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# SCUBA Observations of Dust around Lindroos Stars: Evidence for a Substantial Submillimetre Disc Population

## 1 Introduction

Most, if not all, stars are born with a disc of gas and dust (e.g., Shu, Adams & Lizano 1987). The fate of such protoplanetary discs is important, since it is within these discs that planets are thought to form through the coagulation of initially sub-$`\mathrm{\mu m}`$-sized dust grains (Weidenschilling & Cuzzi 1993; Lissauer 1993). Such grain growth is expected to continue as long as the parent disc remains sufficiently massive and models show that our solar system’s terrestrial planets could have achieved a sizeable fraction of their final mass by this mechanism within 10 Myr (e.g., Lissauer 1993). However, at the same time as grain growth is occurring several other mechanisms are competing to deplete disc material. These mechanisms include: viscous gas drag and Poynting-Robertson light drag, both of which result in the accretion of disc material onto the star; stripping of disc material by a stellar wind and radiation pressure; removal of material during encounters with nearby stars; and photoevaporation, either by the parent star or by an external star (Clarke, Gendrin, & Sotomayor 2001; Hollenbach, Yorke & Johnstone 2000). Clearly the success or otherwise of planet formation depends on whether this process is complete at the time the disc becomes too depleted for planetesimal growth. In this regard an important observable is how long stars retain their protoplanetary discs.

Observations of the near-IR excess emission from stars in nearby open clusters show that the fraction of stars with detectable discs decreases rapidly with the age of the cluster from around $`>80`$% for recently formed clusters, down to 0% for 6 Myr-old clusters (Haisch, Lada, & Lada 2001). Similarly no near-IR excess is found in nearby star forming regions for stars older than 3-10 Myr (Strom et al. 1989; Kenyon & Hartmann 1995). However, a near-IR excess only implies the presence of warm dust that resides closer to the star than a few 0.1 AU and it is still possible that massive outer discs exist in the older systems without material in the central AU. The cool outer portions of the discs are best probed using sub-mm/mm observations. Such observations are particularly useful, because they also result in a reliable estimate of the disc mass. This is because the discs are transparent at these wavelengths (so all the mass is observed), and the mass estimates are relatively unaffected by uncertainties in the contribution of the stellar photosphere, as well as being only weakly dependent on estimates of the size of the dust grains and of their emitting temperature (e.g., Zuckerman 2001; see section 6).

However, so far sub-mm/mm studies of the evolution of disc mass in the first 10 Myr have been inconclusive. Such observations show that while the masses of the dust discs (where present) are similar for stars of all spectral types at 30-70 $`M_{}`$ (Mannings & Sargent 1997), it is not clear whether this disc mass does (Nürnberger et al. 1997) or does not (Osterloh & Beckwith 1995) decrease with age. The evidence is also inconclusive as to whether the decay of the sub-mm disc is (Skinner, Brown, & Walter 1991; Andre & Montmerle 1994; Duvert et al. 2000) or is not (Beckwith et al. 1990; Osterloh & Beckwith 1995; Nürnberger et al. 1998) coincident with the disappearance of the inner disc. All studies agree, however, that by the time these stars reach the main sequence their protoplanetary discs must have been dispersed. IRAS showed that some 15% of main sequence stars harbour dust discs (Lagrange et al. 2000) and the very brightest of these have been detected in the sub-mm (Zuckerman & Becklin 1993; Holland et al. 1998; Greaves et al. 1998; Sylvester et al. 2001; Sheret et al. in preparation). However, these are the only stars $`>10`$ Myr for which discs have been detected in the sub-mm. Also, these discs are both much less massive, typically $`<0.1M_{}`$ (Holland et al. 1998), than their younger counterparts, and cannot be remnants of the protoplanetary disc, since the lifetime of this material is shorter than the age of the stars (e.g., Backman & Paresce 1993). In fact, these discs must be continually replenished, probably by the collisional break-up of asteroids or comets in the systems (Wyatt & Dent 2002) and are henceforth referred to as debris discs.

Our understanding of how a protoplanetary disc evolves into a debris disc as its host star evolves onto the main sequence has been hindered by the difficulty of finding an unbiased sample of stars of intermediate age. For late-type stars ($`<2M_{}`$) it is well-known that few such stars have been identified. Herbig (1978) noted that the T Tauri phase corresponds to just a small fraction of a star’s pre-main sequence lifetime and inferred that a significant number of Post T Tauri stars with ages of 10-100 Myr should exist. However, such Post T Tauri stars are notoriously difficult to find, since they show few signs of youth such as active accretion and are no longer associated with regions of active star formation. The more massive ($`>2M_{}`$) counterparts to T Tauri stars, Herbig AeBe stars, on the other hand, are found at all stages of the pre-main sequence and even up to 10 Myr after arrival on the main sequence (Waters & Waelkens 1998). Thus the evolution from protoplanetary to debris disc for higher mass stars might occur after the star arrives on the main sequence.

One method for identifying stars of intermediate age is as the secondaries of binary systems with an O or B type primary (Murphy 1969; Gahm, Ahlin & Lindroos 1983), since in this case the primary must be younger than 150 Myr, and so, assuming coevality, must the secondary. The most comprehensive list of such systems was compiled by Lindroos (1986; hereafter L86) and is comprised of 84 companions in 78 systems. This is often referred to as the Lindroos sample. Disc masses have been estimated for several of these Lindroos stars using sub-mm and mm observations (Jewitt 1994; Gahm et al. 1994; Ray et al. 1995). These studies showed no detection of dust around stars older than 10 Myr, thus supporting the hypothesis that protoplanetary discs have been depleted by this time (Jewitt 1994). However, the resulting constraints on dust mass, while below the level of T Tauri and Herbig AeBe discs, did not reach down to debris disc levels. This left open the question of whether protoplanetary discs are rapidly depleted down to, or even below debris disc levels, or whether there is a slow decline of disc mass with age (Jewitt 1994). It was the purpose of the sub-mm observations described in this paper to set limits on the dust around a subset of the Lindroos sample approaching the level of the brightest debris discs.

