3p_{}^3)+(u(x)+\mu )(p_+p_{})\right).$$
(5.3)
Using (5.2), it is easy to show that they should satisfy the Hopf equation

$$_tp_\pm +p_\pm _xp_\pm +_xu(x)=0.$$
(5.4)
This equation is of integrable type and much easier to solve than eq. (3.8). The key observation, which establishes the contact with MQM, is that in the quasiclassical limit $`p_\pm (x,t)`$ determine the upper and lower boundaries of the Fermi sea in the phase space. Then the density is given by their difference what agrees with the definition (5.1).

For general integrable tachyon perturbations, the solution for the profile of the Fermi sea has been found in . If we introduce the sources for tachyons with momenta $`p_k=k/R`$, $`k=1,\mathrm{},n`$, it can be represented in the following parametric form

$$\begin{array}{ccc}\hfill p(\omega ,t)& =& \underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}a_k\mathrm{sinh}\left[\left(1\frac{k}{R}\right)\omega +\frac{k}{R}t+\alpha _k\right],\hfill \\ \hfill x(\omega ,t)& =& \underset{k=0}{\overset{n}{}}a_k\mathrm{cosh}\left[\left(1\frac{k}{R}\right)\omega +\frac{k}{R}t+\alpha _k\right].\hfill \end{array}$$
(5.5)
Here $`a_k`$ are coefficients which can be found in terms of the coupling constants $`t_k`$ of the tachyon operators and the chemical potential $`\mu `$ which fixes the Fermi level. Actually, they depend only on $`\mu `$ and the products $`\lambda _k^2=t_kt_k`$. Instead, the “phases” $`\alpha _k`$ are determined by ratios of the coupling constants. (Two of them can be excluded by constant shifts of $`\omega `$ and $`t`$.) It is easy to check that $`p(x,t)`$ indeed satisfies (5.4) with $`u(x)=\frac{1}{2}x^2`$.

To get from this solution $`\phi _0`$, note that $`p(x)`$ is a two-valued function so that $`p_\pm (x)`$ can be identified with its two branches. As functions of $`\omega `$ they appear as follows. Let us define a ”mirror” parameter $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }(\omega ,t)`$ such that (see fig. 1)

$$x(\stackrel{~}{\omega }(\omega ,t),t)=x(\omega ,t),\stackrel{~}{\omega }\omega .$$
(5.6)
Then $`p_+`$ can be identified with $`p`$ and $`p_{}`$ with $`p(\stackrel{~}{\omega }(\omega ,t),t)`$. The solution for the background field is given again in the parametric form

$$\phi _0(\omega ,t)=\frac{1}{2}(p(\omega ,t)\stackrel{~}{p}(\omega ,t)),$$
(5.7)
where we denoted $`\stackrel{~}{p}(\omega ,t)=p(\stackrel{~}{\omega }(\omega ,t),t)`$ and $`\omega `$ is related to $`x`$ by eq. (5.5). Due to (3.5), (5.1) and (5.7), the effective action (3.11) can now be rewritten as

$$S_{(2)}=𝑑t\frac{dx}{p\stackrel{~}{p}}\left[(_t\eta )^2+(p+\stackrel{~}{p})_t\eta _x\eta +p\stackrel{~}{p}(_x\eta )^2\right].$$
(5.8)
### 5.2 Flat coordinates

We know from section 4 that any background described by the Das-Jevicki effective action leads to the flat target space metric. However, as we discussed above, the global structure of the target space can differ from that of the usual Minkowski space. To find whether this is the case, one should investigate the coordinate transformation mapping the target space metric into the standard form $`\eta _{\mu \nu }`$.

In general, it is quite a difficult problem to find such a map explicitly. Remarkably, in our case given by the solution (5.5), this task can be accomplished. Indeed, we show in Appendix B that the change of coordinates from $`(t,x)`$ to $`(\tau ,q)`$ with

$$\tau =t\frac{\omega +\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{2},q=\frac{\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }}{2}$$
(5.9)
brings the action (5.8) to the standard form

$$S_{(2)}=\pm \frac{1}{2}𝑑\tau 𝑑q\left[(_\tau \eta )^2(_q\eta )^2\right],$$
(5.10)
where the sign is determined by the sign of the Jacobian of the coordinate transformation (5.9). The Jacobian is defined by the function $`D`$ in (B.2) and can be represented in the form

$$2D=\frac{2(p\xi )(\stackrel{~}{p}\stackrel{~}{x}_t)}{\stackrel{~}{p}p},$$
(5.11)
where $`\xi _tx(\omega ,t)`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{x}_t\xi (\stackrel{~}{\omega },t)`$ given explicitly in (B.4).

The zeros of the Jacobian show where the map (5.9) is degenerate. All multipliers in (5.11) vanish at the line defined by the condition $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }(\omega ,t)=\omega `$ or $`x/\omega =0`$, which corresponds to the most left point of the Fermi sea where two branches of $`p(x)`$ meet each other (see fig. 1). In terms of the flat coordinates (5.9), this line is given in the following parametric form

$$\tau =t\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}(t),q=0,$$
(5.12)
where $`\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}(t)`$ is a solution of the above condition. Also it defines the limiting value of the coordinate $`x`$, which should always be larger than $`x_{\mathrm{sing}}(t)=x(\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}(t),t)`$. However, the spacetime can be analytically continued through this line. This analytical continuation corresponds to that in all integrals $`x`$ should run from $`\mathrm{}`$ to $`x_{\mathrm{sing}}`$ and return back with simultaneous interchanging the roles of $`p`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{p}`$. This shows that it is more natural to consider the plane of $`(t,\omega )`$ as the starting point rather than $`(t,x)`$. The former is a two-sheet cover of the physical region of the latter. $`\omega `$ appears as a parameter along fermionic trajectories and it should not be restricted to a half-line. Thus, we incorporate the whole scattering picture and glue two copies of the resulting flat spacetime together along the line (5.12).

Unfortunately, there is an ambiguity in the choice of coordinates where the action has the form (5.10). Any conformal change of variables (5.9)

$$(\tau ,q)(u(t\omega ),v(t\stackrel{~}{\omega }))$$
(5.13)
leaves the action unchanged. Due to this we can find the form of the resulting spacetime only up to the conformal map. However, one can reduce the ambiguity imposing some conditions on the map (5.13). First of all, it should be well defined on the subspace which is the image of the $`(t,\omega )`$-plane under the map (5.9), that is the functions $`u`$ and $`v`$ should not have singularities there. The next condition is the triviality of (5.13) in the absence of perturbations since in this limit (5.9) reduces to the well known transformation giving the flat Minkowski space . Besides, we would like to retain the symmetry $`(t,\omega )(t,\omega )`$ which is explicit when there are no phases $`\alpha _k`$ in (5.5). It reflects the fact the our spacetime is glued from two identical copies (see discussion in the previous paragraph). This leads to the condition that $`u`$ and $`v`$ are odd functions.

As a byproduct of our analysis we obtain also the conformal factor $`e^{2\rho }`$ appearing in (4.8). It should be found, in principle, from the condition of vanishing curvature for the metric $`G_{\mu \nu }`$. Instead, we get it as the Jacobian of the transformation to the coordinates where $`G_{\mu \nu }=\eta _{\mu \nu }`$. If $`u`$ and $`v`$ from (5.13) are such coordinates, than $`dtdx\sqrt{G}=dudv`$ and, since $`\sqrt{G}=e^{2\rho }`$, we conclude from (5.11) that

$$e^{2\rho }=\frac{\stackrel{~}{p}p}{2(p\xi )(\stackrel{~}{p}\stackrel{~}{x}_t)}u^{}v^{}.$$
(5.14)
The conformal factor becomes singular on the line (5.12) discussed above. However, this is only a coordinate singularity since it disappears after our coordinate transformation.

### 5.3 Structure of the target space

In this subsection we investigate the concrete form of the target space which is obtained as the image under the coordinate transformation trivializing the metric. From the previous subsection it follows that this transformation is a superposition of the map (5.9) and a conformal change of coordinates (5.13). Since the latter remains unknown, we will analyze only the image of the map (5.9). It will be sufficient to get a general picture because conformal transformations do not change the causal structure of spacetime.

