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# 1 Public Attitudes and Understanding of Science

## 1 Public Attitudes and Understanding of Science

It has been well-documented  that most Americans have very little understanding of science, are unable to distinguish between science and psuedoscience, and have no clear concept of the role of science in their daily lives. While about 90 percent if those surveyed by the National Science Foundation (NSF) since 1979 report being interested in science and more than 80 percent (in 2001) believe that federal government should finance scientific research, about 50 percent do not know that Earth takes one year to go around the sun, electrons are smaller than atoms, and early humans did not live at the same time as dinosaurs. Statistics concerning Americans lack of knowledge of such things receive frequent media attention.

Answering the question “Who is responsible?” is not an easy task since many factors, including social and economic conditions, have a direct impact on the science literacy of the public. However, scientists strongly believe that the media—ironically, exactly those that raise concern about the limited science literacy of the public—and, in particular, the entertainment industry, are at least partially responsible and are a significant source of the public’s misunderstanding and faulty knowledge of science. Unfortunately, the public who watch television shows and films with pseudoscientific or paraphysical themes does not always interpret them simply as entertainment based in pure fiction. Due to the lack of critical thinking skills, many people tend to perceive the events depicted as real or within the reaches of science. This unchallenged manner in which the entertainment industry portrays pseudoscientific and paraphysical phenomena should excite great concern in the scientific community. Not only does it amplify the public’s scientific illiteracy, but also puts at risk the public’s attitude towards science, raising the possibility that future influential figures in our society could inadvertently cause serious damage to mainstream physics simply through ignorance and misunderstanding.

The authors have embarked on an ambitious project to help improve public understanding of the basic principles of physical science. This paper reports the results of the initial phase of the program, which was begun with several large groups of non-science majors enrolled in the general education physical science course at the University of Central Florida (UCF), a course with a counterpart in nearly every college and university (and many high schools) in the nation.

## 2 On Our Course

### 2.1 The Course in Brief

At UCF the course is 3 semester-hours and is taken by about 3000 students annually. It has an independent 1 semester-hour laboratory elected by about 20 percent of those in the course. At this stage the lab is not a part of the project. During the academic year the class is taught in sections of 300 to 450 students; in the summer the class sections are limited to 90 enrollees. All sections are taught in multimedia-equipped classrooms.

In the authors’ sections, we teach the key concepts from all areas of physics, not only the standard core of classical physics that is presently physical science , but go beyond to introduce students to the captivating discoveries of relativity, quantum mechanics, astronomy, and cosmology. Augmenting the traditional lectures and live demonstrations, our new “weapon” in this effort to improve scientific literacy is the films themselves, often the same ones that perpetuate the incorrect understanding of science held by the students. Using a medium that is familiar to and universally enjoyed by the students, we employ short (5 to 8 minutes) clips from many films as the basis for discussions and calculations for the very broad range of topics covered in the course, including some decidedly non-typical topics, such as time travel, extraterrestrial civilizations, and black holes.

### 2.2 The Goals of the Course

Our goals for the course are these:

1. To motivate students to think critically about science information presented in films.
2. To help students learn to distinguish between physical laws and pseudo-science.
3. To encourage students to understand how science works and how any widely accepted theory has been verified using the scientific method.
4. To help students learn where the borderline between tested and untested physics ideas lies.

### 2.3 Other Similar Attempts

In years past forerunners of our approach have been tried in a few places with varying degrees of success. The most notable case is that of Professor L. Dubeck of Temple Universiy . Dubeck has used science fiction films to teach scientific ideas to non-science majors. A real pioneer in this approach, but well ahead of his time, his course did not attract the attention it deserved. We only discovered it while in the process of developing our course for the Summer of 2002. His approach is qualitatively; on the contrary, our approach is mostly quantitative, although qualitative arguments are often given for various scenes. Moreover, we have made use of a broad array of genres, not just science fiction films.

Other efforts have focused at the high school level . In particular, Dennis has recently advertised his success in an article published in Physics Teacher  about teaching mechanics with the aid of films. Motivated by this success, Dennis has published a book111We are grateful to C. Dennis for sending us review copies of his book.  with the hope of helping other teachers use films in their courses, too. Our approach carries many similarities in philosophy with that of Dennis; however, our course, taught at a college level is more advanced and covers by far more topics than mechanics.

A serious challenge in each case has been to keep the course up-to-date—for example, this seems to be the most serious problem with the books  as expressed by the students. This challenge we think our approach and careful planning will meet.

## 3 On Our Use of Films

The course syllabus outlines the topics to be covered during the term and also includes a schedule of films to be viewed as homework by the students.

Each film contains scenes concerned with one or more (usually more) of the topics. For example, listed below are the films and topics used during the initial phase of the project:

1. Speed 2 : speed and acceleration, collisions.
2. Armageddon : momentum, energy, comets and asteroids.
3. Eraser : momentum, free fall, electromagnetic radiation.
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey : centripetal and centrifugal force, artificial gravity, zero gravity.
5. The Abyss : hydrostatic and atmospheric pressure, effects of pressure on humans and objects.
6. Independence Day : potential energy, conservation of energy, pressure, tidal forces.
7. Tango and Cash : momentum, electricity, physiological effects on humans.
8. Frequency : magnetism, motion of particles in magnetic fields, Aurora Borealis, solar wind, wormholes, time travel.
9. Contact : relativity, space travel, wormholes, life beyond Earth, Drake’s formula.

The films assigned, about one per week, are popular ones available on DVDs or videotapes from stores or, in many cases, libraries222The UCF library currently owns 10 DVDs from each movie used in the course.. Films are viewed at home as homework prior to discussion of the related topics in class; as mentioned, only short clips are used in class. We found that viewing the homework films quickly became occasions for student group or family pizza parties! This helped alleviate a potential problem of having enough copies of each film locally available. Sufficient available copies turned out not to be a problem as the numerous video stores tend to have many copies of the films we use.

In class integrated with the lecture, PowerPoint slides and demonstrations, we focus on analyzing the topic of the day using clips from films that have examples of that principle. For example, students might watch The Abyss. Then in class, using a couple of clips from the film to “set the scene”, we discuss pressure in a fluid as a function of depth, how deep an object (e.g., a person or submarine) can descend, and the propagation of sound in water. Following that discussion, a physics single-concept film may be shown to illustrate what the movie got right and what it got wrong. After class, the instructor’s analysis of each clip is placed on the course web site so that students may review the discussion and calculations. An additional advantage of this approach is that the films we use can be varied each term to incorporate new releases and to focus attention on particular concepts. Below is an example of how we use particular clips from Armageddon in discussions of asteroids, momentum conservation and energy.

EXAMPLE: In Armageddon  an asteroid of the size of Texas is on a collision course with Earth. In Chapter 7: Training Begins of Armageddon, the flight plan of NASA and the method for the destruction of the asteroid are described (see segment from 43:04 to 45:34): the team must land on the asteroid, drill a hole, plant a nuclear bomb, and then detonate it before the ‘zero barrier’. If the detonation happens after the ‘zero barrier’, then the asteroid fragments will collide with Earth. This segment is discussed twice in class, once when the concepts of momentum are presented (paragraph 1 below), and once when the concepts of energy are presented (paragraphs 3 and 4 below). In the second case, the calculation ends with an evaluation on the feasibility of the plan. Prior to the second time, another quick clip (Chapter 4: NYC Hit Hard, segment from 10:20 to 11:40) is shown in class which motivates a discussion on asteroids and the calculation of the mass of the asteroid seen in the film (paragraph 2 below). These discussions are repeated here in order to demonstrate our methods.

§1. Momentum Conservation: Following the NASA simulation and to simplify the analysis, we assume that the asteroid splits in exactly two fragments. Moreover, we assume that the detonation of the nuclear bomb will force the two fragments to deflect perpendicular to the direction of the original motion at speeds that depend on the size of the bomb. (We shall indicate the direction of motion as $`x`$-direction and the perpendicular direction as $`y`$-direction.) The two fragments will still continue to move towards Earth with the $`22,500mi/h`$ speed of the asteroid. This is guaranteed by momentum conservation. The relation of the fragment speeds in the $`y`$-direction is also determined by momentum conservation. Assuming that the two fragments have equal mass, they will acquire equal speeds in the $`y`$-direction, such that the total momentum along this direction maintains the value zero that it had before the detonation.

§2. Mass of the asteroid: For a quantitative calculation on the Armageddon NASA plan, we shall need the mass of the asteroid. In the movie we are told that the asteroid is of the size of Texas. The area of Texas is $`691,027km^2`$ . Assuming that Texas is a square, this would give a length of $`831.3km`$ for the side of the square. This gives an average length. In reality, Texas is stretching $`1,244Km`$ from east to west and $`1,289km`$ from north to south . To be on the conservative side, we will adopt the average size $`831.3km`$ for our calculations. Even so, only one known asteroid is of such size; the largest asteroid, Ceres, has a diameter of about $`940km`$. In fact only two dozen asteroids have diameters $`200km`$ or greater. Even if we assemble all known asteroids to a unique big asteroid, its diameter will be no more than $`1,500km`$ and its mass less than 1/10 that of Earth’s moon . However, to give the director the benefit of doubt, we shall accept the existence of an asteroid of the size given on collision course with Earth.

If the asteroid is a cube, its volume is $`5.7\times 10^8km^3`$. If it is a sphere, then its volume is $`18\times 10^8km^3`$. Large asteroids have spherical shape; smaller asteroids have irregular shapes . However, let’s assume that the volume of the asteroid in the film is somewhere in between the two values given above, say $`10\times 10^8km^3=10^{18}m^3`$.