A description of our subset of the Lindroos sample is given in section 2. The sub-mm observations are described in section 3 and in section 4 we describe the results of these observations. In section 5 this sample is cross-correlated with the IRAS database to search for evidence of dust emission in the far-IR. In section 6 we discuss these observations and use them to derive dust masses for this sample and discuss the implications for the evolution of protoplanetary discs. Our conclusions are given in section 7.

## 2 Sample

The Lindroos sample is comprised of 84 physical companions located 2-60 arcsec from O and B type primaries (L86). These were selected from the Washington Double Star catalogue (Gahm et al. 1983) and then several tests performed to eliminate optical rather than physical associations (Lindroos 1985, hereafter L85). In this manner the sample has already been streamlined from an original list of 290 stars. The ages of the primaries, which are mostly main sequence stars, in all these systems were estimated from Stromgren photometry to be $`<150`$ Myr with half of this sample younger than 30 Myr (L85). Assuming the same age for the secondaries, which have spectral types in the range B2 to K5, 37 of these must still be contracting toward the main sequence with the remainder having recently arrived there (L85).

For our sample we chose stars from table 1 of L86 according to the following criteria. First that they have declinations $`\delta >50^{}`$. Second, we chose only those systems with later ($`>`$B5) type primaries. This is because the circumsecondary discs in such systems could have been affected by their interaction with the strong stellar wind and high photoionisation flux of the very luminous primary star (e.g., Johnstone, Hollenbach & Bally 1998; O’Dell 2001). We also chose only systems with projected separations $`>300`$ AU. Jensen, Mathieu & Fuller (1996) used sub-mm/mm observations of pre main sequence binaries to show that disc masses are significantly lower for those systems with separations between 1-100 AU, while the disc masses in systems with separations $`>100`$ AU are indistinguishable from those of single stars. This implies that the evolution of protoplanetary discs in systems with intermediate separation are considerably affected by the presence of a companion, presumably because of the truncation of these discs by gravitational perturbations. Our constraints allow us to consider the evolution of the companions and of their discs as being similar to that of single stars independent of the evolution of the primary.

Finally, since the studies of Lindroos and co-authors, the physical association of some of the Lindroos sample has been tested by other authors. One of the methods used was to search for indications of youth in the secondary. Such indications include: high Li abundance (Pallavicini, Pasquini & Randich 1992; Martín, Magazzù & Rebolo 1992), detection of Hα or Ca H & K emission (Pallavicini et al. 1992), strong X ray emission (Huélamo et al. 2000; Huélamo et al. 2001), similar space motion to other groups of young stars (Martín et al. 1992). Another method was to check for similarity in the radial velocities of the two components (Martín et al. 1992). In rejecting erroneous Lindroos stars from our sample we took all of these studies into account, in particular omitting all pairs designated as likely optical by Pallavicini et al. (1992).

This process left us with 22 stars, which we further split into two categories according to spectral type: a group of 13 young low mass (YLM) stars ($`>`$F0) comprising Post T Tauri (PTT) and Young Main Sequence (YMS) stars; and another of 9 young high mass (YHM) stars ($`<`$A9) comprising Post Herbig AeBe (PHAeBe) stars and YMS stars. The characteristics of these stars are shown in Table 1. Of the group of YLM stars, 7 were identified by L85 as still contracting toward the main sequence, while they identified just one of the YHM stars (HD47247B) as not having yet reached the main sequence. The lower fraction of pre-main sequence stars among the higher mass stars in this sample is inevitable given their shorter contraction time relative to the main sequence lifetime of the B-type primaries (L85).

It should be pointed out that the studies described above to test for physical association of the Lindroos sample dealt only with potential members of our low mass group. For this reason we should anticipate that some fraction of our YHM group could in fact be optical pairs (perhaps even up to 50%, Pallavicini et al. 1992). Also, since this list was compiled, a study was published which compared the ages of the two components of 10 of our YLM sample based on their position in the HR diagram relative to evolutionary tracks (Gerbaldi, Faraggiana & Balin 2001). These authors classified three of the stars in our YLM sample (HD90972B, HD108767B and HD127304B) as young, $`100`$ Myr, a finding corroborated by the detection of X ray emission toward these stars (Huélamo et al. 2000), but not associated with the putative primaries, since the ages they derived for the three primaries were all $`200240`$ Myr. Evidently there is still some uncertainty in resolving whether the Lindroos stars are physically associated as well as in determining their ages (see e.g., Hubrig et al. 2001 for another estimate of the ages of 3 of our YLM primaries). In the following discussion we adopted the ages given in L86 where available.