We restrict our analysis to the case of the simplest non-trivial perturbation with $`n=1`$ in (5.5). It corresponds to the conformal Sine-Liouville theory. At $`R=2/3`$ this theory is T-dual to the CFT suggested to describe string theory on the black hole background . We also assume that the coefficients $`a_k`$ in (5.5) are positive what corresponds to the positivity of the coupling constants $`t_{\pm 1}`$. It is the case which was considered in .

To find the image, we investigate the change of coordinates at infinity of the $`(t,\omega )`$ plane which plays the role of the boundary of the initial spacetime. In other words, we want to find where the boundary is mapped to. Thus we assume $`t`$ and $`\omega `$ to be large and look at the dependence of $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ of their ratio. At the asymptotics $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }(\omega ,t)`$ can be easily found, but the answer depends non-continuously on $`t/\omega `$ as well as on the parameter $`R`$. There are several different cases which we summarize in Appendix C.

$`R1`$: From the results presented in Appendix C it follows that in this case the image of the map (5.9) is the entire Minkowski spacetime. Thus, we do not see any effect of the tachyon perturbation on the structure of the target space.

$`1/2<R<1`$: In this case the resulting spacetime looks like two conic regions bounded by lines $`\tau =\pm (2R1)q\pm R\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$ (fig. 2). Near the origin the boundaries are not anymore the straight lines but defined by the solution of the following irrational equation

$$a_0e^{\stackrel{~}{\xi }}+a_1e^{(11/R)\stackrel{~}{\xi }}=a_0e^\xi +a_1e^{(11/R)\xi },\stackrel{~}{\xi }\xi .$$
(5.15)
It allows to represent the boundary in the parametric form

$$\tau =\frac{1}{2}(\xi +\stackrel{~}{\xi }(\xi )),q=\frac{1}{2}(\xi \stackrel{~}{\xi }(\xi )).$$
(5.16)
Two conic regions are glued along some finite interval belonging to the $`\tau `$-axis. It is just that line where the change of coordinates (5.9) is degenerate. We can easily find its length. As it was discussed in the previous subsection, the interval is defined by eq. (5.12). We need to find the limiting value of $`\tau (t)`$ when $`t\mathrm{}`$. In this limit the condition for $`\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}(t)`$ can be written as

$$2\frac{x}{\omega }a_0e^{\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}}+\left(1\frac{1}{R}\right)a_1e^{(1\frac{1}{R})\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}+\frac{1}{R}t}=0\omega _{\mathrm{sing}}(t)=t\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta },$$
(5.17)
where

$$\mathrm{\Delta }=2R\mathrm{log}\left[\frac{R}{1R}\frac{a_0}{a_1}\right].$$
(5.18)
Thus $`\tau (t)\underset{t\mathrm{}}{}\mathrm{\Delta }/2`$ and we conclude that $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is the length we were looking for.

From this result it is easy to understand what happens when we switch off the perturbation. This corresponds to the limit $`a_10`$. Then the interval $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ (the minimal distance between two boundaries) logarithmically diverges and the boundaries go away to infinity. In this way we recover the entire Minkowski space. The similar picture emerges in the limit $`R1`$ when we return to the previous case $`R1`$.

It is interesting to look at the opposite limit where the length $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ vanishes. It happens when $`a_1=\frac{Ra_0}{1R}`$. The parameters are related to the coupling constant $`\lambda =\sqrt{t_1t_1}`$ as follows

$$a_0=\sqrt{2}e^{\frac{1}{2R}\chi },a_1=\sqrt{2}\lambda e^{\frac{R1}{2R^2}\chi },$$
(5.19)
where $`\chi =^2/\mu ^2`$ is the second derivative of the grand canonical free energy. This quantity is defined by the equation

$$\mu e^{\frac{1}{R}\chi }\left(1\frac{1}{R}\right)\lambda ^2e^{\frac{2R1}{R^2}\chi }=1.$$
(5.20)
Taking into account (5.19) and (5.20), the condition of vanishing $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ leads to the following critical point

$$\mu _c=\left(2\frac{1}{R}\right)\left(\frac{1}{R}1\right)^{\frac{1}{2R1}}\lambda ^{\frac{2R}{2R1}}.$$
(5.21)
In  it was shown that at this point the Fermi sea forms a pinch and beyond it the solution for the free energy does not exist anymore. Also this point coincides with the critical point of Hsu and Kutasov , who interpreted it as a critical point of the pure 2D gravity type.

$`R=1/2`$: This case can be analyzed using the result (C.1). We conclude that the spacetime takes the form of a strip bounded by lines $`\tau =\pm \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$ what agrees also with (5.18).

$`R<1/2`$: This interval of values of the parameter $`R`$ was splited in Appendix C into two cases. However, they both lead to the same picture. Moreover, it coincides with one analyzed for $`1/2<R<1`$ and shown in fig. 2. Nevertheless, there is an essential distinction with respect to that case. Using explicit expressions for the new coordinates from Appendix C, it is easy to check that the Jacobian of the transformation (5.9) is negative for $`R<1/2`$. Therefore, one has to choose the minus sign in front of the action in (5.10). Due to this, the time and space coordinates are exchanged, so that $`\tau `$ and $`q`$ are associated with space and time directions, correspondingly. As a result, the picture at fig. 2 should now be rotated by $`90^{}`$.

### 5.4 Boundary conditions and global structure

We found that the introduction of tachyon perturbations in MQM is equivalent to consider string theory in the flat spacetime of the form described in the previous subsection (or its conformal transform). The main feature of this spacetime is the presence of boundaries. Therefore, to define the theory completely, we should impose some boundary conditions on the fields propagating there. We do not see any rigorous way to derive them. Nevertheless, we discuss the most natural choices for the boundary conditions and their physical interpretation.

Vanishing boundary conditions

The most natural choice is to choose the vanishing boundary conditions. It can be justified by that the boundary on fig. 2 came from infinity on the $`(t,\omega )`$ plane of the matrix model. In the usual analysis of a quantum field theory one demands that all fields disappear at infinity. Therefore, it seems to be natural to impose the same condition in our case also.

The presence of boundaries with vanishing conditions on them can be interpreted as if one placed the system between two moving mirrors. However, we note that such interpretation is reliable only for $`R<1/2`$ where the boundaries are timelike. In the most interesting case $`R(1/2,1)`$ we would have to suppose that mirrors move faster than light.

Nevertheless, this interpretation opens an interesting possibility. It is known that moving mirrors cause particle creation . In particular, the resulting spectrum can be thermal so that the system turns out to be at a finite temperature. On the other hand, in  it was shown that the Sine-Liouville tachyon perturbation gives rise to the thermal description at $`T=2\pi /R`$. Therefore, it would be extremely interesting to reproduce this result from the exact form of the spacetime obtained here. In our case the particle creation is a quite expected effect because two cones lead to the existence of two natural vacua associated with the right and left cone, correspondingly. When the modes, defining one of the vacua, propagate from one cone to another, they disperse on the hole and, in general, will lead to appearance of particles with respect to the second vacuum. The concrete form of the particle spectrum depends crucially on the exact behaviour near the origin since the creation happens only when the mirror is accelerated . Unfortunately, in this region the form of the boundary is known only inexplicitly through the equation (5.15). Besides, the situation is complicated by the possibility that one needs to make a conformal transform (5.13) to arrive to the flat coordinates. Usually, such transform can change thermal properties . Therefore, it remains unsolved problem to check whether the particle creation in the found spacetime reproduces the result obtained in the MQM framework.

Periodic conditions

Although the vanishing boundary conditions are very natural, it is questionable to apply them in the case of spacelike boundaries. For example, this would lead to a discrete spectrum at finite distance from the origin although the spacelike slices are non-compact. In general, the situation when one encounters a boundary in time is very strange.