Overall, about 15 percent of all asteroids are silicate (i.e. composed of rocky material), 75 percent are carbonaceous (i.e. contain carbon), and 10 percent are other types (such as those containing large fractions of iron). Stony asteroids look very much like terrestrial rocks. So, we might assume that the density of the asteroid is approximately equal to that of Earth: $`5500kg/m^3`$. However, we know from observations that asteroid Ida has a density of $`2200`$$`2900kg/m^3`$ and asteroid Mathilde has a density of about $`1400kg/m^3`$. This especially low density of Mathilde might be due to a porous interior . To be conservative, we shall assume a density of $`2000kg/m^3`$ for the film asteroid. In other words, ever cubic meter of the asteroid would have a mass of $`2000kg`$. The total mass of the movie asteroid would be $`2000\times 10^{18}kg`$ or $`2\times 10^{21}kg`$. We have assumed that, after the detonation of the nuclear bomb, the asteroid breaks in two pieces which have equal mass. This means that each piece would have a mass of $`10^{21}kg`$.

§3. Energy of nuclear weapons:In the film a nuclear bomb is used to split the asteroid. The explosive TNT has become the standard means for showing the disastrous power of nuclear weapons. In particular, one ton (t) of TNT releases

$$4.2\times 10^9Joules$$

of energy. Yet, one ton is a small quantity of TNT to describe modern bombs; kilotons (kt) or megatons (Mt) of TNT are units more appropriate:

$$1kt=1000t,1Mt=1,000,000t.$$

The Hiroshima bomb was equivalent to $`12kt`$ of TNT or

$$5\times 10^{13}Joules.$$

A modern nuclear bomb is equivalent to $`20Mt`$ of TNT. This is equal to 1667 Hiroshima bombs and releases about

$$8.4\times 10^{16}Joules.$$

Today the nations which have such weapons no longer spend effort to increase the destructive power of nuclear bombs as it is already immense. Instead, they focus on reducing the size of the weapons.

§4. Deflection of the fragments: Returning to the movie, let’s assume that the nuclear bomb that was carried to the asteroid was equivalent to 100,000 Hiroshima bombs. For the reasons we have already explained, this is a really generous assumption in favor of the director. As always, we want to be nice to him. Upon detonation, the energy released will be

$$5\times 10^{18}Joules.$$

Part of this energy will be used to break the asteroid into two pieces. However, once more, we will be generous to the director and we will ignore this fact, even though the energy needed to do so is significant. Therefore, we will assume that all the energy becomes kinetic energy of the two fragments; each fragment will be given an amount of

$$2.5\times 10^{18}Joules.$$

Moreover, as stated above, we assume that all energy becomes kinetic energy associated with motion in the $`y`$-direction and no amount is spent to push the fragments in the $`x`$-direction.

Knowing the mass of each fragment and the kinetic energy of its motion in the $`y`$-direction, we can find the speed of the fragment in this direction:

$$KE=\frac{1}{2}mv^2v=\sqrt{\frac{2KE}{m}}.$$

If we substitute the numbers and do the calculation we find that

$$v=0.07\frac{m}{s}.$$

Therefore, each fragment moves in the $`y`$-direction $`\frac{7}{100}m`$ (or $`7cm`$) every second. In two hours or $`7200s`$, the time to reach Earth, each fragment will move

$$\frac{7}{100}\frac{m}{s}\times 7200s=504m.$$

Now compare this with the radius of the Earth:

$$6,500km=6,500,000m$$

which is how far each fragment must move in the $`y`$-direction in order to just miss the solid Earth (but it would still go through the atmosphere and release a lot of energy).

So we see that applying momentum conservation and reasonable (and generous!) assumptions about the size of the nuclear bomb used, there is no way that this plan would save Earth. The two fragments of the asteroid would be barely few city blocks apart when they collided with Earth. Such proposals appear in the press from time to time, but now the students learnt how to critically analyze such suggestions made by well-meaning, but scientifically, illiterate contemporaries.

The above discussion, besides the explicitly made assumptions, ignores the gravitational attraction of the two fragments that will decrease further the deflection, the tidal effects on Earth, and the perturbation introduced by the asteroid in the motion of the Earth-moon system. These effects are discussed further in class, partly qualitatively and partly quantitatively.

As is obvious from our example, the quantitative analyses we use are often more sophisticated than what is expected from Physical Science students. However, we have discovered that, since the analysis is strongly correlated to the film, no complaints are generated. A similar attempt to solve such a problem in the traditional course would generate many unpleasant feelings and would make the course very unpopular.

Besides the films required to be previewed by the students at home, the instructors make use of clips from various other movies, IMAX films, and scientific documentaries. For example, a clip from Deep Impact is used to demonstrate the tsunamis after a collision of a comet with Earth, clips from the IMAX film Mission to Mir  is shown in order to illustrate life under “zero gravity” conditions, and clips from the PBS documentary Life Beyond Earth  are shown to discuss our quest for life in the Universe.

## 4 Student Response and Performance Results

So, how do the students perceive the course? The instructors made use in class of an electronic personal response system whereby each student could respond immediately to questions posted by the instructors, their responses being automatically recorded and tabulated by an in-class computer. This system, besides its pedagogical value, was used to obtain data on the student’s feelings and reactions on the course and to record attendance. The results for several course-evaluation questions are shown in Tables 1 through 4.

Besides the data collected by the personal response system, students have expressed strong support through the standard end-of-term course evaluations and through —unsolicited— comments in their term papers.

Of course, even if the students embrace a new idea enthusiastically, it does not mean that their performance will be better than their performance in the traditional course (where the majority of them really struggle). The effect needs to documented. In Table 5, we list the performance of UCF Physical Science students in two almost identical classes, one taught in the traditional way and one taught using movies. The important parameters in both classes are identical: the classes have the same size, they were taught by the same instructor (C.E.) who used similar PowerPoint lectures, same demonstrations, gave similar exams. The classes were even taught in the same auditorium. The classes also covered similar material with the same textbook  required in the traditional class and recommended in the Physics in Films class. The Physics in Films class used in addition a supplement . The material of the Physics in Films class was almost identical. There were some differences in order to make the content of the course more exciting: a few topics of the traditional syllabus were omitted and they were substituted by topics that captivate the imagination of the students. Topics that were covered in the traditional course but omitted in the Physics in Films course were the extensive treatment of heat and temperature and extensive discussion of elements and the periodic table. Instead, topics from astronomy (comets and asteroids, life and intelligent life beyond Earth), as well as some topics from modern science were added (elements of special and general relativity, space and time travel).

## 5 On the Drawing Board

The authors are currently writing a physical science textbook that incorporates the physics in films concept. It will be complete with an instructors CD containing analysis notes for every scene used in the book to discuss concepts in physical science and a tutorial on making your own analysis of scenes from favorite or new movies. In addition to physics, this approach to teaching basic concepts at the non-major introductory level can be applied in many other disciplines. Table 6 lists several possibilities with examples of films containing pertinent scenes.


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# Optical photometry and X-ray monitoring of the “Cool Algol” BD+05∘706: Determination of the physical properties

## 1 Introduction

The class of interacting binaries known as the “classical Algols” are semi-detached systems that contain a late-type giant or subgiant that fills its Roche lobe and is transferring mass onto a much more luminous and more massive B–A main sequence star. A new class of binaries has been found with properties that are similar to those of the classical Algols, except that the mass gaining component is a late-type giant or subgiant like its companion. These systems were first recognized by Popper (1992) and are now referred to as the “cool Algols.” They typically display signs of magnetic activity in the form of Ca II H$`+`$K emission, H$`\alpha `$ emission, star spots, and strong X-ray emission. Only about a dozen cool Algols are known, and many of them were mistakenly assigned to the larger group of RS CVn binaries which contain a luminous K-type primary with a fainter F–G type companion. The main difference between the cool Algols and the RS CVn systems is that the former are undergoing Roche lobe overflow, while the latter are detached (see, e.g., Popper, 1980; Hall, 1989).

BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 (RXJ0441.9$`+`$0537, PPM 147827, $`\alpha =4^\mathrm{h}41^\mathrm{m}57\stackrel{\mathrm{s}}{\mathrm{.}}64`$, $`\delta =+5\mathrm{°}36\mathrm{}34\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}3`$, J2000, $`V=9.4`$) is one of the recent additions to this rare category of cool Algols, and was discovered in the course of spectroscopic follow-up observations of a sample of X-ray sources selected from the ROSAT All-Sky Survey south of the Taurus-Auriga star-forming region (Neuhäuser et al., 1997). Although that X-ray sample was originally designed to favor the detection of T Tauri stars, which are also quite active, BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 was quickly found to be of an entirely different nature. Torres et al. (1998) (hereafter Paper I) reported a double-lined spectroscopic orbital solution with a period of 18.9 days, a very small and possibly spurious eccentricity, and a mass ratio of $`q=0.21`$ ($`M_{\mathrm{secondary}}/M_{\mathrm{primary}}`$), typical of the Algol systems.

The system contains two cool giants. The G8 III “primary” (the more massive star) is detached, while the K1-K2 III “secondary” has filled its critical lobe or may overflow it (Paper I). The star we have called the “secondary” is currently the larger, less massive, and cooler component, as in the classical Algols. Spectroscopic convention is used throughout this paper instead of the notation used in papers on stellar evolution, which refer to the initially more massive star as the primary. The general properties of the system were described in Paper I. Although photometry for BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 was not available at the time of that study, eclipses were estimated to be very likely. Subsequent photometric monitoring in the optical confirmed this prediction (Marschall et al., 1998).