## 3 Observations

The observations were made using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array, SCUBA (Holland et al. 1999) at the James Clerk Maxwell telescope (JCMT). Photometry observations were made at 850 $`\mu `$m wavelength, using the central bolometer on the long-wave array. The locations of the 22 observed (secondary) stars are given in Table 1; the pointing accuracy of the JCMT is estimated to be $`\pm 2`$ arcsec rms. Two of our sources were observed at 5-6 arcsec from these locations, in one instance because we used coordinates for the secondary taken from SIMBAD rather than calculated from the offset from the location of the primary (HD33802), and the other because of a coordinate transcription error (HD127304). Since the instrumental beam size for these observations is 14.5 arcsec, we would expect to detect the flux from a point source at 60-70% of its peak value; the dust masses derived from the observed fluxes given in Table 2 have been scaled accordingly. Each of our 22 sources was observed for $`2\pm 1`$ hours during observing runs spread out over the period February 2001 to January 2002.

The conventional two position chopping and nodding technique was employed to remove the dominant sky background using a 60 arcsec chop throw in azimuth. The data were corrected for atmospheric extinction using sky opacities that were measured at the JCMT using the skydip method at appropriate intervals throughout the nights (Archibald et al. 2002). The data for each night were calibrated using Mars or Uranus when available, otherwise using the standard secondary JCMT calibrators. The data reduction was accomplished using the SURF package (Jenness & Lightfoot 1998), and anomalous signals were clipped above the 3 $`\sigma `$ level.

SCUBA photometry observations also result in data for a further 36 bolometers on the long wave array. The arrangement of these bolometers is such that they cover a $`2.3`$ arcmin diameter field of view, however, they are spaced so that the sky is instantaneously undersampled, thus this data cannot be used to recreate a fully sampled map. The closest of these bolometers is 21 arcsec from the target, corresponding to $`600`$ AU from our most nearby target. Thus we did not expect any circumstellar emission to appear in the remaining bolometers and their data was used to remove sky level variations. However, in section 4.2 we also used these bolometers to test for the presence of more extended emission around these stars. In this instance the bolometers were weighted according to their noise and just the outer $`70`$ arcsec ring of bolometers was used for sky removal.

## 4 Results of SCUBA Observations

### 4.1 Photometry

The results of the observations described in section 2 are given in Table 2. The 1 $`\sigma `$ uncertainty achieved in these observations is $`2\pm 1`$ mJy, resulting in 3 $`\sigma `$ upper limits of $`5`$ mJy. This is an order of magnitude improvement over previous observations which were obtained at the JCMT using the instrument UKT14 (Jewitt 1994). Sub-mm emission was detected in the central bolometer toward three stars in our sample at the 3 $`\sigma `$ level, HD74067B ($`7.2\pm 1.5`$ mJy), HD112412 ($`3.8\pm 1.1`$ mJy) and HD99803B ($`4.7\pm 1.6`$ mJy). Two of these stars are from the high mass group, resulting in a detection rate of 22% for this group, while one of the low mass stars was detected (a detection rate of 8%).

Given the high sensitivity of the observations, we might expect some detections in our sample simply from background sources such as high redshift galaxies falling within our beam. Several estimates have been made of sub-mm number counts, the most recent being the SCUBA 8 mJy survey (Scott et al. 2002). Scott et al. estimate that there are about 620 sources per square degree above 5 mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m; as many as $`2000`$ sources per square degree should be detected above 3 mJy (Eales et al. 2000). Thus we would expect there to be one background source in any given SCUBA field of view (2.3 square arcmin) at the level of $`>5`$ mJy. However, only one in a hundred of these sources would fall within the central photometry bolometer. Thus the probability of erroneously detecting a 5 mJy source in our sample of 22 sources is about 1 in 5. While there is a small (20 %) chance that one of our detections is in fact of a background source, it is very unlikely that all three sub-mm sources are unassociated with the program stars.

With such a high sensitivity it is also necessary to check whether we might (or indeed should) have detected the photospheric emission of any of the stars. However, even the two closest primaries (HD108767 and HD112413) have predicted photospheric fluxes of $`<0.6`$ mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m. The more distant primaries, as well as all the secondaries, have predicted fluxes much less than this.

Another consideration for our observations given the large beam size is that for several of our sources the primary falls within the beam when pointing at the companion (e.g., if their separation is less than about 7-8 arcsec, see Table 1). In such cases any emission that is detected could originate near the primary and not the secondary star. Consider the HR4796 wide binary system which hosts a circumprimary disc, but not a circumsecondary disc (Jayawardhana et al. 1998). At 7.7 arcsec separation a SCUBA 850 $`\mu `$m observation centred on the companion would have detected $`46`$ % of the emission from the circumprimary disc (i.e., $`9`$ mJy Greaves, Mannings & Holland 2000). This uncertainty is relevant for our detection of emission toward HD74067B, since this star is just 4 arcsec from HD70467A. If the emission we detected for HD74067B is actually centred on the primary (and point-like), it would have been underestimated in Table 2 by 80%. The emission detected in the vicinity of HD112412 and HD99803B, however, could not have its origin near the primary stars in these systems, since at 19.3 and 13.1 arcsec offset, these lie outside the beam.

### 4.2 Search for Extended Emission

In general any emission from circumstellar discs in the systems we observed should come from within a few arcsec of the stars assuming these discs have a typical size of less than a few hundred AU, and so should lie within the central bolometer. However, in the case of HD74067 we were inspired to search for emission from the region around this system because it is in the galactic plane (galactic latitude $`b=0.52^{}`$) with extended cirrus emission nearby (though not peaked on this system) evident from the IRAS 100 $`\mu `$m image. It was thus questionable as to whether the detection is of a circumstellar disc, cirrus heated by the stars, or indeed the chance alignment of a background or foreground cirrus hotspot. One test is to see if the emission is extended on greater than arcminute scales, since this is a characteristic of other cirrus hotspots detected both in the far-IR from its thermal emission (Gaustad & Van Buren 1993) and in the optical as reflection nebulosity (Kalas et al. 2002).