Therefore, in this case it could be more natural to choose periodic boundary conditions where one identifies the upper boundary on fig. 2 with the lower one. As a result, the spacetime is compactified. For $`R(1/2,1)`$ the compact dimension is timelike so that we find closed timelike curves. Of course, their existence is a very bad feature. But it might be better than to have spacelike boundaries. For $`R<1/2`$ the periodic boundary conditions can also be applied. Then the spacetime has the topology of a cylinder with a spacelike compact dimension and we do not encounter the above mentioned problems. In this case it is also expected that the change of radius of the cylinder in time will cause particle creation and can give rise to a temperature.

Note that the picture obtained in this case resembles the orbifold construction of , where the Minkowski spacetime was factored out by action of a discrete subgroup of boosts. It leads to four cones, joint at the origin, corresponding to the causal cones in the Minkowski spacetime. If one tries to interpret fig. 2 with the periodic boundary conditions following this analogy, one concludes that it corresponds to two cones of  (spacelike or timelike, depending on the value of $`R`$) with the resolved singularity because the cones are joint not at a point but along some finite interval.

Twisted periodic conditions

There is also another possible choice for the boundary conditions which comes from comparison with Matrix Quantum Mechanics. It is very unlikely that this possibility can be realized but we mention it for completeness. In MQM to define the density of states and, consequently, the free energy, one should place the system in a box and also impose some boundary conditions on the wave functions of fermions of the singlet sector of MQM. They relate the scattered (out-going) wave function to the in-coming one . Thus one can say that they identify two infinities $`t,\omega \mathrm{}`$ and $`t,\omega \mathrm{}`$. Being applied to our picture, these conditions mean that one should identify the left lower boundary with the right upper one and vice-versa. In this way we arrive at the compactified spacetime but where it was “twisted” before the compactification. The topology of the resulting spacetime is that of the Möbius sheet. Note that these boundary conditions have an advantage that they are invariant under the conformal map (5.13) if one required from it to preserve the symmetry $`(t,\omega )(t,\omega )`$. However, the fact that they lead to a unorienetd spacetime rises doubts on their credibility.

We stop our discussion at this point. We are not able to choose the right boundary conditions. Due to this, we are not able also to establish the effect produced by tachyon perturbations on the target space: either it is the appearance of boundaries or a compactification. But the form of the obtained spacetime indicates that one of these modifications of the global structure does take place.

## 6  Conclusions

We analyzed the proposal that the tachyon perturbations of 2D string theory in the linear dilation background have a dual description in a non-trivial target space. Comparing the Das–Jevicki collective field theory with the low-energy effective action of string theory, we found that the tachyon perturbations can not change the local structure of spacetime so that we always remain in the linear dilaton background. However, the relation between the flat coordinates, where the background metric has the standard Minkowski form, and the coordinates of the collective theory coming from Matrix Quantum Mechanics is affected by the perturbation. As a result, MQM describes only a part of the Minkowski spacetime. This introduces boundaries for the target space. But its real structure depends on the boundary conditions. If they are chosen to be the periodic conditions, we get a compactified target space. Unfortunately, we were not able to choose the correct boundary conditions and, therefore, we can not say what the final form of the target space is.

One could ask about the physical meaning of the boundaries because the spacetime can be continued through them to get the entire Minkowski spacetime. However, when we work with the tachyon perturbations in the framework of Matrix Quantum Mechanics, we can not access the parts of spacetime obtained by this continuation. The situation can be compared with that of the Unruh effect , when an accelerated observer “sees” only the Rindler cone of the Minkowski spacetime. Thus, we can think of the tachyon perturbations as if they place the system into another reference frame. However, there is a crucial difference between the Unruh effect and our situation. In the former case, the boundaries are lightlike and considered as event horizons, whereas our boundaries are spacelike or timelike and one should find for them a physical interpretation. In the context of string theory it is tempting to think about them as branes. Note that spacelike branes (S-branes) have also been introduced in string theory , so that the existence of spacelike boundaries should not be an obstacle for this interpretation. Recently, it was also suggested a relation between S-branes and thermodynamics .

May be one of the most interesting problems, which is left unsolved in the paper, is to show that the field-theoretic analysis on the found target space leads to a thermal description with the temperature $`2\pi /R`$. This would confirm the result obtained in the MQM framework  and would be a non-trivial consistency check. Also, if the periodic boundary conditions are realized, it would be interesting to elaborate a connection with the work . This might help to understand how to resolve the orbifold singularity of the type considered there. In  the resolution was found to be impossible.

Finally, the main problem, which we did not consider here, is to find the string background corresponding to winding perturbations. The results obtained in this paper could be useful to approach the answer if one can realize the world sheet T-duality directly in the target space. Unfortunately, when the duality transformation does not act in the direction of a Killing vector, it is still an open problem.

Acknowledgements: The author is grateful to V. Kazakov, I. Kostov and D. Vassilevich for very valuable discussions. This work was partially supported by European Union under the RTN contracts HPRN-CT-2000-00122 and -00131 and by European network EUROGRID HPRN-CT-1999-00161.

## Appendix A. Perturbative solution of dilaton gravity

We are interested in the solution of the system of equations (4.3) and (4.6). After the substitution $`T=e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta `$, they can be rewritten as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}e^\mathrm{\Phi }\beta ^Tm_\eta ^2\eta `$ $`=`$ $`^2\eta =0,`$
$`m_\eta ^2`$ $`=`$ $`(\mathrm{\Phi })^2^2\mathrm{\Phi }4\alpha ^1=0,`$ (A.1)
$`4\alpha ^1\beta ^\mathrm{\Phi }+\beta _{\mu \nu }^GG^{\mu \nu }4m_\eta ^2`$ $`=`$ $`2^2\mathrm{\Phi }4\alpha ^1e^{2\mathrm{\Phi }}\eta ^2=0,`$
$`\beta _{\mu \nu }^G`$ $`=`$ $`R_{\mu \nu }+2_\mu _\nu \mathrm{\Phi }_\mu (e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta )_\nu (e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta )=0.`$
Let us choose the conformal gauge

$$G_{\mu \nu }=e^{2\rho }\eta _{\mu \nu }.$$
(A.2)
Then in the light-cone coordinates $`X_\pm =\frac{X^0\pm X^1}{\sqrt{2}}`$ the equations take the following form

$`_+_{}\eta =0,`$
$`_+_{}\mathrm{\Phi }_+\mathrm{\Phi }_{}\mathrm{\Phi }=2\alpha ^1e^{2\rho },`$
$`_+_{}\mathrm{\Phi }=\alpha ^1e^{2(\mathrm{\Phi }+\rho )}\eta ^2,`$ (A.3)
$`_+_{}\rho _+_{}\mathrm{\Phi }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_+(e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta )_{}(e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta ),`$
$`_+_+\mathrm{\Phi }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_+(e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta )\right)^2,`$
$`_{}_{}\mathrm{\Phi }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_{}(e^\mathrm{\Phi }\eta )\right)^2,`$
where the last three equations are produced by the last equation in (A.1).

First of all, it is easy to see that if $`\eta =0`$, (4.7) is the unique solution. To generalize this statement, let us consider a solution which can be represented as an expansion around the linear dilaton background (4.7). We use the following ansatz

$$\rho =\underset{k>0}{}ϵ^{k+1}\rho _k,\mathrm{\Phi }=\frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1+\underset{k>0}{}ϵ^{k+1}\varphi _k,\eta =\underset{k>0}{}ϵ^k\eta _k.$$
(A.4)
In the first order in $`ϵ`$ we find