The general characteristics of the cool Algols are fairly well defined (see Popper, 1992, and Paper I), but accurate information on individual systems is still far from complete. Only five of the members, aside from BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706, have spectroscopic orbits for both components (RZ Cnc, AR Mon, RT Lac, AD Cap, and RV Lib; Popper, 1976, 1991), and light curve analyses for the first three of these have yielded the absolute masses and radii necessary in order to understand their properties. The remaining five objects identified as possible members of this class (UZ Cnc, V1061 Cyg, AV Del, GU Her, and V756 Sco; Popper, 1996) have very little in the way of observations and in some cases even the orbital periods are poorly known.

The high-quality spectroscopic orbit presented for BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 in Paper I, combined with the fact that the system is eclipsing, offers the opportunity to determine the absolute dimensions of the components very accurately. To that end, photometric observations in the $`BVRI`$ system were continued after the initial report by Marschall et al. (1998). We present here a full analysis of those data, and also a re-analysis of the spectroscopic material in Paper I with improved techniques and the benefit of the additional information provided by the light-curves. The latter offer a means for evaluating subtle distortions in the Doppler measurements due to the close proximity of the stars. As a result, we are able to determine here the absolute masses of both components with uncertainties smaller than 2%, and the radii with errors smaller than 3%, which are now the best determinations for any system of the cool Algol class.

The global X-ray properties and the activity level of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 (Ca II H and K emission, variable H$`\alpha `$ line strength) were studied in some detail in Paper I, where it was established that the hotter primary star is most likely the site of the bulk of the activity in the binary. Additional X-ray observations for the system were secured by us with the ROSAT satellite essentially over a complete 18.9-day cycle (yielding an X-ray light curve), and clearly show the primary eclipse but not the secondary eclipse. An analysis of these data is presented here as well, allowing us to obtain information about the geometry of the X-ray emitting region surrounding the active star.

## 2 Observational material

The photometric observations of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 in the optical were conducted at the Gettysburg College Observatory (Gettysburg, PA) with a 16-inch f/11 Ealing Cassegrain reflector. The detector was a Photometrics thermoelectrically-cooled CCD camera with a front-illuminated Thompson 7896 chip with $`1024\times 1024`$ pixels. BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 was observed on 94 nights during the 1997–1999 observing seasons. A total of 80, 93, 133 and 137 observations were made in the Johnson $`B`$, $`V`$, $`R`$, and $`I`$ filters, respectively. The comparison and check stars used are TYC 95-1495-1 (GSC 00095-1495) and HD 29764 (GSC 00091-00262, BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$704, SAO 111980), respectively. Basic properties for these stars are listed in Table 1. Coverage of the primary eclipse in the $`B`$ and $`V`$ filters was very poor during the first two seasons (before JD 2,451,000), and therefore those data were not used in the analysis below.

The precision of an individual differential photometric measurement is estimated to be 0.010 mag, 0.010 mag, 0.009 mag, and 0.010 mag in the $`B`$, $`V`$, $`R`$, and $`I`$ passbands, respectively, derived from the comparison and check stars under the assumption that they do not vary. The observations in the sense $``$variable minus comparison$``$ are listed in Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, and Table 5. The depth of the eclipses in the $`V`$ band is approximately 0.52 mag for the primary minimum and 0.34 mag for the secondary. Changes in the overall brightness at the quadratures are fairly obvious from season to season. They are not unexpected given the activity level displayed by the system, and will be discussed in more detail in §3.

The spectroscopic material used here is the same as that reported in Paper I. Briefly, it consists of 41 single-order echelle spectra obtained from 1994 March to 1996 March with the 1.5-m Wyeth reflector at the Oak Ridge Observatory (Harvard, Massachusetts), the 1.5-m Tillinghast reflector at the Fred L. Whipple Observatory (Mount Hopkins, Arizona), and the Multiple Mirror Telescope (also atop Mount Hopkins, Arizona) prior to its conversion to a monolithic 6.5-m mirror. The spectra cover 45 Å with a central wavelength of 5187 Å, and the resolving power is $`\lambda /\mathrm{\Delta }\lambda 35,000`$. The reductions to obtain radial velocities for both components are slightly different from those used in Paper I, and are described later.

X-ray observations of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 were obtained with the High Resolution Imager instrument (HRI; David et al., 1996) aboard the ROSAT satellite over a period of 18 days covering essentially a full orbital cycle of the binary, from 1997 August 18 to September 5. The measurements were made at intervals of one day, with the exception of a 3-day gap due to scheduling constraints. The exposure times were typically about 3.5 ksec each, achieving signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios ranging from 6 to 15 per broad-band observation (0.1 to 2.4 keV), with a mean S/N of 10. The observations were reduced with the Extended Scientific Analysis Software (EXSAS, Zimmermann et al., 1994) version 2001 running under ESO-MIDAS version 01FEB. In addition to considering the full energy range of ROSAT, we subsequently divided the recorded counts into a soft band including detector channels 0 through 3 (0.1 to 0.5 keV) and a hard band including channels 4 through 15 (0.6 to 2.4 keV) in order to obtain additional information from the analysis of these data. We performed standard local and map source detection in all three spectral bands. The S/N ratios range from 4 to 10 in the soft band and from 4 to 11 in the hard band. This allows us to define a “hardness ratio” $`\mathrm{𝐻𝑅}=(HS)/(H+S)`$, where $`H`$ and $`S`$ are the hard and soft count rates, respectively (see Huélamo et al., 2000).

The individual X-ray observations are listed in Table 6. The columns give the heliocentric Julian date and the exposure times, followed by the count rates, the corresponding errors, and the Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimator for the soft, hard, and broad bands (Cruddace, Hasinger & Schmitt, 1988). The quantity ML provides a measure of the existence of the source above the local background. For example, a Maximum Likelihood of 7.4 (14.3) corresponds to a 3.5$`\sigma `$ (5$`\sigma `$) detection. The last three columns give the hardness ratio and its corresponding uncertainty, as well as the phase in the orbit of the binary111Since the soft-, hard-, and broad-band counts are computed separately by the Maximum Likelihood detection algorithm, the soft and hard counts in Table 6 do not exactly add up to the broad-band counts, although the difference is minimal. The mean local background is estimated separately in each band and then subtracted from the corresponding total counts, which contributes to the slight discrepancy. .

Figure 1 shows the time history of the optical photometry, the spectroscopy, and the X-ray observations. Because of the variability of the object, the time coverage of the optical light curves and the radial velocities is relevant for the modeling of the system, as we describe in §4. In the analyses below all data were phased with the ephemeris

$$\mathrm{Min}\mathrm{I}=\mathrm{HJD}2,449,924.582(\pm 0.012)+18.8988(\pm 0.0011)\times E,$$
(1)
where the epoch refers to the time of primary eclipse (more massive star occulted by the other star), and $`E`$ is the number of cycles counted from this epoch. This ephemeris was determined from the radial velocity observations described in §4, and supersedes the one given in Paper I.

## 3 Analysis of the optical photometry

Examination of the raw light curves for BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 revealed significant changes over the three observing seasons that precluded their merging into a single data set for analysis. The extent of the changes is such that, for example, during the 1997–1998 season the light level in the $`V`$ band at the first quadrature was lower than at the second quadrature, whereas by the following season the situation had reversed. Variations of this nature are common in active systems, and are well explained by the presence of surface features (spots) on one or both stars. In order to minimize the scatter, a compromise between the number of observations, the completeness of the phase coverage (particularly at the minima), and the intrinsic variations was made by dividing the observations into two data sets at Julian Date $`2,451,000`$ (see Figure 1). As mentioned above, the measurements in the $`B`$ and $`V`$ filters in data set #1 do not cover the primary eclipse, and they were therefore not used for the final fits. Light curve analyses were carried out separately for each bandpass in each data set ($`RI`$ for data set #1, and $`BVRI`$ for data set #2), and also for the combined data.

The light curve solutions were performed with the Wilson-Devinney code (Wilson & Devinney, 1971; Wilson, 1979, 1990) in a mode appropriate for semi-detached systems, in accordance with the information available for the stars from Paper I. Specifically, we used “Mode 5” for a secondary that is filling its limiting lobe. Detached and overcontact configurations were tried as well, but the solutions were never as satisfactory as those in the semi-detached mode. They always converged towards the secondary star filling its Roche lobe and the primary well within its critical surface, in agreement with the assessment in Paper I. Solutions were found for the modified gravitational potential of the primary ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$, in the Wilson-Devinney usage), the inclination angle ($`i`$), the relative monochromatic luminosity of the primary ($`L_1`$), the mean temperature of the secondary ($`T_2`$), and a phase offset ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi `$). The temperature of the primary was held fixed at the spectroscopic value of $`T_1=5000`$ K, as was the mass ratio $`qM_2/M_1=0.2055`$ (see §4). We have assumed the orbit to be circular, consistent with the results of the new spectroscopic analysis below. The monochromatic luminosity of the secondary ($`L_2`$) was computed by the program directly from the temperatures of the primary and secondary, the luminosity of the primary, the radiation laws, and the geometry of the system. Limb-darkening coefficients were interpolated from the tables by van Hamme (1993) for the appropriate temperatures and for surface gravities of $`\mathrm{log}g_1=3.0`$ and $`\mathrm{log}g_2=2.0`$ (see §4). A value of 0.5 was adopted for the bolometric albedo of both components, appropriate for stars with convective envelopes. Gravity brightening coefficients were interpolated from the models by Claret (2000).

Aside from the usual light elements, the distortions mentioned above in the light curves suggested the presence of one or more spots requiring additional free parameters. The Wilson-Devinney code is capable of accounting for spots (assumed to be circular in shape) based on a simple representation with four additional parameters: the longitude ($`l`$, in degrees) measured counter-clockwise (as seen from above) from the line joining the centers of the stars, the latitude ($`b`$, in degrees), the angular radius ($`r`$, in degrees), and a temperature factor ($`\mathrm{𝑇𝐹}=T_{\mathrm{spot}}/T_{\mathrm{star}}`$) representing the contrast in temperature between the spot and the surrounding photosphere.