Thus we repeated the data reduction using the outer ring of 18 bolometers at 62-82 arcsec from the centre of the array to estimate the sky level. We then looked at the mean flux levels in the rings of 6 and 12 bolometers at 21-28 arcsec and 40-55 arcsec from the centre respectively; this part of the reduction was done in IDL. Significant emission was indeed detected in both rings, decreasing from an average mJy/beam of $`6.7\pm 1.4`$ at the centre111The average mJy/beam at the centre is a factor of 1.075 lower than the mJy derived by reducing photometry observations (which is the figure given in Table 1), since during such observations the central bolometer performs a 4 square arcsec 9 point jiggle pattern about the centre (Holland et al. 1999). Reduction of photometry accounts for this to find the flux at the centre assuming we are observing a point source. to $`2.5\pm 0.6`$ at 25 arcsec and $`1.9\pm 0.5`$ at 47 arcsec from the star The outer ring at 70 arcsec showed no emission ($`0.3\pm 0.4`$ mJy/beam) as expected as this was used to estimate the sky level.

We also checked to see if this emission is symmetrically distributed around the star. To do this we put individual datapoints into different bins according to their radial distance from the star and position angle on the sky and then obtained the mean and standard deviation in each bin with the different bolometers of different observations weighted according to their noise. In this way we split each bolometer ring into four quadrants. The findings are summarised in Figure 1. The emission does appear to be asymmetrical in that the only significant emission component is in the N and S directions for both bolometer rings. Combining the data for diametrically opposite quadrants we find that the average mJy/beam in the N+S direction at 25 and 47 arcsec is $`4.2\pm 0.9`$ and $`3.7\pm 0.8`$ respectively, while that in the E+W direction is just $`1.3\pm 0.8`$ and $`0.4\pm 0.7`$ at the same distances. We changed the position angle of the quadrant pattern in Figure 1 to maximise the asymmetry and estimate the error on this angle to be $`0\pm 30^{}`$. An asymmetry is also apparent in the bolometer ring at 70 arcsec, with an average mJy/beam of $`1.5\pm 0.6`$ in the NE+SW direction compared with $`1.3\pm 0.6`$ NW+SE. This indicates that the emission could extend to 70 arcsec from the star. If so, since the mean flux in this bolometer ring was used to subtract the sky emission from the remaining bolometers, the sky level would have been overestimated and the fluxes given in Figure 1 are too low by $`1.3`$ mJy/beam.

While it is possible that the asymmetry is caused by real structure in the emitting material, the signals measured are also consistent with a symmetrical centrally peaked structure extending to $`70`$ arcsec from the stars. In such an interpretation, the asymmetry arises because some of the symmetrical emission has been artificially eliminated by chopping just 60 arcsec onto the same structure. Because the observations were all undertaken just before or just after transit, the position angle of the azimuth chop was within $`\pm 40^{}`$ of E-W for all of our observations. Thus if the emission is centrally peaked, our E+W observations should be lower than those N+S. Assuming the observed N+S emission in Figure 1b is the level at which E+W emission should have been observed if chopping off-source, chopping on-source would have resulted in E+W fluxes $`3`$ mJy/beam lower than those in the N+S direction in both rings of bolometers, consistent with that observed; the emission in the central bolometer would also have been underestimated by a similar amount. To test whether the structure is dependent on chop position angle, we split the dataset into that taken before and after transit, with chop position angles of $`72\pm 7^{}`$ and $`126\pm 6^{}`$ respectively. The position angle of the structure derived was indeed found to be higher for the post-transit observations by $`45^{}`$ for all rings of bolometers. We conclude that this emission extends to 70 arcsec from the star, is centrally peaked and that a significant component is symmetrically distributed around the star.

This process was now repeated for the other stars for which emission was detected. No significant extended emission was detected in the vicinity of either HD99803B or HD1438B. However, additional emission was detected in the bolometer ring 25 arcsec from HD112412 where the average mJy/beam is $`2.0\pm 0.4`$. Averaging the data points lying within 7.3 arcsec (i.e., within one beam) of different points close to and within this ring showed that this emission can be resolved into three distinct sources (see Figure 2) with no significant emission detected in the remainder of the ring: (i) The first source appears to be centred $`4`$ arcsec N of the primary HD112413 (i.e., at 14 arcsec E and 17 arcsec N of HD112412) with a flux of $`5.5\pm 1.6`$ mJy. Since this source is undersampled, we estimate the uncertainty in its position be $`\pm 5`$ arcsec and we attribute this emission to a circumprimary disc; this undersampling also means that the absolute level of the emission is not well constrained, with an additional uncertainty estimated to be $`30`$%. (ii) Another source is located 9 arcsec W and 29 arcsec N of HD112412 with a flux of $`9.5\pm 1.9`$ mJy (with similar uncertainties in these values). (iii) A third source is detected almost diametrically opposite HD112413 at a location of 12 arcsec W and 15 arcsec S of HD112412 with a flux of $`5.7\pm 1.9`$ mJy. We note that we would not be able to tell if the emission detected toward HD112412, HD112413 and source (iii) forms part of an extended structure, since the regions between the sources were not sampled (see e.g., Figure 2).

Due to the high proportion of detections we found using this method (2/4), it was questioned whether the non-standard reduction procedure was producing false results. We looked for emission near all the remaining stars in our sample. The only detection was of emission of $`7.4\pm 2.1`$ mJy located 42 arcsec E and 31 arcsec S of HD145483B. In the absence of fully sampled maps it is not possible to determine the true nature of the offset sources (ii) and (iii) near HD112412 and of the source near HD145483B. However as the two additional bolometer rings we checked cover a $`5000`$ square arcsec field of view, we would expect to detect $`5`$ unrelated background sources in our sample of 22 stars at the $`5`$ mJy level (see section 4.1), thus we do not discuss these detections further in this paper.