$`(\mathrm{a})`$ $`\eta _1=f_1(X_+)+g_1(X_{}),`$
$`(\mathrm{b})`$ $`_+_{}\varphi _1\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\alpha ^{}}}}(_+_{})\varphi _1={\displaystyle \frac{4}{\alpha ^{}}}\rho _1,`$
$`(\mathrm{c})`$ $`_+_{}\varphi _1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\alpha ^{}}}e^{\frac{4}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1}\eta _1^2,`$ (A.5)
$`(\mathrm{d})`$ $`_+_{}(\rho _1\varphi _1)={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}_+\left(e^{\frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1}\eta _1\right)_{}\left(e^{\frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1}\eta _1\right),`$
$`(\mathrm{e})`$ $`_+_+\varphi _1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_+\left(e^{\frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1}\eta _1\right)\right)^2,`$
$`(\mathrm{f})`$ $`_{}_{}\varphi _1={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(_{}\left(e^{\frac{2}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1}\eta _1\right)\right)^2.`$
Using equations (b) and (c), one can check that (d) is fulfilled identically. On the other hand, for (c), (e) and (f) to be consistent, some integrability conditions must hold. They are obtained comparing the derivatives of these equations. Taking into account (a), we get the following conditions on $`f_1(X_+)`$ and $`g_1(X_{})`$

$$\begin{array}{c}(f^{}g^{})\left(f^{}\sqrt{\frac{2}{\alpha ^{}}}(f+g)\right)=0,\\ (f^{}g^{})\left(g^{}+\sqrt{\frac{2}{\alpha ^{}}}(f+g)\right)=0.\end{array}$$
(A.6)
The only solution of (A.6) is obtained when $`f^{}=g^{}`$. Then we find

$$\rho _1=\frac{\alpha ^{}c_1^2}{32}e^{\frac{4}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1},\varphi _1=\frac{1}{8}\left((c_1X^0+d_1)^2+\frac{\alpha ^{}c_1^2}{4}\right)e^{\frac{4}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1},\eta _1=c_1X^0+d_1,$$
(A.7)
where $`c_1`$ and $`d_1`$ are some constants. In the second order we get the similar system of equations as (A.5), where one should change one of $`\eta _1`$ in terms quadratic in tachyon by $`2\eta _2`$. Then we obtain

$`\rho _2={\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^{}c_1c_2}{16}}e^{\frac{4}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1},\varphi _2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left((c_1X^0+d_1)(c_2X^0+d_2)+{\displaystyle \frac{\alpha ^{}c_1c_2}{4}}\right)e^{\frac{4}{\sqrt{\alpha ^{}}}X^1},`$
$`\eta _2=c_2X^0+d_2.`$ (A.8)
But already in the next order in $`ϵ`$ we encounter inconsistences which can not be overcomed. We must choose the vanishing tachyon and all other perturbations. Thus, we conclude that the only solution of the system (A.1), which can be represented in the form (A.4), is the linear dilaton background.

## Appendix B. Change to the flat coordinates

In this appendix we demonstrate that the quadratic part of the effective action for the tachyon field (5.8) in the coordinates (5.9) takes the form (5.10).

First of all, for generic functions $`x`$, $`p`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ of $`\omega `$ and $`t`$ the passage to the variables (5.9) leads to the action

$$S_{(2)}=\frac{1}{2}𝑑\tau 𝑑q\frac{|D|}{p\stackrel{~}{p}}\left[A(_\tau \eta )^22B_\tau \eta _q\eta C(_q\eta )^2\right],$$
(B.1)
where

$`A`$ $`=`$ $`\left[2_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\left(_\omega x\right)^1\left(1+_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(p_tx\right)\right]\left[2_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\left(_\omega x\right)^1\left(1+_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(\stackrel{~}{p}_tx\right)\right],`$
$`B`$ $`=`$ $`_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\left(2_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(_\omega x\right)^1\left(p+\stackrel{~}{p}2_tx\right)\left(1_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }+_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)`$ (B.2)
$`+`$ $`\left(_\omega x\right)^2\left(1_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(1+_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(p_tx\right)\left(\stackrel{~}{p}_tx\right),`$
$`C`$ $`=`$ $`\left[_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\left(_\omega x\right)^1\left(1_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(p_tx\right)\right]\left[_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\left(_\omega x\right)^1\left(1_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)\left(\stackrel{~}{p}_tx\right)\right],`$
$`D`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{_\omega x}{1\left(_\omega \stackrel{~}{\omega }+_t\stackrel{~}{\omega }\right)}}.`$
From the explicit form (5.5) of $`p(\omega ,t)`$ and $`x(\omega ,t)`$ it is easy to check the following properties

$$\frac{x}{t}=p\frac{x}{\omega },\frac{\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{\omega }=\frac{x/\omega }{\stackrel{~}{p}\stackrel{~}{x}_t},\frac{\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{t}=\frac{p\stackrel{~}{x}_t}{\stackrel{~}{p}\stackrel{~}{x}_t}\frac{\stackrel{~}{\omega }}{\omega }$$
(B.3)
with

$$\stackrel{~}{x}_t_tx(\stackrel{~}{\omega },t)=\frac{1}{R}\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}ka_k\mathrm{sinh}\left[(1\frac{k}{R})\stackrel{~}{\omega }+\frac{k}{R}t\right].$$
(B.4)
These properties are enough to show that $`DA=DC=p\stackrel{~}{p}`$ and $`B=0`$ what gives the action (5.10).

## Appendix C. Asymptotic values of the coordinates

In this appendix we display the results for $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$, $`\tau `$ and $`q`$ as functions of $`t`$ and $`\omega `$ which are obtained in the asymptotics $`t,\omega \mathrm{}`$ in the case of Sine–Liouville theory ($`n=1`$). The results depend on the ratio $`t/\omega `$ as well as on the radius parameter. There are four different cases dependent of the value of $`R`$. We summarize them in four tables. In each table we distinguish several regions of $`t/\omega `$. For each region we give the asymptotic expressions for the coordinates, the corresponding interval of values of $`\tau /q`$, and the coefficients in front of the constant term $`\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$, which should be added to $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$. The latter are given for $`\omega >0`$. For $`\omega <0`$ one should change their sign.

$`R>1`$

$`t/\omega `$ $`(1,1)`$ $`(1,\mathrm{})(\mathrm{},12R)`$ $`(12R,1)`$              $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ $`\omega `$ $`\left(1\frac{1}{R}\right)\omega \frac{1}{R}t`$ $`\frac{1}{R1}\left(R\omega +t\right)`$  $`\tau `$ $`t`$ $`\left(1+\frac{1}{2R}\right)t\frac{1}{2R}\omega `$ $`\frac{1}{2(R1)}\left((2R1)t+\omega \right)`$  $`q`$ $`\omega `$ $`\left(1\frac{1}{2R}\right)\omega +\frac{1}{2R}t`$ $`\frac{1}{2(R1)}\left((2R1)\omega +t\right)`$  $`\tau /q`$ $`(1,1)`$ $`(1,2R+1)(2R+1,\mathrm{})`$ $`(\mathrm{},1)`$  $`\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$ $`0`$ $`\pm 1`$ $`\frac{R}{R1}`$

$`1/2<R<1`$

$`t/\omega `$ $`(12R,2R1)`$ $`(2R1,1)`$ $`(1,\mathrm{})(\mathrm{},12R)`$              $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ $`\omega `$ $`\frac{1}{1R}\left(R\omega t\right)`$ $`\left(\frac{1}{R}1\right)\omega +\frac{1}{R}t`$  $`\tau `$ $`t`$ $`\frac{2R1}{2(1R)}\left(\omega t\right)`$ $`\left(1\frac{1}{2R}\right)\left(t\omega \right)`$  $`q`$ $`\omega `$ $`\frac{1}{2(1R)}\left(\omega t\right)`$ $`\frac{1}{2R}\left(\omega t\right)`$  $`\tau /q`$ $`(12R,2R1)`$ $`(2R1)`$ $`(12R)`$  $`\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$ $`0`$ $`\frac{R}{1R}`$ $`1`$

$`1/3<R<1/2`$

$`t/\omega `$ $`(\frac{(1R)(12R)}{13R},12R)`$ $`(12R,1)`$ $`(1,\mathrm{})(\mathrm{},\frac{(1R)(12R)}{13R})`$              $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ $`\omega +\frac{2}{1R}t`$ $`\frac{1}{1R}\left(R\omega t\right)`$ $`\left(\frac{1}{R}1\right)\omega +\frac{1}{R}t`$  $`\tau `$ $`\frac{R}{1R}t`$ $`\frac{2R1}{2(1R)}\left(\omega t\right)`$ $`\left(1\frac{1}{2R}\right)\left(t\omega \right)`$  $`q`$ $`\omega \frac{1}{1R}t`$ $`\frac{1}{2(1R)}\left(\omega t\right)`$ $`\frac{1}{2R}\left(\omega t\right)`$  $`\tau /q`$ $`(2R1,12R)`$ $`(2R1)`$ $`(12R)`$  $`\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$ $`0`$ $`\frac{R}{1R}`$ $`1`$