Numerical experiments showed that in our case the fits cannot usually distinguish the component on which the spots are located, since similarly good solutions resulted with the spots on either star. In the RS CVn systems the spots are typically located on the cooler star, which is usually the more active component. There are a number of cases, however, in which the spots have instead been shown to be on the hotter star (e.g., Hill, Fischer & Holmgren, 1990; Vivekananda Rao, Sarma & Prakash Rao, 1991; Kjurkchieva, Marchev & Ogloza, 2000; Albayrak et al., 2001). In BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 there are strong indications that the activity is in fact associated with the hotter star (the primary), as evidenced by the H$`\alpha `$ emission (see Paper I) and also the X-ray properties discussed later in §6. It is therefore not unreasonable to assume in the following that the spottedness in this system is primarily associated with the hotter star. More complicated models with spots on both stars are possible, but are probably not justified given the data available.

The maximum brightness outside of eclipse is much the same for data sets #1 and #2, although it occurs at phase 0.75 in the first set and at phase 0.25 in the second. The lower brightness levels at the other quadrature in each data set are not quite as similar to each other and show more scatter in the photometric observations. This suggests that the lower light levels may be due to one or more cool spots (which tend to change with time in other similarly active stars), as opposed to hot spots being the cause of the higher brightness at the other quadratures. Spots that are cooler than the photosphere have typically been found also in virtually all RS CVn systems (although warm features have been reported in a few cases; see, e.g., Strassmeier & Rice, 2003). Thus we will assume here that the spots are cool. The situation for BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 obviously calls for the cool spots to be located at roughly opposite longitudes in the two epochs, and we found that a single spot at each epoch gave an adequate representation of the light curves, within the observational errors.

Further tests showed that, due to the strong correlation between the size and temperature of the spots, it was not possible to determine both simultaneously from the observations at our disposal. Grids of preliminary solutions at fixed values of TF from 0.5 to 1.0 indicated a slight preference for a spot in data set #1 with $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐹}=0.84`$ (800 K cooler than the photosphere), and a similar spot in data set #2 with $`\mathrm{𝑇𝐹}=0.87`$ (650 K cooler than the photosphere). These values are within the typical range seen in other RS CVn binaries (O’Neal, Saar & Neff, 1996; Schrijver, 2002). Therefore, in the following we have held TF fixed at these values, and the spot radius was left free.

We also found that the sensitivity of the solutions to the latitude of the spot is very weak. Experiments with fixed values of $`b`$ from 0° to 90° indicated only a very slight preference for mid-latitude features, with fits at higher or lower latitudes being almost indistinguishable. Although spots on the Sun are usually found at low latitudes, Doppler imaging studies have shown that RS CVn systems tend to display high-latitude features and even spots that straddle the pole (e.g., Hatzes, 1995; Vogt et al., 1999). While BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 is similar to the RS CVn binaries in many respects, the latter systems typically rotate much more rapidly (see, e.g., Strassmeier, 2002). Theoretical studies suggest that rapid rotation in convective stars leads to the emergence of spots at higher latitudes (Schüssler & Solanki, 1992; Schüssler et al., 1996; Granzer et al., 2000), and there is some observational support for this trend (see Hatzes, 1998). Therefore, for this study we have adopted a fixed latitude of 45°, in agreement with the above and also with the theoretical work by Granzer (2002) that focuses specifically on evolved stars similar to those in BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706.

Initially light curve solutions were obtained separately for each bandpass in each data set ($`RI`$ for data set #1, and $`BVRI`$ for data set #2), to evaluate the consistency between them. The results were found to be reasonably similar, except that the second data set showed a larger scatter in the temperature of the secondary ($`T_2`$) and in the potential of the primary ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$). Solutions were also obtained from the combined $`RI`$ and $`BVRI`$ observations from data sets #1 and #2, respectively, which were also quite similar to each other. Since the main geometric properties ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$ and $`i`$) are not expected to change from season to season, the results for these two parameters from the two data sets were averaged (with weights proportional to the internal errors), and fixed in subsequent analyses. We then repeated the fits and computed the average secondary temperature ($`T_2=4638`$ K) from the simultaneous multi-band analyses. Finally, we fixed $`T_2`$ to this value, and we solved for the remaining parameters including the size ($`r`$) and longitude ($`l`$) of the spots, which clearly do change with time. The results are given in Table 7 and Table 8 for data set #1 and #2, respectively. We show the separate fits for each filter before fixing any of the parameters, and also the simultaneous multi-band analyses in the last column calculated with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1`$, $`i`$, and $`T_2`$ set to their average values. Also listed are the fractional radii ($`r_{\mathrm{point}}`$, $`r_{\mathrm{pole}}`$, $`r_{\mathrm{side}}`$, $`r_{\mathrm{back}}`$, in terms of the separation) as well as the relative radius of a spherical star with the same volume as the distorted stars ($`r_{\mathrm{vol}}`$), for the primary and secondary. The uncertainties given in these tables are standard errors as reported by the Wilson-Devinney code. Experiments were also carried out to explore the significance of third light ($`L_3`$), but in all cases the results were consistent with $`L_3=0`$.

Both eclipses in BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 are partial, with approximately 65% of the light of the primary being blocked at phase 0.0. The latter star is nearly spherical in shape since the difference between its polar radius and the radius directed towards the inner Lagrangian point is less than 0.5%. Parameters $`r_{\mathrm{point}}`$, $`r_{\mathrm{pole}}`$, $`r_{\mathrm{side}}`$, and $`r_{\mathrm{back}}`$ in Table 7 and Table 8 confirm that the secondary is distorted because it fills its Roche lobe.

A graphical representation of the observations and light curve solutions is given in Figure 2 and Figure 3 for data sets #1 and #2. The $`OC`$ residuals are shown at the bottom for each passband. The $`B`$ and $`V`$ light curves in data set #1 lack coverage at the primary minimum, and do not allow one to determine any of the parameters reliably. Although we show them here for completeness, these observations were not used in any of the fits described above. For these $`B`$ and $`V`$ solutions all geometric and radiative parameters as well as the spot parameters were adopted from the combined $`RI`$ solution, and only the primary luminosity was allowed to vary. The fits are consequently poorer.

The spots that were found to provide a good fit to the observations in both data sets are represented in Figure 4, with the size and separation of the stars shown to scale. The difference in longitude between one epoch and the other (separated by approximately 1.4 years) is about 140°. The surface area covered by the spots is in line with what is seen in other active systems, and reaches $``$20% of one hemisphere of the primary star in data set #1, and $``$17% in data set #2.

## 4 Spectroscopic analysis

The procedures used here for the reduction of the spectroscopic material are similar to those described in Paper I in that we derived radial velocities for the two components using TODCOR (Zucker & Mazeh, 1994), a two-dimensional cross-correlation technique well suited to our relatively low S/N spectra. However, a number of improvements were introduced that justified a re-analysis of the original data. First, we now have at our disposal a new library of synthetic spectra based on more recent model atmospheres by R. L. Kurucz222Available at http://cfaku5.cfa.harvard.edu., which provide a somewhat better match to the spectra of real stars. The use of these new templates has a small effect on the temperature and rotational velocity ($`v\mathrm{sin}i`$) derived for the components of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706, and can potentially affect the radial velocities as well.

We re-determined the $`v\mathrm{sin}i`$ values by running extensive grids of correlations as described in Paper I. The results were $`v_1\mathrm{sin}i=23\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`v_2\mathrm{sin}i=31\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, with estimated errors of 1 km s-1 and 2 km s-1, respectively. The primary value is 1 km s-1 larger than in Paper I, and the secondary value is unchanged. The new effective temperatures, derived from similar grids, were $`T_1=5000`$ K and $`T_2=4600`$ K, with uncertainties of 100 K. These differ by less than 100 K from the determinations in Paper I. The new primary value was adopted for the light curve solutions described above.

A second improvement has to do with residual systematic errors in the raw velocities, mostly due to the relatively narrow spectral window of these observations. Experience with similar spectroscopic material for other binary systems has shown that these errors can be quite significant in some cases (Torres et al., 1997, 1999; Lacy et al., 2000). We have investigated these errors for the present system by means of numerical simulations that were discussed in detail by Latham et al. (1996). Briefly, we generated a set of artificial binary spectra by combining the primary and secondary templates in the appropriate ratio and applying velocity shifts for both components as computed from a preliminary orbital solution at the actual times of observation of each of our spectra. These artificial spectra were then processed with TODCOR in exactly the same way as the real observations, and the resulting velocities were compared with the input (synthetic) values. The differences $``$TODCOR minus synthetic$``$ are typically under 0.5 km s-1, but they are systematic in nature. Even though the effect on the masses is relatively small in this particular case, we have nevertheless applied these differences as corrections to the measured velocities of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706. The corrected velocities are listed in Table 9 (columns 2 and 3). The differences with the values reported in Paper I are generally below 1 km s-1.

As a result of the proximity and distorted shapes of the stars (see, e.g., Figure 4), the radial velocities measured for the components of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 are biased to some extent because of the loss of symmetry in the intensity distribution across the disks of the stars. In addition, the observations collected during the eclipses suffer from the well-known Rossiter effect (Rossiter, 1924; McLaughlin, 1924), which depends on the rotation rate. The combined magnitude of these two effects on the measured velocities, computed with the aid of the Wilson-Devinney program, is illustrated in Figure 5. The change in the primary velocities is essentially confined to the eclipses (and is mostly due to the Rossiter effect since that star is not far from the spherical shape), but the secondary velocities show changes throughout the entire orbital cycle because of the highly distorted shape of the Roche-lobe filling star. The corrections for the case of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 can reach values as large as 4 km s-1, and are listed in columns 4 and 5 of Table 9. The final values for the radial velocities used below, after applying these adjustments, are given in columns 6 and 7.