## 5 Cross-correlation with IRAS

Also shown in Table 2 is a cross-correlation of our sample with the IRAS Faint Source and Point Source Catalogs (hereafter FSC and PSC respectively). These catalogs provide flux densities measured in four wavelength bands centred at 12, 25, 60 and 100 $`\mu `$m, and were searched for sources within 60 arcsec of our program stars. In this way emission was detected toward 14/22 of our program stars. Since the FSC is $`2.5`$ times more sensitive than the PSC, these results are shown preferentially. Just one of our detections (HD74067B) did not turn up in the FSC, and this is because the FSC excludes sources within $`10^{}`$ of the galactic plane (i.e., those with $`|b|<10^{}`$).

For all of these detections, the 12 $`\mu `$m flux is consistent with that expected from the photospheres of the primary stars in these systems by extrapolating their K (where available in the literature or from the 2MASS database) or V band magnitudes. The photospheres of the three closest stars (HD108767, HD112413 and HD33802) were also detected at 25 $`\mu `$m. For one of the stars, HD1438, excess emission was detected above photospheric levels at both 25 and 60 $`\mu `$m at $`185\pm 31`$ and $`409\pm 62`$ mJy respectively222The colour corrected photospheric emission has been subtracted from these fluxes, but no colour correction applied to this excess. The positional uncertainty of the IRAS source is such that we cannot distinguish if this emission originates nearer the primary or secondary component in this system. This uncertainty is particularly pertinent when we consider that a system which just missed inclusion in Lindroos’ list because the primary is a main sequence A0 star, HR4796, shows evidence from mid-IR imaging of a dust disc around the primary but not one around the pre-main sequence M-type secondary (Jayawardhana et al. 1998). At 7.7 arcsec separation, it had not previously been possible to tell which star hosted the far-IR emission detected by IRAS. We suggest that subsequent mid-IR imaging of this system would resolve this issue.

A similar cross-correlation of the Lindroos sample with the IRAS catalogs was performed by Ray et al. (1995) and included 10 of our low mass sample. These authors reported the detection of non-photospheric emission toward 7 of these sources in all four wavebands. It appears that they interpreted all fluxes reported in the IRAS catalogs as positive detections, whereas the correct interpretation of a flux reported with FQUAL=1 is that it is an upper limit ($`3\sigma `$ for the PSC, 90% confidence for the FSC) as reported in this paper.

Even greater sensitivity can be obtained from the IRAS database using SCANPI (IRAS Scan Processing and Integration), available at the IRSA (Infrared Science Archive) website (http://irsa.ipac.caltech.edu). This performs averaging of the IRAS raw survey data scans passing close to a given location. We used this to coadd the scans near our survey sources. This resulted in better ($`3\sigma `$) upper limits to the far-IR fluxes at the location of some of our sub-mm detections, as well as the detection of the photosphere of HD112413 at 60 $`\mu `$m. Also, emission was detected centred on HD17543C in the in-scan direction ($`342^{}`$ position angle) at 60 $`\mu `$m with a peak of $`220\pm 23`$ mJy. However, this emission appears extended in the cross-scan direction, since a similar level of emission appears in scans taken up to 2 arcmin from the star. Indeed there is a 60 $`\mu `$m only source of $`247\pm 42`$ mJy in the FSC, F02464+1714, located 106 arcsec from HD17543C at a position angle of $`254^{}`$. We attribute this source either to local cirrus cloud heated by the stars or to an unrelated object and do not discuss it further in this paper.

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 SED Modelling and Dust Masses

While it is clearly unrealistic to model the spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of the infrared excesses of these stars using just one or two datapoints, the upper limits obtained at different wavelengths can set useful constraints on the temperature of the emitting dust. These can then be used to check whether the spatial extent of the emission is consistent with that observed and to compare the sensitivities of the IRAS and SCUBA to the types of dust emission that were detected.

The SED is modelled here assuming what is sometimes referred to as modified black body emission. The dust is assumed to emit at a single temperature, $`T`$, and its emission efficiency $`Q_\nu `$ is assumed to be unity (i.e., to emit like a black body) below a critical wavelength, $`\lambda _0`$, and to fall off $`\lambda ^\beta `$ at longer wavelengths. Comparison with the observed and predicted emission properties of real grains shows that $`\lambda _0a`$, the typical size of the dust grains, and that $`\beta `$ lies in the range 0.5-2 (Bohren & Huffman 1983; Pollack et al. 1994). Interstellar extinction curves show that interstellar-type grains have $`\beta 2`$ (e.g., Mathis 1990). Modelling of the observed SEDs of young stellar objects (YSOs), T Tauri discs and debris discs around main sequence stars shows that at the early stages of a disc’s evolution, $`\beta 1.5`$ while for more evolved discs $`\beta =0.51`$ (Dent, Matthews, & Ward-Thompson 1998; Dent et al. 2000). Thus, given the age of our sample, we expect their disc emission to be fitted by grains with $`\beta `$ close to 1. In the following discussion we set $`\beta =1`$ and $`\lambda _0=100`$ $`\mu `$m, and for comparison show also model fits for $`\beta =0`$ and 2. The results of the modelling for each star are discussed below (see also Figure 3 and Table 3).