$`R<1/3`$

$`t/\omega `$ $`(\frac{(1R)(12R)}{13R},\mathrm{})(\mathrm{},12R)`$ $`(12R,1)`$ $`(1,\frac{(1R)(12R)}{13R})`$              $`\stackrel{~}{\omega }`$ $`\omega +\frac{2}{1R}t`$ $`\frac{1}{1R}\left(R\omega t\right)`$ $`\left(\frac{1}{R}1\right)\omega +\frac{1}{R}t`$  $`\tau `$ $`\frac{R}{1R}t`$ $`\frac{2R1}{2(1R)}\left(\omega t\right)`$ $`\left(1\frac{1}{2R}\right)\left(t\omega \right)`$  $`q`$ $`\omega \frac{1}{1R}t`$ $`\frac{1}{2(1R)}\left(\omega t\right)`$ $`\frac{1}{2R}\left(\omega t\right)`$  $`\tau /q`$ $`(R,12R)(2R1,R)`$ $`(2R1)`$ $`(12R)`$  $`\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0}{a_1}`$ $`0`$ $`\frac{R}{1R}`$ $`1`$

Finally, there are also two critical cases $`R=1`$ and $`R=\frac{1}{2}`$. In these cases one can find explicitly the transformation of coordinates (5.9) on the entire plane. The results are

$$\begin{array}{ccc}R=1& & R=1/2\\ \stackrel{~}{\omega }=\omega & & \stackrel{~}{\omega }=\omega +\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0+a_1e^{2t}}{a_0+a_1e^{2t}}\\ \tau =t& & \tau =t\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0+a_1e^{2t}}{a_0+a_1e^{2t}}\\ q=\omega & & q=\omega \frac{1}{2}\mathrm{log}\frac{a_0+a_1e^{2t}}{a_0+a_1e^{2t}}\end{array}$$
(C.1)


format: text

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# A Rapid Microlensing Event in the Q0957+561 A,B Gravitational Lens System

## 1 Introduction

The claimed existence of rapid microlensing in the Q0957+561 A,B gravitational lens system has continued to challenge astrophysics. Observationally, the low amplitude of the effect, measured to be approximately only 0.01 magnitudes on a timescale of days (Schild 1999, Table 3; Schild & Thomson 1993) requires careful photometry for detection and study of the effect. Theoretically, such rapid microlensing is not accommodated by existing models with accretion discs having dimensions of approximately $`10^{15}\text{cm}`$ (Schmidt & Wambsganss 1999, Refsdal et al. 2000) although the new double-ring model of Schild and Vakulik (2003) offers such rapid microlensing as a possibility provided the baryonic dark matter is a network of planetary mass objects. Alternatives such as orbiting dark clouds (Schechter et al. 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003) or bright points (Gould & Miralde-Escude 1997) in the accretion disc have not been advanced with detailed models or simulations because they would produce strong periodic effects not observed and because they do not produce the equal positive and negative events found in the data (Schild 1999).

Because such rapid microlensing, albeit at low amplitude, imposes such severe constraints on models of the quasar and the baryonic matter distribution in the halo of the lens galaxy G1, a determined effort to confirm it with a sustained surveillance of the system for a 10-day campaign by observatories circling the globe has been undertaken (Colley et al. 2002, 2003). Unfortunately the system was relatively quiescent during the campaign period, and no convincing microlensing event was detected, although a significantly improved time delay value of 417.07 days was measured. The campaign also demonstrated convincingly that precise brightness measurements could be made for the system with available photometric techniques. This conclusion has also been confirmed by other authors (Colley & Schild, 1999; Ovaldsen 2002; Ovaldsen et al. 2003). Other photometries have been undertaken, but have lacked the precision or intensive time sampling to detect the microlensing (Gil-Merino et al. 2001; Schmidt and Wambsganss, 1998)

The purpose of the present report is to present evidence for a significant microlensing effect in published data (Colley & Schild 1999). The data were previously analyzed for time delay, but because data for a single observatory can only cover a fraction of a day and produce systematic effects known to bias the delay calculation, full analysis of the data required an independent time delay determination; it was this dataset that spawned the ’round-the-clock monitoring program mentioned previously. With the improved time delay value now available, we return to the earlier data set and find evidence for a microlensing event having a time scale of half a day and an amplitude of 0.01 magnitudes (one percent).

## 2 Return to a High Precision Data Set

In an earlier report, Colley & Schild (1999) showed reductions of all-night Q0957 brightness monitoring with the 1.2m Mt Hopkins reflector, for datasets taken at two epochs (December 1994 and February 1996) separated by the quasar time delay of 417 days. Possible systematic errors in the photometric procedure have been exhaustively discussed in Colley & Schild (1998, 1999) who found that the statistical errors of photometric detection dominated over the extremely small systematic errors. This has been confirmed in our monitoring program and reduction of CCD photometry from 12 observatories (Colley et al. 2002, 2003). In the discussion of the data from Colley & Schild (1999) to follow, we adopt error estimates from the original report.

Colley & Schild (1999) measured a time-delay of $`417.4`$ days from the 1994 and 1996 datasets alone; in their Fig. 7 they applied that delay to the image B record and overlayed it on top of the image A record to produce a combined brightness record that exhibited nearly continuous fluctuations with an amplitude of order 30 mmag over the 6 day observation window. However, on night $`\text{JD}2449705.8`$, an apparently significant discrepancy was noted, which would imply microlensing on a time scale of approximately a day. This did not spawn a detailed statistical treatment as important a discovery as it might be, because the known systematic effects in the time delay determination could too easily be responsible in some unknowable way. It did, however, spawn the 10-night QuOC-Around-The Clock monitoring campaign which did not find comparable events but did produce an unbiased value of the time delay and also produced confidence in the ability to convert astronomical CCD images into photometry with accuracy sufficient to define the photometric behavior to the required precision.

We show in Fig. 1 a new plot of the same data for our improved 417.07 time delay value. For such a nearly integral time delay, the data now overlap sufficiently to allow a firm microlensing conclusion. We consider that the data for $`\text{JD}2449700=5.8`$ show a compelling disagreement between the first arriving A image brightness and the second arriving B brightness. Note that for no time delay value near 417 days would the data be in agreement, and only for time delays near 417.5 days would there be a problem because of course the data then do not actually overlap, but even in this case a probable microlensing would be implied.

In re-plotting the Fig. 1 data for the new time delay, we have again used the PRH method (Press et al. 1991) but with a small caveat. Because the data set indicate the significant microlensing event as already noted, we have excluded the data for night 2449706 in determining the optimum brightness offset between the two images. In other words, for observing dates fixed by the measured time delay, we use the data for the first four nights only, to determine the magnitude difference that minimizes the $`\chi ^2`$ difference of the two brightness records. A much more detailed statistical treatment follows in the next section.

## 3 The profile of an observed microlensing event

In Fig. 1 (bottom) we adopt standard precepts and determine the microlensing profile by subtracting from the 1994.9 A image brightness the 1996.1 B image brightness, using the PRH method to define the acceptable 1-sigma allowed brightness interval from the observed brightness and the measured structure function. In this way we are able to determine the outer limits to allowed brightness to be compared with the measured brightness of the other image. Thus in Fig. 1 (bottom) we show the time delay corrected brightness difference which is interpreted as a microlensing signal. Whether the event is a brightening of image B or dimming of image A is debatable. Perhaps it is slightly more conservative to guess that image A has become fainter, which would allow image B to remain fairly constant between nights 4.5 and 5.5 without invoking a cancelling QSO fluctuation and microlensing event.

In this illustration we see that the measured brightness differences is significantly greater than that permitted by the errorbars and a no-microlensing hypothesis—all data points exceed the permitted error limits significantly. Moreover, the brightness departures are in the expected form of an “event” where the microlensing causes first a nearly monotonic decrease in the image A brightness (or increase in the image B brightness), and then an increase (or decrease in B) back into agreement with the other image. The amplitude and duration of the event were approximately one percent in half a day.