While the corrections described in the preceding paragraph (which depend only on the geometry of the system) do not change with time, the surface features modeled in the light curves, which can also affect the measured velocities, do change significantly as seen in §3. Spots have an effect on the measured velocities because they too contribute to break the symmetry of the intensity distribution on the stellar disks. In this case the effect will be on the primary velocities because the spots are assumed to be on that star. The phase dependence of the effect is seen in Figure 6 separately for data sets #1 and #2, and was derived once again using the Wilson-Devinney code. Specifically, the effect is calculated as the difference between the velocities from purely Keplerian motion and those computed by integration over the visible disk of the star, with its non-uniform brightness distribution due to the spots. It is unclear whether the velocities we have measured by cross-correlation are affected by the full amplitude of the correction computed by this program, but presumably they will be biased to some extent in the direction indicated. Unfortunately, as seen in Figure 1 our spectroscopic observations were not simultaneous with either of the photometric data sets, so that corrections for this effect cannot be applied. The magnitude of the distortion in the velocities can reach values as large as 1 km s-1 (Figure 6). Nevertheless, as a test we applied these corrections to our velocities separately for both data sets and recomputed the spectroscopic orbit to explore the impact on the elements. For data set #1 the changes in all derived quantities including the minimum masses are of the order of 1$`\sigma `$ or smaller. For data set #2 they are less than 0.5$`\sigma `$.

Our final spectroscopic orbital solution was obtained using the measured velocities corrected for proximity effects and for the Rossiter distortions only. The minimum masses and the mass ratio we determine are only slightly different from those reported in Paper I, but we now find that the eccentricity is indistinguishable from zero. The original solution in Paper I gave a value of $`e=0.0141\pm 0.0026`$, more than 5$`\sigma `$ different from zero. This presented something of a puzzle given that tidal forces for stars with deep convective envelopes such as those in BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 are expected to circularize the orbit very quickly for the relatively short period in this system, considering that both components are giants. The distortion corrections applied here appear to have solved this dilemma, and a circular orbit is adopted hereafter.

The revised elements of the spectroscopic orbit are given in Table 10. The ephemeris for the primary eclipse that we derive from this orbit is that given in eq.(1), and was adopted for the light-curve solutions. The light ratio at the wavelength of our observations (5187 Å), computed as described by Zucker & Mazeh (1994), is $`L_2/L_1=1.06\pm 0.03`$. A slight correction of $`+0.06`$ is required to convert this to the visual band (see Paper I). The residuals of the individual observations from the orbital fit are listed in columns 8 and 9 of Table 9.

## 5 Absolute dimensions

The light elements in the last column of Table 7 and Table 8 combined with the spectroscopic elements in Table 10 lead to the absolute masses and radii of the components, along with other derived properties. As mentioned earlier, the uncertainties listed for the light elements are strictly internal errors reported by the Wilson-Devinney code. More realistic errors for the inclination angle, the primary and secondary potentials, and for the secondary temperature were adopted based in part on the agreement between the solutions in the different passbands and on the sensitivity of the fits to the various parameters: $`i=79\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}47\pm 0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}15`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_1=6.03\pm 0.15`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_2=2.246\pm 0.011`$, and $`T_2=4640\pm 150`$ K. The physical properties of the stars are summarized in Table 11.

The absolute masses are determined with errors of 1.0% and 1.7% for the primary and secondary, respectively, while the radii are good to 2.6% and 1.9%. Since the difference in the depths of the minima is a very sensitive indicator of the temperature difference between the components, the later quantity is typically best determined from the light curves. In this case the result ($`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{eff}}=360`$ K) is excellent agreement with our spectroscopic determination of $`\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{eff}}=400`$ K inferred in §4, based on grids of cross-correlations with synthetic spectra. The ratio of the luminosities in the visual band from the light curve solutions is $`(L_2/L_1)_V=1.44\pm 0.05`$, whereas the estimate derived from the bolometric luminosities and bolometric corrections (Table 11) is $`(L_2/L_1)_V=1.29\pm 0.26`$. The first of these values is larger than the spectroscopic estimate \[$`(L_2/L_1)_V=1.12\pm 0.03`$\], a discrepancy possibly related to the presence of spots.

The measured projected rotational velocity of the secondary component, $`v_2\mathrm{sin}i`$, is consistent with the predicted value for synchronous rotation within the errors, as expected from the fact that the star is filling its critical surface. On the other hand, the rotation of the primary is formally some 15% faster than the predicted value, a 2.8$`\sigma `$ difference that may perhaps be significant. The primaries of many other Algol systems have also been found to rotate supersynchronously, and in some cases even close to the centrifugal limit (see, e.g., van Hamme & Wilson, 1990). This spin-up is usually explained by angular momentum transfer through accretion (Huang, 1966).

The inferred distance to BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 of 595 $`\pm `$ 51 pc relies on the apparent brightness of the system ($`V=9.45\pm 0.03`$), the interstellar extinction adopted in Paper I ($`A_V=0.35\pm 0.15`$), and bolometric corrections from Flower (1996).

## 6 X-ray light curve

The count rates over the full spectral range (0.1–2.4 keV) of the X-ray observations of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 carried out with the ROSAT satellite are shown as a function of orbital phase in Figure 7a. Two features of this broad-band light curve are immediately obvious: (a) While the primary eclipse is clearly present, there is no sign of a secondary eclipse near phase 0.5; (b) One measurement immediately preceding phase 0.5 and another one following it are about a factor of two higher than the average level of the neighboring points.

The first of these features supports the notion that the primary is the X-ray active star in the system, and that the secondary contributes little, if anything, to the total X-ray luminosity of the binary. This observation is consistent with the activity evidence presented in Paper I, where the primary was shown to be the dominant source of the H$`\alpha `$ emission. As reported there, several red spectra of the binary outside of eclipse displayed relatively weak H$`\alpha `$ absorption (residual intensity $`0.8`$), whereas one spectrum obtained during primary eclipse displayed a much deeper H$`\alpha `$ line (residual intensity $`0.2`$). This change was interpreted as an indication that the emission from the active primary fills in the normal absorption line of the secondary at most phases in the orbit making it appear weak, except near phase 0.0, where the primary is blocked and the secondary dominates the spectrum.

The second feature —unusually large X-ray flux of the two observations near phase 0.5— could possibly be due to two separate flaring events, which would not be uncommon in this type of system. We discuss this further below.

A comparison with the light curves in the optical reveals two other notable characteristics of the X-ray light curve: (c) The duration of the primary eclipse in X-rays is much longer than in the optical; (d) The primary minimum is considerably deeper in X-rays than it is in the optical. To illustrate these two features we have superimposed on Figure 7a the light curve in the $`R`$ band from data set #1, which is contemporaneous with the ROSAT observations. The optical light curve is normalized to agree with the average level of the X-ray curve outside of eclipse. We note that at the epoch of these observations the configuration of the system inferred in §3 includes a cool spot on the primary that is on the far side of the star at phase 0.75 and therefore does not affect the $`R`$-band light curve at the second quadrature. The solid line in Figure 7a represents the modeled $`R`$-band light curve without the effect of the spot, and the dotted line includes the distortion due to the spot, which makes the system fainter at the first quadrature.

It can be seen from the figure that the total duration of the primary eclipse in the optical is approximately 0.11 in phase ($``$2.1 d), while the duration in X-rays is roughly 2.9 times longer ($``$0.32 in phase, or $``$6.0 d). This implies that the size of the X-ray emitting region around the primary must be larger than the star itself by approximately the same factor. Since the radius of the star in terms of the separation is $`R_1/a=0.1720`$ (parameter $`r_{\mathrm{vol}}`$ in Table 7), it follows that the radius of the associated X-ray region is $`R_X/a0.50`$. We note also that the mass ratio of the binary leads independently to a mean radius for the critical surface of the primary of $`R_1^{\mathrm{Roche}}/a=0.53`$. Thus, the size of the X-ray emitting region around the primary happens to be very close to that of its Roche lobe —possibly not a coincidence— and one may speculate that the X-ray emitting plasma is perhaps contained within the critical surface. Since there is no evidence from the X-ray light curve of any significant emission from the secondary, one might also speculate that the coronal region around that component represents a relatively thin layer that does not extend significantly above the photosphere of the star, which already fills its Roche lobe. As a result, BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 would appear to exhibit the curious property of being essentially an overcontact system in X-rays, and a semidetached system in the optical333For an illuminating discussion of the meaning of the word “overcontact”, we refer the reader to the recent papers by Rucinski (1997) and Wilson (2001)..

At optical wavelengths ($`R`$ band) the brightness of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 during the primary minimum drops to about 62% of the level outside of eclipse (phase 0.75). In X-rays the eclipse is much deeper, reaching down to $``$30% of maximum. Since blocking by the same star (the secondary) produces significantly different depths in the optical and in X-rays, and given that the apparent size of the primary in X-rays is much larger, one possible explanation for the deeper minimum than in the optical may be that the X-ray brightness distribution on the primary is considerably more concentrated towards the center of the disk (or toward the inner Lagrangian point, which is projected not far from the center) than in the optical. In order to simulate this situation with light-curve solution programs such as Wilson-Devinney, not originally intended for this type of problem, the relative sizes of the stars must be changed compared to the geometry inferred from the optical light curves, effectively by altering the mass ratio. Furthermore, variations in the predicted light curve near phase 0.5 due to the changing aspect ratio of the primary (if it is assumed to fill its critical surface in X-rays) must be ignored as they probably do not apply at X-ray wavelengths. We find a reasonably good agreement between such a “model” and the observed light curve when the effective size of the X-ray emitting region of the primary is reduced to approximately the same size as the photosphere of the lobe-filling secondary (see Figure 7b). Of course, any parameters derived in this way are physically meaningless and are only intended to achieve a qualitatively good fit. The reference provided by this very crude model does seem to suggest, nevertheless, that the X-ray flux preceding the primary eclipse (beginning at phase 0.75, and perhaps including the descending branch) is somewhat lower than the flux after the minimum at symmetrical phases.