Dust masses were estimated from observed sub-mm flux, since these give a reliable estimate of a disc’s dust mass (Zuckerman 2001), although for the far-IR-only detection we used the 60 $`\mu `$m flux. The appropriate formula is (e.g., Zuckerman & Becklin 1993; Zuckerman 2001):

$$M_{dust}=\frac{F_\nu D^2}{\kappa _\nu B_\nu (T)},$$
(1)
where $`F_\nu `$ is the observed flux, $`D`$ is the distance to the star, $`\kappa _\nu =0.75Q_\nu /a\rho `$ is the dust opacity at the observed wavelength ($`\rho `$ is the dust density), and $`B_\nu `$ is the black body intensity at the dust temperature. For consistency with the masses derived by other authors (e.g., Zuckerman & Becklin 1993; Holland et al. 1998; Greaves et al. 1998; Sylvester, Dunkin, & Barlow 2001) we adopted a dust opacity of 0.17 m2/kg at 850 $`\mu `$m, and scaled to 60 $`\mu `$m assuming $`\beta =1`$ (giving an opacity of 2.4 m2/kg). For dust temperatures of 30-100K, observed fluxes at 850 $`\mu `$m correspond to $`112.7\times 10^3D^2F_\nu `$ Earth masses, where $`D`$ is in parsec; dust masses derived from 60 $`\mu `$m fluxes are much more dependent on the assumed temperature of the dust. The derived dust masses for our sample are reported in Table 2.

#### 6.1.1 HD1438B

Since the excess emission is detected at two wavelengths we can derive its temperature to be $`107`$ K. The modified black body fit is shown by the dashed line in Figure 3a. This temperature implies a distance of either 10 AU from HD1438B or 90 AU from HD1438 if the dust emits as a black body. These distances would be larger if the grains are small and so emit hotter than black bodies at an equivalent distance (Wyatt et al. 1999). Thus if this emission is circumprimary, it should be possible to resolve this disc in the mid-IR from an 8 metre class telescope.

It is not surprising that this disc was not detected in the sub-mm, since the fit with $`\beta =1.0`$ predicts $`F_{850}=0.8`$ mJy. In fact our upper limit of 5.1 mJy at 850 $`\mu `$m only rules out that the grains emit as perfect black bodies with $`\beta <0.1`$. The upper limit to the dust mass derived from the sub-mm flux is $`0.6M_{}`$, while the 60 $`\mu `$m flux implies that we have detected material with a mass of just $`0.05M_{}`$. This is similar to the mass of the debris discs found around young main sequence stars such as $`\beta `$ Pictoris (e.g., Holland et al. 1998). We have also determined the fractional luminosity of the dust disc with respect to that of the star, $`f=L_{ir}/L_{}`$. If this is a circumprimary disc $`f0.3\times 10^3`$, a value typical of other debris discs, whereas if circumsecondary $`f0.01`$, which would make it one of the most luminous debris discs.

#### 6.1.2 HD74067B

Consider first of all the sub-mm emission detected in the central bolometer. Figure 3b shows fits scaled to the 850 $`\mu `$m flux assuming $`\beta =0.0,1.0,2.0`$ (dash-dot, dashed and dotted lines respectively). These grain properties and the constraints from the IRAS non-detections imply dust temperatures of less than 120, 56, 34 K, and dust masses of at least 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5 $`M_{}`$ respectively. It is possible to rule out interstellar-type ($`\beta =2.0`$) grains as the origin of this emission, since such grains must lie within 7.3 arcsec of HD74067B and, given the 4 arcsec projected separation of this binary system, are also likely to be within 1000 AU of HD74067. Such grains emit hotter than black bodies since they absorb stellar radiation more efficiently than they re-radiate it at longer wavelengths. The emission efficiencies of interstellar-type grains imply that they would be heated to $`110K`$ at 1000 AU from HD74067 (compared with a black body temperature of $`27`$ K). Since the observed grains are relatively cool for their distance from the primary star (given the IRAS limits), we infer that they must have $`\beta <1.0`$, although the exact value depends on the assumed value of $`\lambda _0`$.

While the distribution and level of the emission detected $`>25`$ arcsec from the star remains uncertain due to the nature of our observing method, the fact that this emission was detected implies a substantial mass of dust. If the emission is symmetrically distributed about the stars with a level of 4.2 and 3.7 mJy/beam at 25 and 47 arcsec, this implies integrated fluxes of 45 and 75 mJy in rings of one beam width at these distances. Further assuming emission at black body temperatures (19 and 14 K respectively based on the projected separations from HD74067), this implies dust masses of 7 and 20 $`M_{}`$, with more mass expected to have remained unobserved between the bolometer rings.

Similar arguments to those in the paragraph above argue against the presence of interstellar-type grains, since these would be heated to 84 and 66 K at 2200 and 4000 AU from HD74067. However, we note that the interaction of the stars with an interstellar dust cloud would mean that only the largest grains from that cloud could penetrate close to the stars, since the smaller (few 0.1 $`\mu `$m) grains which dominate the interstellar extinction curves would be repelled by radiation pressure (Artymowicz & Clampin 1997). Thus the cool temperature of the excess emission could not on its own rule out the interaction of the stars with a cirrus cloud as the cause of this excess. However, the mean Galactic density of solid grains is just $`7\times 10^{15}M_{}`$/AU3 (Artymowicz & Clampin 1997). Thus, as we infer a mass density from our sub-mm observations of at least $`7\times 10^{11}M_{}`$/AU3, then if this dust is interstellar in origin, the star must be in a region of the galaxy with at least 10,000 times the mean Galactic density. This is unlikely, since at $`60`$ Myr this system should not still reside in the cloud from which it was born, and such a high density would only apply in molecular clouds which fill just 0.2% of the Galactic stellar disc.