We show in Fig. 2 a close-up of the event with a fiducial Gaussian curve fitted to the event. The Gaussian fit has an amplitude of 0.93% (0.0093 mag) and a FWHM of 0.46 days. We have overplotted points which reflect the differences between the image A and B $`R`$-magnitudes, using the PRH snake as an interpolation method, so the filled symbols are $`R_{B,int}R_A`$, and the open symbols are $`R_BR_{A,int}`$. Each errorbar reflects the intrinsic photometric error of the un-interpolated quantity, added in quadrature to the error reported from the PRH method for the interpolated quantity. There are 20 points in all, (11 B points and 9 A points), and they have a combined $`\chi ^2`$ relative to the zero-line of 80.4 (for 20 d.o.f), inconsistent with the zero-line at 3 parts in a billion. Looking only at the 12 points where there is direct overlap of data ($`5.7<\text{JD}2449700<5.96`$), the $`\chi ^2`$ value (for 12 d.o.f.) relative to the zero-line is 77.0, inconsistent with the zero-line at 1 part in a billion. So, most of the significance lies in points which directly overlap. For the simple Gaussian curve fit to the points, those $`\chi ^2`$ values decrease to 9.2 and 7.4 for all points, and overlapping points, respectively.

We may further test the significance of the event by testing whether or not removing the last night was really more sensible than, for instance, removing any of the other nights. We carry this out by computing the PRH-$`\chi ^2`$ (with optimum magnitude offset for image B), leaving each of the 5 nights in turn. The PRH-$`\chi ^2`$ for the whole data set is 94.8 for 94 degrees of freedom (d.o.f). Leaving out nights {1, 2, 3, 4, 5} yields values of {72.0, 80.3, 76.8, 78.3, 64.5}, with d.o.f. {75, 79, 74, 74, 74}. One way to look at this by considering the change in the $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit relative to the change in d.o.f., $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2/\mathrm{\Delta }N_{dof}`$. That statistic for each night is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2/\mathrm{\Delta }N_{dof}`$ = {1.20, 0.965, 0.903, 0.826, 1.52}. The last night’s value is the highest of all, showing greater significance for removing the last night than removing any of the other nights. The $`F`$-test significances of leaving out each night, relative to leaving out none are {58.5%, 48.2%, 44.6%, 41.1%, 74.3%}. Removing any of the first four nights yields very little improvement or actually some degradation in the quality of the fit, but removing the last night significantly improves the fit.

## 4 Conclusion and Discussion

Previously published data have been combined with our new Q0957 time delay value (Colley et al. 2003) to uncover an important rapid microlensing event. Previously this topic has been mired in a logical conundrum; because rapid microlensing is observed, it is extremely difficult to determine an accurate time delay, but an accurate time delay is needed to obtain convincing microlensing evidence. This conundrum has now been broken with the Colley et al. (2003) intensive monitoring campaign, which has sufficiently low microlensing to produce a credible time delay with sub-day precision.

We have found convincing evidence for a low amplitude (1 percent) rapid event with half-day duration. We provide an analytical approximation for this event, with the view that this profile might be useful for other analyses of the rapid microlensing. Note that Schild (1999) had previously shown from wavelet analysis that brightness fluctuations in both images of the Q0957 system have characteristic amplitudes of a percent on time scales of a day or two. That analysis did not prove that such events were predominantly microlensing; the present data suggest that the Q0957 system shows both microlensing and intrinsic quasar brightness fluctuations of 1% amplitude on day time scales.

The existence of both the rapid quasar fluctuations and the rapid microlensing fluctuations are challenging to astrophysics. For such intrinsic quasar brightness fluctuations to exist, the quasar should have structure on scales of half a light day ($`1\times 10^{15}\text{cm}`$), whereas accretion disc sizes estimated for this quasar have been (6 – 10)$`\times 10^{15}\text{cm}`$ (Refsdal et al. 2000), and Schmidt and Wambsganss (1999) have ruled out sizes smaller than $`10^{15}\text{cm}`$ if the baryonic dark matter has planetary mass. The diameter of the innermost stable orbit for an accretion disc around a $`3\times 10^9M_{}`$ black hole has been given by Colley et al. (2003) as $`10^{16}\text{cm}`$, or approximately 3 light days. Converting all the diameter measurements to light days, and noting that the observed times should all be increased by a ($`1+z`$) factor of 2.4 to allow for the cosmological redshift, we conclude that quasar structure modeled as a simple accretion disc cannot easily accommodate the rapid brightness fluctuations observed.

If rapid microlensing fluctuations such as this one are common, as suggested by Schild & Thomson (1993), they place strong constraints on lensing models, because not only must the quasar structure be smaller than implied in the models above, but also, the microlensing cusp pattern must be sufficiently fine to produce such rapid events. Attempts to explain rapid fluctuations with (only) stellar mass deflectors in the lens galaxy include QSO models with orbital bright blobs (Gould and Miralde-Escude, 1997) or dark clouds (Schechter et al. 2002, Wyithe & Loeb 2002), but fail because strong periodicity, and asymmetrical profiles with preponderantly positive (brightening) or negative profiles would result. However a double-ring model of quasar structure advanced by Schild and Vakulik (2003) has been demonstrated which can produce rapid microlensing fluctuations without orbiting structures. The simulations available with microlensing by a $`0.1M_{}`$ star and 90% baryonic dark matter objects of planetary mass produces microlensing events of 10-day duration. Reducing the dark matter population in the simulation from $`10^5M_{}`$ to $`10^7M_{}`$ and sharpening the inner ring structure of the model would probably produce events of the duration observed.

We conclude that the detection of a rapid, low amplitude microlensing event in the Q0957 dataset implies strong constraints on the nature of the quasar’s structure, and on the nature of the baryonic dark matter. Because of the high optical depth of the Q0957 quasar to microlensing, exceeding one, study of low amplitude microlensing fluctuations promises to impose severe constraints on quasar structure and the nature of the baryonic dark matter.


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# High Frequency Peakers

## 1 Introduction

The number of radio sources that appear unresolved at arcsecond scale resolution is rather conspicuous in all modern catalogues. The radio spectra of these sources can be separated into two distinct classes: the flat spectrum objects and the steep spectrum ones. Other properties are related to this first distinction: flux density and polarisation variability, core dominance, which can also be extended to other observing bands from radio frequencies through to X-rays. All these characteristics can be interpreted in terms of Unified Scheme models (e.g. Urry & Padovani 1995) where a relativistic jet is amplified when its direction is aligned to the line of sight. From this picture it is then possible to infer that a substantial fraction of the “small” sources is indeed shortened by projection and, in particular, the blazars (flat spectrum radio quasars and BL Lacs) are well known in this sense. It is also clear from this simple picture that intrinsically small radio sources are expected to be hosted in galaxies i.e. where the radio source major axis is at a large angle with respect to the line of sight. In that case, relativistic beaming is not particularly effective, and the radio source should be characterised by low variability and little or no other signatures of an active nucleus as seen in the hosts of GPS galaxies, which appear as passively evolving ellipticals (Snellen et al. 1998).

The reason that makes these radio galaxies small can be found in their early evolutionary stage. From the ideas of Phillips and Mutel (1982), who studied a number of “Compact Doubles”, and Carvalho (1985), one can think of some unknown phenomenon that gives rise to the radio activity in the nuclei of some giant elliptical galaxies. Relativistic plasma is channeled into the radio jets, which start to dig their way into the Inter Stellar Medium (ISM) of their host, first into the Narrow Line Region (NLR) (corresponding to the GPS stage) and then into the more tenuous and homogeneous ISM (the CSS stage) before plunging into the Inter Galactic Medium (IGM) (extended radio source, possibly with FR-II morphology), reaching projected linear sizes of the order of hundreds of kpc or even more.