As mentioned above, the two high X-ray points near phase 0.5 might be due to two separate flare events (since an observation intermediate between these two shows a normal flux level). X-ray flares are common in RS CVn systems (see, e.g., Siarkowski et al., 1996; García-Alvarez et al., 2003). On the other hand, the semidetached configuration in the optical is an indication that mass transfer by Roche-lobe overflow may be occurring. Due to the relatively large size of the primary, a stream of material from the secondary to the primary would actually impact the primary star directly rather than sweep past it and form a disk (Lubow & Shu, 1975, see also Figure 11 in Paper I). Given the orbital phases at which the discrepant X-ray points in Figure 7a occur (0.423 and 0.539), just before and just after central blocking of the secondary by the primary, it is possible that the sudden increase in X-ray flux is related to the viewing angle of the stream associated with mass transfer, which would be roughly aligned with the line of sight at these phases. Detailed hydrodynamical modeling is required to investigate this further.

In Figure 8 we have split the ROSAT X-ray observations of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 into a soft band (0.1–0.5 keV) and a hard band (0.6–2.4 keV) in order to investigate the possibility that there might be a difference in the behavior as a function of orbital phase. The run of the count rates turns out to be quite similar, however, with the soft band being slightly lower throughout (Figure 8a). The changes in the hardness ratio as defined in §2 are shown in Figure 8b. Within the errors the HR values are fairly constant, the decrease toward the primary minimum being only marginally significant. In particular, the observations near phase 0.5 pointed out in the broad-band light curve (Figure 7a) that are possibly associated with flaring episodes show no sign that the X-ray energy becomes significantly harder (observations marked with circles), as would be expected if the temperature were to increase due to heating of the plasma.

## 7 Discussion and concluding remarks

The combination of our new $`BVRI`$ photometry with a reanalysis of the spectroscopy reported in Paper I has allowed us to obtain highly precise absolute masses and radii for both components of the semidetached system BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706, as well as the effective temperatures and other properties. Among the dozen or so known cool Algols, this is now by far the one with the best determined physical parameters. Only three others have published light-curve solutions to date (RZ Cnc, AR Mon, and RV Lib).

In Paper I the eclipsing nature of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 was not yet known, so there was no direct information on the orbital inclination angle although some constraints were available based on other evidence. Qualitative conclusions on the history and evolutionary state of the system were drawn there based upon the assumption that the inclination angle was large, and therefore that the true values of the masses and the radii were not far from the lower limits derived for those quantities. We can now confirm the validity of that assumption in Paper I, and consequently also of those conclusions: the present configuration of BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 was probably reached as a result of Case B mass transfer (Kippenhahn & Weigert, 1967), and the initial mass ratio of the system is likely to have been close to unity (see Eggleton, 1992; Nelson & Eggleton, 2001) so that the original secondary had enough time to begin its evolution off the main sequence before the original primary reached the point of Roche-lobe overflow and started transferring mass onto it (eventually leading to a mass ratio reversal). The minimum amount of mass exchanged (under conservative mass transfer) is $`\mathrm{\Delta }M=M_1(M_1+M_2)/2=1.05`$ M. Thus, the secondary appears to have lost at least 2/3 of its original mass. As noted in our earlier study of this system, although the current mass ratio ($`q0.21`$) is quite typical of classical Algol systems the relatively cool temperature of the current primary (5000 K) is not. This difference with the much hotter primaries of the classical Algols is at least qualitatively well explained by the ideas about the evolution of cool Algols mentioned above and discussed at length in Paper I.

Evidence from our optical light curves suggests the presence of large surface inhomogeneities (spots) which are quite common in similarly active systems. Significant shifts in the location (longitude) of these features are seen in BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 over a period of 1-2 years, which are also consistent with changes seen in other RS CVn binaries. Our X-ray light curve showing only the primary eclipse confirms the report in Paper I that the hotter and more massive primary star is the dominant site of activity in this binary. It is interesting to note that this is not typically the case in RS CVn systems, where the cooler star is usually the more magnetically active component. The X-ray observations also offer interesting clues about the geometry and other properties of the X-ray emitting region, which may be confined to the size of the critical lobe of the current primary star.

Photometric and spectroscopic studies of other binaries systems identified as cool Algols are currently underway as part of a long-term project to study this very interesting class of active stars. Detailed analyses of those cases along the lines of the one presented here for BD$`+05\mathrm{°}`$706 are expected to provide further glimpses into their properties and evolutionary histories.

We thank the anonymous referee for numerous comments and helpful suggestions. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France, and of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service. RN wishes to acknowledge financial support from the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung through the Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR) under grant number 50 OR 0003. LM would like to acknowledge the help of Julia Lynch and Akbar Rizvi in making these observations. The Gettysburg College Observatory is supported by Gettysburg College with additional funding for the CCD camera provided by the National Science Foundation.


text:
# Fuchsian methods and spacetime singularities

## 1 Introduction

The singularity theorems of Penrose and Hawking showed that very often something goes wrong with the evolution of spacetimes according to the Einstein equations. They did not say what goes wrong and more than thirty years later we still have only limited information concerning the structure of general spacetime singularities. This situation represents an outstanding challenge to mathematical relativists. The most general rigorous results we possess on this subject have been obtained by Fuchsian methods. The purpose of this article is to give a portrait of the present state of development of the applications of these methods to general relativity. It also gives some indications as to what future improvements may be anticipated in this area.

How can we learn about singular solutions of differential equations? By looking at explicit solutions it is often possible to make a guess as to what the singularities might be like in general. In the case of equations arising in physics or other parts of science intuition coming from the applications may also make a contribution. Trial and error should not be neglected either. Once a conjectural picture of singularities of solutions of a particular equation has developed the next step is to confront it with the equation and to see if it is formally consistent. When formal consistency holds this is enough to make some consider the problem to be solved. Others see it as evidence for a certain solution of the problem but still want to have a definitive confirmation which can only be provided by rigorous mathematical theorems. Fuchsian methods allow the step from an intuitive to a rigorous result to be taken in many cases. When they apply they provide statements of the form that to each formal solution there corresponds a unique solution of the exact equation.

In the case of cosmological singularities in solutions of the Einstein equations the most influential heuristic work is that of Belinskii, Khalatnikov and Lifshitz (BKL). One important element of the picture they developed is the idea that near the singularity the dynamics at different spatial points should decouple. Thus the partial differential equations describing self-gravitating matter decouple asymptotically in the limit and reduce to ordinary differential equations. Furthermore, for many matter fields and assuming four spacetime dimensions, the limiting dynamics of generic solutions is that of a family of solutions of the Bianchi type IX vacuum equations (mixmaster model) with the spatial coordinates acting as parameters. The solutions of the mixmaster model have a complicated oscillatory behaviour and it is only recently that the principal features of their dynamics were understood rigorously , . In view of this fact it is not surprising that the role of the mixmaster model as a template for the evolution of spatially inhomogeneous solutions of the Einstein equations has not been captured in mathematical theorems. It has been clearly exhibited in numerical calculations .

The BKL picture also predicts for which dimensions and combinations of matter fields oscillatory behaviour is not to be expected. In such cases the dynamics suggested by the BKL analysis is much simpler, with the most important geometric quantities varying in a monotone fashion near the singularity. It is in this situation that Fuchsian techniques can be expected to apply and indeed this has turned out to be the case in a variety of examples.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 describes the earliest application of Fuchsian techniques to general relativity known to the author, namely the construction of large classes of vacuum spacetimes with Cauchy horizons. In Section 3 a general introduction to Fuchsian techniques is given and an existence and uniqueness theorem of wide applicability is presented. A number of applications of this theorem to the construction of classes of spacetimes with certain kinds of singularities are described in Section 4. The last section lists existing generalizations of these results and suggests potential further developments.

## 2 Cauchy horizons

One of the most interesting issues concerning the nature of spacetime singularites is that of the strong cosmic censorship hypothesis. We recall the formulation of this hypothesis given by Eardley and Moncrief . Corresponding to any initial data set for the Einstein-matter equations on a compact manifold there is a unique maximal Cauchy development which, intuitively, is the largest globally hyperbolic solution of the Einstein equations with the given initial data. The formulation of the strong cosmic censorship hypothesis which is of interest here is that for generic initial data on the given manifold the maximal Cauchy development should be inextendible. This means that for almost all initial data it is not possible to embed the maximal Cauchy development in a bigger solution of the Einstein-matter equations for which the hypersurface carrying the initial data remains a Cauchy surface. If this failed the original initial hypersurface would not be a Cauchy surface for the extended spacetime in which the maximal Cauchy development was embedded. This means that the uniqueness of the time development in terms of initial data would no longer be guaranteed and that, from a physical point of view, predictability would break down.

In order to make the above formulation complete it is necessary to fix the notion of generic initial data precisely. Usually this is done by requiring this set of initial data to contain an open dense subset of the set of all initial data on the given manifold in a suitable topology. There are obvious candidates for the topology to be used. More problematic is the question of the choice of matter fields. As formulated the hypothesis depends implicitly on fixing a particular type of matter fields to describe the matter content of spacetime. In fact we cannot expect it to be true without limitations on the kind of matter chosen. One criterion is that the given matter model develops no singularities when considered as a test field in Minkowski space. Examples are a linear scalar field, the Maxwell field or collisionless matter described by the Vlasov equation. (See  for a general discussion of the Einstein-Vlasov system.) Examples of matter models which form singularities in flat space and which are therefore bad from the point of view of cosmic censorship include dust and perfect fluids with pressure. One way of avoiding the issue of the choice of matter fields is to concentrate on the vacuum case.