We conclude that the material at $`>25`$ arcsec must be either bound to HD74067 (e.g., in a massive $`>27M_{}`$ extended $`6000`$ AU circumbinary disc or remnant protostellar envelope) or an unrelated background object (e.g., a nearby galaxy or Galactic cloud). This system is unusual in our sample for two reasons which argue in favour of the different interpretations: the orbital semimajor axis of this pair (460 AU; Table 1) is the smallest in the sample, thus increasing the chances of survival of a circumbinary disc; and this is the only system in the galactic plane, thus increasing the chance of alignment with a background object. Further observations of this region are required to determine the origin of this emission.

We note that extended circumbinary envelopes have been proposed as the replenishment mechanism of T Tauri discs in binary systems (Prato & Simon 1997), a proposal which may be supported by interferometric observations of binary T Tauri systems which detect a lower level of emission than single dish measurements, possibly implying the presence of additional extended emission (Jensen & Akeson 2003). Also, if this material is circumbinary, then the orbital semimajor axis of the binary (460 AU; Table 1) implies that any circumbinary disc would be truncated within $`9`$ arcsec from a point roughly midway between the two stars (see table 1 of Artymowicz & Lubow 1994). Thus, if this is the case, the emission detected in the central bolometer would have to be circumstellar, not circumbinary, in origin, and further would be truncated at $`150`$ AU (1.7 arcsec) from either star (see table 1 of Papaloizou & Pringle 1977), again ruling out the models with $`\beta >1.0`$ (see Table 3).

#### 6.1.3 HD99803B

The SED fit was scaled to the observed 850 $`\mu `$m flux, and upper limits to the temperature of the dust emission calculated for different $`\beta `$. For $`\beta =1.0`$, shown with the dashed line in Figure 3c, this temperature must be below 42 K to avoid contradiction with the non-detection by IRAS. This corresponds to dust at least 200 AU (2 arcsec) from HD99803B, while the inferred orbital semimajor axis of this system (1800 AU; Table 1) implies that any circumsecondary disc should be truncated beyond 540 AU from HD99803B (Papaloizou & Pringle 1977). This model implies a dust mass of at least $`0.3M_{}`$ and a fractional luminosity of $`0.6\times 10^3`$.

Models with $`\beta =0.0`$ and 2.0 are also shown on Figure 3c with dash-dot and dotted lines, respectively. These imply that if the dust emits as a black body, its temperature could be as high as 85 K (dust as close as 50 AU with a mass of $`0.2M_{}`$). Interstellar-type dust with $`\beta =2.0`$, however, require that $`T<29K`$ (dust as close as 420 AU with a mass of $`0.5M_{}`$). Dust orbiting HD99803B would be heated to $`>20`$ K by the 1800 AU distant primary star giving an upper limit to the dust mass of $`0.9M_{}`$.

#### 6.1.4 HD112412 and HD112413

Starting with HD112412, the SED model was scaled to the observed 850 $`\mu `$m flux, from which upper limits to the temperature of the dust emission were calculated for different $`\beta `$. For $`\beta =1.0`$, shown with the dashed line in Figure 3d, this temperature must be below 38 K to avoid contradiction with the non-detection by IRAS. This corresponds to dust at least 140 AU (4 arcsec) from HD112412 and implies a dust mass of at least $`0.04M_{}`$ and a fractional luminosity of $`4\times 10^5`$. Since the emission falls within the beam, we also know that the emission arises $`<250`$ AU from HD112412. This is consistent with the expected truncation radius of the circumsecondary disc due to its tidal interaction with the primary at 260 AU (Papaloizou & Pringle 1977).

Models with $`\beta =0.0`$ and 2.0 are also shown on Figure 3d with dash-dot and dotted lines, respectively. These imply that if the dust emits as a black body, its temperature could be as high as 68 K (dust as close as 40 AU with a mass of $`0.02M_{}`$). The dust cannot, however, have $`\beta =2.0`$, as such models require that $`T<22K`$ and so that the dust is further than 410 AU from HD112412; this constraint is incompatible with the emission falling within the beam. In fact both the temperature and distance constraints are also inconsistent with the implied distance to the primary star of 890 AU (Table 1), since this would both truncate the circumsecondary disc (see above) and heat dust falling in the beam centred on HD112412 to $`>25`$ K. This 25 K lower limit to the circumsecondary dust temperature also means that its dust mass is unlikely to be more than $`0.06M_{}`$.

Since the IRAS upper limits also apply to the emission from the disc around HD112413, and the circumprimary 850 $`\mu `$m emission is the same (within the uncertainty) as that from the circumsecondary disc (see section 4.2), the temperatures and masses derived from the SED models in Figure 3d (see Table 3) are also valid for the circumprimary disc. The factor of $`8`$ times higher luminosity of an A0III to an F0V star, however, means that the limits from these models to the distance of the dust from HD112413 should be approximately 2.8 times the value of $`r_B`$ given in Table 3. Thus, since for this emission to fall within the beam it must be $`<250`$ AU from the star, we can rule out models with $`\beta `$ greater than about 0.5; i.e., to account for the IRAS non-detections, the circumprimary grains must emit very much like black bodies at temperatures of $`<49`$ K.