The competing scenario of the “frustration” (van Breugel 1984), where small radio sources are indeed old and remain confined within the host galaxy by an “anomalously” dense interstellar medium, has been excluded by the lack of any observational evidence of an ISM denser than in the hosts of the extended radio sources (Fanti et al. 2000; Gelderman 1996; de Vries et al. 1998; and many others)

The observation of the increase in the separation of the outer edges (hot-spots) in three Compact Symmetric Objects (CSOs, i.e. the modern version of the “Compact Doubles”) by Owsianik & Conway (1998) and Owsianik et al.(1998) definitely supported the idea that these objects are young and growing. Such motions have now been measured for a number of CSOs (see Polatidis & Conway, 2003), with projected speeds in the range of 0.1-0.3 c.
Radiative ages determined on the basis of the integrated radio spectrum are also consistent with the values derived from hot-spot motions, just by assuming a simple model of continuous particle injection and standard equipartition conditions (Murgia et al. 1999; see also Murgia et al. 2003, for local spectral ageing determination).

The “youth model” has been outlined in some detail by various groups (e.g. Fanti et al. 1995; Readhead et al. 1996; Begelman 1996; Snellen et al. 2000); all agree on the most relevant aspects. The source initially increases its luminosity (during the GPS stage) then, once the radio emission leaves the NRL, expansion losses start to compete with synchrotron losses and the radio luminosity smoothly declines by about one order of magnitude from the GPS to the extended radio galaxy stage.
Synchrotron Self Absorption is thought to be responsible for the turnover observed in the radio spectra. Bicknell Dopita & O’Dea (1997) proposed a model where the expanding lobe creates a cocoon of shocked, ionised material that could account for some amount of Free Free Absorption. Support for this possibility has been found in a several cases (see Kameno et al. 2000 and 2003; Mutoh et al. 2002).

Typical examples of small and young radio sources are B2352+495 and B0710+439, with a projected linear size of 160 and 120 pc respectively, where the outer edges (hot-spots) have been measured to separate at a speed of the order of 0.2 c, with a consequent age of the order of a few in 103 yrs (Owsianik & Conway 1998, see also Polatidis & Conway, 2003). On the other hand, another of these small and young radio sources, namely B0108+388, is known to possess some diffuse emission on the scale of tens of kpc. Although there is, as yet, no definitive proof that this diffuse radio emission is indeed physically related to the pc scale structure, it has been proposed that the radio activity is a recurrent phenomenon and this extended feature is the debris of a previous activity cycle. This interpretation is also supported by the observation of recurrent activity in giant radio galaxies (Schoenmakers et al. 2000).

By examining the diagram relating the intrinsic turnover frequency and the projected linear size published by O’Dea (1998), it should then be easy to find smaller and younger radio sources by searching for convex spectra peaking at a few GHz or even higher frequencies. These objects known as High Frequency Peakers (HFPs) are briefly discussed in this paper.

## 2 Rare gems ?

It is easy to show that radio sources with spectra with a turn over at very high frequencies (i.e. tens of GHz) are rare, since the initial stages of radio emission are characterized by quite a rapid evolution in terms of size and peak frequency.

Let us consider a 10 yr-old source, sitting at z=1 and growing at a constant rate of 0.2 c, made up by two lobes and hot-spots; the jet axis is in the plane of the sky. The source is then 0.61 pc (2.0 ly) in size. To make the computation as simple as possible one can assume that the hot-spots are not very bright and that the bulk of the radio emission comes from the two lobes, assumed to be homogeneous ellipsoidal regions with a length of half the size of the source and with an axial ratio of 0.25 (0.31 pc times 0.08 pc). One can assume a total flux density of about 200 mJy at 22.5 GHz (the highest VLA frequency in the HFP sample presented by Dallacasa et al. 2000) equally distributed over two symmetric lobes. Assuming canonic equipartition conditions, one would expect to observe the turnover frequency at 38.4 GHz. Indeed this is a lower limit, given that using a flux density in the optically thick region we underestimate the total energy in the region and thus the turnover frequency. It has also to be noted that radiative losses are very high given that the relativistic electrons are located within very high magnetic fields, and this would steepen considerably the optically thin spectrum for sources having turnover frequencies below 22 GHz. Continuous injection of fresh realtivistic particles it is expected to make this steepening less effective.

As the source ages the turnover moves down to 11.4 GHz for a 50 yr-old source (two lobes of about 1.5 pc in size) and then to 6.9 GHz for a 100 yr-old source. The relative number of sources with peak flux at about 40 GHz compared to those peaking at about 7 GHz will be 1 to 10. The turnover frequencies have also been computed for sources at z=0.3, 0.5 and 2 (for z$`>`$ 1.5-2 the turnover frequency does not change significantly) and are reported in Table 1.

This simple calculation is complicated by the prediction of basically all “growth” models that the radio source luminosity in the early stage increases with size until the lobes advance further into the NRL, before starting to decrease (the GPS becoming a CSS) proceeding even further into the ISM and finally into the IGM.

Furthermore, the source components are known to be inhomogeneous: the brightest regions are also the smallest and the turnover is somehow higher than that calculated above. All this tends to make the convex spectrum a bit broader than in the case of a pair of homogeneous components; the spectral peak is mostly set by the region with the larger contribution to the total flux density.

It should also be taken into consideration that for a given flux density, the source at high redshift has an energy density and thus an intrinsic peak frequency higher than a source located relatively nearby, and therefore we are comparing objects with intrinsically different luminosities (and magnetic field strengths also).

In any case, if we neglect all the aforementioned effects, the message coming from Table 1 is that generally the turnover moves at frequencies below 10 GHz in a rather fast way if compared to the radio source lifetime.

An additional complication: in the very early days the equipartition fields are very high (of the order of 1 Gauss or even stronger) and so the relativistic particles are very shortlived. We thus expect to observe only hot-spots and short backflow tails. This implies that the emitting region is smaller than the size considered here to estimate the physical parameters and so that the turnover frequency may result somewhat higher than that reported in Table 1.

In summary, HFPs are rare and thus difficult to find; high frequency catalogues (i.e. at cm wavelengths or even shorter) extended over large sky areas are necessary to find newly born radio sources.

## 3 A brief history

Edge et al.(1996) noted the existence of GPS sources with a turnover frequency higher than usually found in the samples of Stanghellini et al. (1990, 1998) and Spoelstra, Patnaik & Gopal-Krishna (1985). In particular RXJ1459.9+3337 (a quasar at z=0.65) had a number of observations at 5 GHz showing a steady increase in the total flux density over a period of about 10 yrs, starting at around 50 mJy at the end of 1987 and reaching about 140 mJy in 1996. The “simultaneous” radio spectrum from the VLA showed a radio spectrum with a peak around 30 GHz (about 50 GHz in the rest frame). The source has been observed again with the VLA in 1999 since the source belongs to the “faint” HFP sample (Stanghellini et al. in preparation; the “faint” sample covers the flux density interval between 50 and 300 mJy in the GB6 catalogue), and the observed flux density at 5 GHz sits exactly on the extrapolation from Edge et al.’s plot (see Fig. 1 $`left`$). It is also interesting to note that the spectral peak is likely to have moved down to a slightly lower frequency, possibly indicating that the source and/or component expansion is decreasing the optical depth below the turnover frequency. However, the 1999 VLA data lack the 43 GHz measurements, and thus it is not possible to derive a firm estimate for the spectral peak at this epoch.

The possibility that the steady increase of flux density with time is only apparent has also to be taken into account, and could be due to the sparse time sampling of a more irregular flux density variability with the typical “random” pattern, that, however, appears to be linear due to the sampling carried out with a certain amount of “cosmic conspiracy”.

## 4 A complete sample of HFPs

As mentioned above the ideal, intrinsically small and young radio sources are those identified with galaxies. However, it is nearly impossible to select samples by starting from optical identification, particularly when rare objects are searched for. Then the conventional approach to select samples on the basis of the radio spectrum (the usual convex, bell-shape with a clear optically thin region) have to be used.

Among the signatures of young radio sources, the turnover frequency above a few GHz is probably the most characterstic of this class, and also the easiest to investigate. Then, by comparing the NVSS (Condon et al. 1998) with the GB6 (Gregory et al. 1996) catalogues one would expect that the young sources must have a rather inverted spectrum and must also appear unresolved on both surveys. However, this fairly simple selection is spoiled by the relatively long time lag between the GB6 and the VLA observations. In fact, variable sources at a high state of activity during the GB6 campaign, are selected in this way as well. Therefore it was definitely necessary to carry out simultaneous multifrequency observations to define the spectral shape of all the candidates.