When it does happen that the maximal Cauchy development of certain initial data is extendible the boundary of the maximal Cauchy development in the extension is by definition a Cauchy horizon. It is null hypersurface with some (perhaps low) degree of regularity. A possible approach to learning more about cosmic censorship is to construct spacetimes which contain a Cauchy horizon and are otherwise as general as possible. A clean case to start with is that where the Cauchy horizon is compact and smooth.

In  and  Moncrief proved the existence of large classes of vacuum spacetimes with smooth compact Cauchy horizons. All these spacetimes have one spacelike Killing vector and are analytic ($`C^\omega `$). He did so by solving a Cauchy problem for a class of singular partial differential equations. This is apparently the first occurrence in the literature on general relativity of Fuchsian methods, a technique which will be introduced in the next section. The presence of a Killing vector is not an accident and Moncrief and Isenberg  have shown that under suitable conditions the existence of a compact analytic Cauchy horizon automatically implies the existence of at least one Killing vector. Later it was found that analyticity could be replaced by the weaker condition of smoothness in the conditions of their theorem . Moreover it has been shown that in this context a compact Cauchy horizon in a smooth spacetime is itself smooth . Moncrief and Isenberg conjectured in  that any vacuum spacetime with a smooth compact Cauchy horizon has a Killing vector which is tangent to the generators of the horizon and whose integral curves are closed. This means that the Cauchy horizon, considered as an abstract manifold, admits an action of the circle $`S^1`$. Not all three-dimensional manifolds admit such an action and thus a restriction on the topology of the manifold results. It must be a Seifert manifold. All these manifolds admit geometric structures in the sense of Thurston and six of the Thurston geometries can be realized in this way. In  it was shown by a quite different method, using the Cheeger-Gromov theory of collapsing Riemannian manifolds with bounded curvature, that a smooth compact Cauchy horizon in a spacetime satifying the Einstein equations coupled to certain matter models has a topology which is restricted to those which admit one of seven Thurston geometries. These are the six corresponding to Seifert manifolds together with the type Sol. In terminology more familiar to relativists this last type is related to Bianchi type VI0. In  it was shown that all topologies of Seifert type allowed by this classification occur in locally spatially homogeneous solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations.

The results of Moncrief and Isenberg are limited to the case of the vacuum Einstein equations. It is interesting to ask to what extent similar results are true in the presence of matter. Some insight into this question can be obtained by looking at the spatially homogeneous case. There are (locally) homogeneous vacuum spacetimes which have a compact Cauchy surface and a compact Cauchy horizon (cf. .) In contrast to this, locally spatially homogeneous spacetimes with a compact Cauchy surface and phenomenological matter can be shown to have no Cauchy horizon in many cases . This suggests that the generality of the spacetimes containing Cauchy horizons produced by Moncrief’s construction is essentially dependent on the absence of matter sources in the field equations. If this is true then the Isenberg-Moncrief procedure is also limited to the source-free case. (Here the term source-free is meant to include the case of a source-free Maxwell field which acts as a source in the Einstein equations.)

## 3 A general existence and uniqueness theorem

This section describes the theory of Fuchsian equations. This class of equations has the form

$$tu/t+Nu=tf(t,x,u,u_x)$$
(1)
Here $`u`$ is a function of a real number $`t`$, thought of as a time coordinate, and a point $`x`$ in $`𝐑^n`$, thought of as a point of space. This function takes values in $`𝐑^k`$. The $`k\times k`$ matrix-valued function $`N`$ depends only on $`x`$. It satisfies some positivity condition, as will be discussed in more detail later. The function $`f`$ satisfies some regularity conditions which will also be specified later. The notation $`u_x`$ is used as a shorthand for the collection of partial derivatives of $`u`$ with respect to the variables $`x`$. For applications it is useful to note the following. Suppose that instead of (1) we had the equation

$$tu/t+Nu=t^\alpha f(t,x,u,u_x)$$
(2)
for some positive real number $`\alpha `$. Defining $`s=t^\alpha `$ leads to the equation

$$su/s+\alpha Nu=s[\alpha f(s^{1/\alpha },x,u,u_x)]$$
(3)
which is of the form (1). Thus an equation of the form (2) can always be reduced to one of the form (1).

The assumption made on $`f`$ is that it should be regular in a sense to be defined now. It is assumed that $`f`$ is smooth for $`t>0`$ and converges uniformly to zero on compact subsets of $`(x,u,u_x)`$-space as $`t0`$. Moreover it is assumed that partial derivatives of $`f`$ of any order with respect to $`x`$, $`u`$ and $`u_x`$ satisfy the same condition. This is the definition of regularity to be used in a smooth setting. In an analytic setting, which is where the strongest theorem is available, it is assumed in addition that $`f`$ is continuous in $`t`$ and analytic in the remaining arguments for $`t>0`$ (cf. ). As to the positivity assumption on $`N`$, it would be very convenient to assume that $`N`$ was positive definite. Unfortunately, this often does not hold in the applications and it is necessary to make do with a weaker condition. This can be expressed abstractly by requiring that the matrix exponential $`e^{tN}`$ is bounded on compact sets of $`x`$-space for $`t`$ close to zero. As has been proved in  a sufficient condition for this is that the eigenvalues of $`N`$ are everywhere non-negative and that zero eigenvalues if they occur do not give rise to non-diagonal Jordan blocks.

With these preliminaries in hand we state the main general theorem.

Theorem If $`f`$ is regular in the analytic sense and $`N`$, depending analytically on $`x`$, satisfies the condition that $`e^{tN}`$ is bounded near $`t=0`$ on compact subsets of $`x`$-space then the equation (1) has a unique solution $`u`$ which is regular and tends to zero as $`t0`$.

The definition of regularity of $`u`$ used here is the analogue of that for $`f`$. This theorem was proved in . Given that the aim here is to construct large classes of solutions it may seem strange that the theorem gives a unique solution. The explanation is that the equation which the theorem is applied to arises from the original equation by a reduction process where $`u`$ represents a correction to the leading order behaviour. The leading order behaviour is given in terms of free functions and it is these functions which give rise to the generality of the construction. This will be seen in more detail later. There are analogues of the above theorem in the smooth setting but it is difficult to state a general result which is widely applicable. The difficulty is that in the smooth case the reduction process must give equations which are not only in Fuchsian form but are also hyperbolic in a suitable sense. Hyperbolicity is necessary to handle even the regular Cauchy problem.

## 4 Construction of generic classes of solutions of the Einstein equations

A key test case in the application of Fuchsian methods to general relativity is given by the Gowdy spacetimes with spatial topology $`T^3`$. A heuristic analysis of the structure of singularities in this case was given by Grubišić and Moncrief . The Gowdy spacetimes are solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations with two spatial Killing vectors and an additional discrete symmetry. The analysis of the structure of singularities in this class of spacetimes reduces essentially to that of a pair of wave equations for two functions $`P`$ and $`Q`$. The general solution depends on four functions of one space variable. Its asymptotic form is

$`P(t,\theta )=k(\theta )\mathrm{log}t+\varphi (\theta )+t^ϵu(t,\theta )`$ (4)
$`Q(t,\theta )=Q_0(\theta )+t^{2k(\theta )}(\psi (\theta )+v(t,\theta ))`$ (5)
for some constant $`ϵ>0`$. A Fuchsian system is obtained by writing the Einstein equations for $`P`$ and $`Q`$ in terms of $`u`$ and $`v`$. The pair $`(u,v)`$ in this example plays the role of the function $`u`$ in (1). The function $`k`$ is known as the asymptotic velocity or simply velocity. The finding of Grubišić and Moncrief was that the above asymptotic form is formally consistent provided $`0<k(\theta )<1`$ for all $`\theta `$. The inequalities imposed on $`k`$ constitute the low velocity condition. In  it was proved that given analytic functions $`k`$, $`Q_0`$, $`\varphi `$ and $`\psi `$ satisfying the low velocity condition there is a unique Gowdy solution for which $`P`$ and $`Q`$ have the above asymptotic form. In the case where the low velocity condition fails it is possible to obtain solutions depending on three free functions. The restriction which kills the fourth free function is that $`Q_0`$ is required to be constant.

The low velocity condition can be related to the notion of generalized Kasner exponents. Given a spacetime and a foliation by spacelike hypersurfaces, let $`\lambda _i`$ be the eigenvalues of the second fundamental form of the leaves of the foliation. These define scalar functions on spacetime. If the mean curvature $`_i\lambda _i`$ is everwhere non-zero then the generalized Kasner exponents (GKE) are defined to be $`p_i=\lambda _i/_j\lambda _j`$. They satisfy $`_ip_i=1`$. In spacetimes with the asymptotics described above the GKE of the foliation by hypersurfaces of constant time converge to functions of the spatial coordinates as the singularity is approached. These functions satisfy the condition $`_ip_i^2=1`$. In the Gowdy models on $`T^3`$ we can order the eigenvalues, and correspondingly the GKE, in such a way that the indices 2 and 3 correspond to the symmetry directions. Then the low velocity restriction is related to the condition that $`p_1<0`$.

There are other possible topologies for Gowdy spacetimes. They may be defined on $`S^2\times S^1`$ or $`S^3`$. In these cases the Killing vectors defining the symmetry have zeroes defining axes. On the axes the equations obtained by factoring out the symmetry directions have singularities. The possibility of generalizing the results of  to Gowdy spacetimes with these other topologies was studied in . Fuchsian techniques could be applied but in that case they did not give the full number of free functions. It is not clear whether the restriction on the number of free functions is an essential feature of the problem or a failure of the technique.