Dallacasa et al. (2000) defined a sample of “bright” HFPs, with flux density in excess of 300 mJy in the GB6 catalogue and inverted spectra (steeper than 0.5 if S$`\nu ^\alpha `$) between 1.4 (the NVSS measurement) and 4.9 GHz. About 100 candidates were then observed at the VLA to get simultaneous radio spectra between 1.4 and 22 GHz and then separate variable flat spectrum sources from those with intrinsically convex-shaped radio spectra. The final sample of genuine HFP sources consists of 55 objects and covers the area of the GB6 catalogue, although a few small areas have not yet been covered by the NVSS.

About 1750 sources brighter thant 300 mJy in the GB6 were found in the NVSS and the final number of HFPs represents a rather conspicuous fraction (3%) if compared to the expectations, bearing in mind a model of a young radio source quite rapidly developing within the host galaxy. The selection does not impose any condition on the optical identification. Indeed we should restrict our attention to galaxies only, possibly also rejecting those broad line hosts classified as galaxies given that they are indeed relatively nearby and it is possible to reveal consistent starlight around them. About half of the bright HFPs already had been identified in the literature and a project to complete such information is continuing (Dallacasa, Falomo & Stanghellini 2002). Most of the HFPs are identified with high redshift quasars and only about 25% (15 objects in total, including two nearby broad line radio galaxies) can be considered non quasar or BL Lac.

Therefore, the intrinsically young radio sources (i.e. narrow line galaxies) become less than 1% and it is no surprise to find that the intrinsic peak frequency is generally much smaller than in HFP quasars also as a consequence of the different redshift range spanned by the two populations, with the majority of the quasars found at redshift larger than 1.5.

The expected number of very young (about 100 yr old) sources can be calculated from the ratio of their typical age and the average age of extended radio sources (about 107 yr). This would imply a fraction of the order of 0.01%, but we must also consider that in all the “youth” models the sources progressively decrease their radio luminosity as the mini lobes leave the NLR, and then we should have considered a larger sample of “old” radio sources by decreasing the flux density limit by about one order of magnitude. In this case, nearly all the 54000 sources in the GB6 would form the “old” radio source sample to be used in the determination of the fraction of young radio sources in catalogues.

Among the 31 sources with measured redshift only 11 have an intrinsic peak frequency above 22 GHz, and all of them are quasars. There are two sources more with observed peak frequency beyond 22 GHz, and both are identified with stellar objects (redshift is not yet available). The few galaxies with measured or estimated redshift have peak frequencies in the range 5 – 12 GHz.

The radio morphology is also an important tool to assess whether a source is indeed young (lobe dominated) or just a knot in a jet which is dominant over the entire radio emission (as in 4C39.25, Alberdi et al. 2000), and in fact the CSO or MSO (Medium-size Symmetric Object) samples also contain a few QSOs. VLBA imaging in the optically thin part of the spectrum is a useful tool in this respect (see also Tinti et al. 2003).

### 4.1 Polarisation

Intrinsically small sources are in regions close to the active nucleus where a substantial amount of high energy radiation is produced and where ionisation and magnetic field strength are important. Consequently the Faraday Rotation is likely to be significant and where the Faraday screen is not homogeneous and not resolved by the observations, then the (beam) depolarisation becomes dominant at relatively high frequencies.

Among the bright HFPs, the polarization information is still not available in a systematic way except in the NVSS, which happens to be in the optically thick part of the spectrum of all the sources. However, it is possible to distinguish the behaviour of the HFP quasars (and the two BL Lacs) from the other HFPs identified with galaxies or still empty fields. As can be be seen in Fig. 2, the former span a wide range of fractional polarisation, with measured values up to 5%, while the latter are not polarised at all with one exception. This is what it is expected in case that HFP quasars are mostly larger radio sources seen with the jet aligned to the line of sight and thus the radiation comes from outside the region with high local ionisation. In a study concerning CSS and GPS sources done in a similar way Cotton et al. (2003) find that there is a quite sharp change in the fractional polarisation which rises to significant values once the source emerges from a region of about 2-3 kpc in radius. Given that HFPs are well within this region, they are expected to be unpolarised.

### 4.2 Variability

It is well known that flux density variability may substantially modify the observed spectrum of blazars in all the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, sometimes even challenging the optical identification (e.g. BL Lac itself, Vermeulen et al. 1995).

Little is known about the radio variability in HFP sources, except for a very few objects already known for other reasons: the HFP galaxy B0108+388 (also in the Stanghellini et al. 1998 GPS sample) is known to possess a rather constant flux density at all radio frequencies; the BL Lac B1749+096 and the quasars B0923+392 (4C39.25) and B2134+004 (the latter is also in the Stanghellini et al. 1998 GPS sample) are known to possess some amount of flux density and polarisation variability (see the VLA/VLBA polarisation calibration webpage). On the other hand, the broad line galaxy B1404+286 (OQ208, also a GPS in the Stanghellini et al. 1998 sample) showed a steady decrease of its flux density at 5 GHz in the eighties, but now this decrease has stopped. The flux density at 1.4 GHz, however, did not show any significant variability.

For most of the 55 HFP sources in the bright sample there is only the simultaneous multifrequency VLA datapoints in Dallacasa et al. (2000), the NVSS, the GB6 and the JVAS measure at 8.4 GHz, where it is however possible to see a significant amount of flux density variability (Dallacasa et al. 2000). The VLA multifrequency observations of HFP candidates were split into several runs separated by weeks or months, and a handful of sources were observed twice. Among these sources, J1016+0518 (B1013+054) shows a remarkable change: the two simultaneous radio spectra are shown in Fig. 3. At both epochs, the overall radio spectrum maintains a convex shape, although the first epoch is characterised by a complex structure. The peak has moved from $`>`$22 GHz down to 7 GHz over about 10 months. If we assume classical equipartition conditions and use O’Dea’s (1998) plot, we can estimate the size of the source by means of the spectral peak. The increase in size is then evaluated to be from 1.0 to 3.0 pc and this would correspond to an expansion velocity of about 16 c, which is clearly unrealistic, i.e. we cannot interpret this source in terms of a young object where the lobes are expanding within the host galaxy, but rather as a beamed object whose radio emission is dominated by a single knot in the jet.

In this respect HFP quasars can be considered the counterpart of steep-spectrum radio quasars (SSRQ) in the population of powerful and extended radio sources, i.e. objects oriented at angles intermediate to the line of sight and where relativistic beaming is effective although not so strongly as in blazars.

Further VLA polarisation-sensitive multifrequency observations are under examination in order to evaluate the incidence of variability (also in spectral shape) among HFP sources and also to estimate the degree of polarisation in the optically thin part of the spectrum. If significant polarisation is also detected below the turnover frequency, these data will allow one to study the mechanism responsible for self-absorption (see also Kameno et al. 2003).

## 5 Summary

The hosts of the “bright” HFPs are mostly quasars (with two BL Lac objects), and the galaxies are rather rare, as expected from the estimate of the radiative age as derived from the spectral peak. Only 15 out of the 55 bright HFP sources can be considered galaxies, although two are classified as Broad Line galaxies, and the final number of prototype young radio sources is likely to be smaller. Accurate VLBI morphological studies in the optically thin part of the spectrum play a key role in the correct classification.

If we consider Unified Scheme models for powerful (type 1) but small radio loud objects, we could think of a sequence of sources with the radio jets oriented at decreasing angles to the line of sight formed by HFP/GPS/CSS galaxies, then HFP/GPS/CSS quasars and finally a small number of OVV/FSRQ/BLAZARS.

Indeed there could be some bias towards HFP/GPS/CSS quasars: these are likely to be dominated by a knot in the jet were some degree of relativistic beaming increases the apparent luminosity of the object, and therefore high frequency catalogues are biased towards them and against galaxies.

## Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Derek Jones for careful reading the manuscript and substantially improving the English.
I acknowledge financial support by the Italian MIUR under grants COFIN-2001-02-8773 and COFIN-2002-8118
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under a cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.
This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Caltech, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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