If the discrete symmetry which is part of the definition of the class of Gowdy spacetimes is dropped the class of $`T^2`$-symmetric vacuum spacetimes is obtained. There is evidence to suggest that general spacetimes of this class have oscillatory singularities  and so cannot be treated by Fuchsian methods. Partially restoring the discrete symmetry leads to the class of vacuum spacetimes with polarized $`T^2`$ symmetry. In the latter class the singularity is not expected to be oscillatory. It was shown in  that Fuchsian techniques can be applied to analyse the structure of the singularity in that case in a class of spacetimes depending on the maximum number of free functions. This class corresponds to high velocity in the sense that $`p_1>0`$.

The results on Gowdy spacetimes on $`T^3`$ have been generalized to the case of the Einstein equations coupled to certain matter fields motivated by string theory . This is the Einstein-Maxwell-axion-dilaton system. The behaviour found is closely analogous to that in the vacuum case.

All the results discussed in this section up to now concern spacetimes with two Killing vectors and in that case the equations obtained by dividing out the symmetry involve only one spatial variable. It should be emphasized that a strength of Fuchsian techniques is that they do not impose a restriction on the number of space dimensions of the system to be analysed. Thus there is no a priori reason why they should not apply to solutions of the Einstein equations with less than two symmetries. The restrictions which occur are due to the dynamics of the classes of spacetimes being considered near their singularities, with oscillatory behaviour obstructing the use of Fuchsian methods.

In  the theorem stated in the last section was applied to construct large classes of solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations with $`U(1)`$ symmetry. In that case the equations obtained by factoring out the symmetry are equations in two space dimensions. General solutions with $`U(1)`$ symmetry are expected to show oscillatory behaviour near their initial singularities. This has been confirmed numerically by Berger and Moncrief . The subclass of polarized models has singularities with monotone behaviour. These depend on two free functions, compared to the four functions of the general case with $`U(1)`$ symmetry. There is also an intermediate case, the half-polarized case, where the solutions depend on three free functions and where Fuchsian methods can be applied as shown in .

In the BKL picture singularities in general vacuum solutions in 3+1 dimensions typically show behaviour of mixmaster type. In most cases this is not changed by the addition of matter fields. An exception is a linear minimally coupled scalar field. This suppresses the oscillations within the BKL picture. This is independent of symmetries and indeed Fuchsian methods can be used to construct solutions of the Einstein-scalar field system without symmetries and depending on the maximal number of free functions which have simple singularities whose asymptotics can be described in great detail .

A heuristic analysis in the spirit of BKL shows that the oscillations near the singularity in general solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations disappear when the spacetime dimension is at least eleven . A corresponding proof of the existence of large classes of solutions with the expected properties was given in . In that paper similar results were shown in all dimensions and in the presence of a rather general class of field-theoretic matter models. The suppression of oscillatory behaviour is due to the presence of a dilaton, a scalar field usually present in models inspired by string theory. It is, however, important to note that a scalar field is not in itself enough to guarantee the disappearance of oscillations. When form fields (such as the Maxwell field) are present oscillatory behaviour may persist.

## 5 Extending the method

The results of the last section were confined to the case where the functions prescribed and the solutions obtained are analytic. This is an artificial restriction and it would be preferable to have results which apply to prescribed functions and solutions which are smooth ($`C^{\mathrm{}}`$) or only of finite differentiability. Only the smooth case will be discussed although the proofs are such that it is clear that they would also work for functions belonging to Sobolev spaces of sufficiently high order. The big step is that between $`C^\omega `$ and $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$, since it is at this level that it becomes important to use the hyperbolicity of the equations.

The results for Gowdy solutions on $`T^2`$ described in the last section were generalized to the case of $`C^{\mathrm{}}`$ solutions in . The methods of proof used are likely to be of much wider applicability but significant additional work is still required in any particular example. The only additional case in which this work has been done so far is that of Gowdy spacetimes with spherical topology .

There is older work in which equations of Fuchsian type were used to determine the structure of singularities in solutions of the Einstein equations without symmetry. These solutions are subject to another kind of restriction; they have isotropic singularities. The notion of an isotropic singularity arose in the context of Penrose’s Weyl curvature hypothesis. Penrose proposed that initial singularities of solutions of the Einstein equations should have a special structure corresponding in some sense to a state of low entropy. This provides a selection criterion for initial data for cosmological models. With this motivation in mind it is interesting to know how many solutions of the Einstein equations there are with singularities satisfying this condition. The first general results on this question were developed in . The required existence proofs were provided in . They make heavy use of semigroup theory.

The results of  concerned solutions of the Einstein equations coupled to a perfect fluid with equation of state $`p=\frac{1}{3}\rho `$. They were generalized to a fluid with the more general equation of state $`p=k\rho `$ in . In both cases the theorems obtained show that the solutions having an isotropic singularity depend on half the number of free functions allowed by general solutions of the Einstein equations. In  theorems were proved where the Euler equations are replaced by the Vlasov equation for collisionless matter. Note that the theorem of Section 3 does not apply directly to the Einstein-Vlasov system since this is a system of integrodifferential equations instead of a system of differential equations as in the hypotheses of that theorem. The picture of isotropic singularities obtained in the case of collisionless matter is quite different from that for a fluid. There is much more freedom to give initial data. The initial phase space density of particles can be prescribed almost without restriction. This discrepancy suggested looking at the case of matter described by the Boltzmann equation, which is in a sense intermediate between the Euler and Vlasov descriptions. It turns out that the behaviour of the collision cross section for large momenta plays a crucial role. If the cross section grows fast enough in the limit of large momenta the initial phase space density is forced to be in equilibrium which effectively reduces this case to the fluid case. If, on the other hand, the collision cross section has slow growth the freedom in the initial phase space density is as great as in the Vlasov case. This has been shown on the level of formal expansions by Tod  although no existence proofs are yet available.

At several points in the above we have used function counting as a criterion for the generality of solutions. This is not very satisfactory and has been used up to now since it is the only thing which can presently be proved. What is desirable is to have theorems which say that the solutions having a particular asymptotic form near their singularities include all solutions arising from a non-empty open set of initial data on a regular Cauchy surface. It would be even better if this open set could also be described so as to see what kind of restriction on initial data it really represents. So far these goals have only been reached in one case, namely in the work of Ringström  concerning Gowdy solutions on $`T^3`$.

One obstruction to the application of Fuchsian methods has already been described. This is the fact that the solutions may show a complicated oscillatory behaviour near the singularity. It is not the only obstruction. Another phenomenon which arises naturally within the BKL picture is that small-scale spatial structures can be formed as the singularity is approached. In situations where Fuchsian techniques can be applied it is typical that spatial derivatives of important geometrical quantities blow up at a rate which is comparable to the rate with which the undifferentiated quantities blow up as the singularity is approached. In the phenomenon of formation of small-scale spatial structure this property of the spatial derivatives no longer holds. The simplest instance is the formation of spikes in Gowdy solutions . In that paper families of examples were constructed which depend on the maximum number of free functions. Thus in the sense of function counting Gowdy solutions with spikes as common as those without. The development of spikes is associated with the presence of velocities greater than one. The low velocity condition in the Fuchsian existence theorems for Gowdy solutions prevents the occurrence of spikes. It is to be expected on the basis of the BKL picture that the formation of small-scale structure will occur more generally and there is numerical evidence supporting this .

It has already been mentioned that the possible applications of Fuchsian methods to field-theoretic matter models have been worked out in some generality in . Symmetry assumptions can lead to further tractable cases and some of these were looked at in . Much less has been done for phenomenological matter models such as perfect fluids and kinetic theory. Apart from the work on isotropic singularities the only available results are those of Anguige ,  on certain solutions of the Einstein-Euler system with two spacelike Killing vectors. What happens for spacetimes without symmetry with a scalar field and a fluid or kinetic matter?

There is an application of Fuchsian methods to the asymptotics of expanding cosmological models which can be envisaged. Cosmological models with positive cosmological constant $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ often exhibit an inflationary phase of exponential expansion. At least formally the asymptotics obtained seems to be such as to be amenable to a Fuchsian treatment. As yet there is no analysis of this kind in the literature. The idea of a mathematical similarity between certain spacetime singularities and inflationary expanding phases of cosmological models opens up the perspective of an interesting exchange of information between apparently unrelated areas of research. A formal analysis of the asymptotics of expanding cosmological models with $`\mathrm{\Lambda }>0`$ has been given in . A corresponding treatment of the case of power-law inflation, where the cosmological constant is replaced by a scalar field with exponential potential, can be found in .

To finish, we mention a different kind of application of Fuchsian methods in relativity. In this case no spacetime singularities are involved. Instead the singularity in the equations arises from a coordinate singularity due to the use of polar coordinates. Consider a spherically symmetric solution of the Einstein equations coupled to some matter fields. If the solution is in addition static the Einstein equations reduce to a system of ordinary differential equations in a radial variable $`r`$. It has a singularity at the centre of symmetry, $`r=0`$. In the case that the matter is a fluid existence theorems were obtained in . The proofs were based on an existence theorem for singular ODE which, with hindsight, belongs to the class of Fuchsian equations. Corresponding results in the cases of collisionless matter and elastic solids were proved in  and  respectively. In the former case, integrodifferential equations occur, the theorem of  is not applicable, and existence has to be proved by hand. The same existence theorem for singular ODE has been applied in  to analyse the constraint equations doe the Einstein-Vlasov-Maxwell system in the spherically symmetric case,