### 6.2 Detection Summary

Of the 22 stars in our sample, we detected:

* One warm (100-110 K) circumstellar disc toward HD1438 with IRAS, but not with SCUBA; it was not possible to tell if this is circumprimary or circumsecondary.
* One system, HD74067, with centrally peaked extended emission, possibly indicating the presence of a nearly face-on circumbinary disc/envelope extending to $`6000`$ AU, and an additional circumstellar component.
* Two cold ($`<40`$ K assuming $`\beta =1`$) circumsecondary discs around HD112412 and HD99803B in the sub-mm with SCUBA, but not in the far-IR with IRAS; the SCUBA observations also showed that one of these systems hosts a cold ($`<50`$ K assuming $`\beta =0.5`$) circumprimary disc (around HD112413).

A quick look at Table 1 shows that, at least within this sample, there is nothing unusual about those systems with circumstellar discs in terms of their age or binarity, since the detected systems span the range of binary separation and age. There does, however, appear to be a correlation with spectral type, since all detections were around stars earlier than F3 ($`>3L_{}`$); none of the eight solar-like G or K stars were found to harbour discs. There is also a correlation with distance in that the two detections in the YHM group were of the closest stars of that group, and that in the YLM group was of the second closest. This leaves the possibility open that all stars in the YHM group and the majority of stars in the YLM group have cold discs that are similar in mass to those detected around HD99803B and HD112412 (see Figure 4).

It is unusual that the circumprimary HD112413 disc is not much more massive than the circumsecondary HD112412 disc, since near-IR and mm observations of binary systems in Taurus-Aurigae show that circumsecondary discs, if present, are much less massive than circumprimary discs (White & Ghez 2001; Jensen & Akeson 2003). A more massive circumprimary disc is also expected from theoretical predictions of binary star formation (Bate & Bonnell 1997), and is certainly true of the quasi-Lindroos system HR4796 (Jayawardhana et al. 1998). However, since HD112413 is the only system in our sample for which information was obtained about its circumprimary emission, we cannot draw any conclusions on this subject.

### 6.3 Submillimetre Disc Population

What is particularly striking about these results is that 9-14% of this sample (2 or 3 out of 22) have discs that were not detected by IRAS. This fraction is even higher at 20-30% (2 or 3 out of 10) if we consider just stars more massive than $`1.5M_{}`$ ($`<`$F0), and even higher still (up to 4/11) if we include the the circumprimary disc detected around HD112413. To our knowledge, just one circumstellar disc, that around the M1 star TWA7 (Zuckerman 2001), has been discovered around an isolated star that was not detected first in the far-IR by a space-based telescope such as IRAS or ISO. The majority of searches for discs in the sub-mm have been directed toward stars for which excess emission is already known in the far-IR. However, such searches are biased toward relatively warm discs. The fact that SCUBA was able to detect these discs while IRAS could not must be because these discs are cold ($`<40`$ K if $`\beta =1`$; section 6.1). Thus these results imply that a significant population of cold submillimetre discs could be awaiting discovery in more unbiased sub-mm surveys, a finding which is supported by the fact that the TWA7 disc was discovered in a sub-mm survey of the TW Hydrae Association (Zuckerman et al., in preparation), members of which do not necessarily have IRAS excesses. Depending on their temperature, these cold discs could also be detected by deep far-IR observations using, e.g., SIRTF or SOFIA, and indeed such observations in conjunction with those in the sub-mm are required to determine the temperature of these discs 333Note that until such observations are performed the upper limits to the temperature of this cold disc population are dependent on the assumptions about the shape of the SED, and that a temperature of up to $`70`$ K is possible if $`\beta =0`$..

Since current estimates put the fraction of main sequence stars with discs at 15% based on the discs that could be detected by IRAS (e.g., Plets & Vynckier 1999), an additional cold disc population (i.e., one that IRAS could not detect) with the same incidence rate found for our Lindroos sample would mean that the true disc fraction could have been underestimated by a factor of two. However, it must be remembered that our sample is biased toward young stars. This may be particularly relevant, since TWA7 is also young at $`10`$ Myr (Webb et al. 1999). However, this may be observational bias, since out of the three sub-mm surveys we know about that were undertaken without selection toward stars with IRAS excesses (this work; Zuckerman et al., in preparation; Greaves et al., in preparation) two were specifically directed toward young stars.

This does, however, raise the question of whether these discs are (a) debris discs or (b) protoplanetary remnants. The distinction lies in whether these dust discs must be continually replenished from the break-up of a population of large planetesimals. While the transition from protoplanetary to debris disc is likely to be smooth, and there may be no definitive answer, it is important to try to make the distinction because of the implications for the incidence of these discs around older stars. If they can be shown to be protoplanetary remnants they would be much less common around more evolved stars, whereas debris discs could persist over the whole main sequence lifetime of the parent star, albeit getting fainter or less common with age (Habing et al. 1999; Spangler et al. 2001). Also, if they can be shown to be debris discs, it implies that significant grain growth has occurred at large distances from the star.

(a) Planet formation models do predict the existence of cold debris dust rings at large distances from the star (Kenyon & Bromley 2002). In these models a collisional cascade is ignited at a given distance from the star once planetesimals in this region have grown to $`1000`$ km. This makes a bright dust ring which subsequently decreases in brightness until the supply of the 1 km planetesimals that feed the cascade is exhausted. Because of the longer planetesimal growth timescales at larger distances from the star, this means that as the system evolves we would expect to see a bright dust ring expanding out to larger radii until it reaches the edge of the disc. However, this model predicts that cold dust rings at $`>150`$ AU would not occur until a few Gyr. They also do not account for the effect of the binary companion which would stir the planetesimal population making collisions more energetic. This could help the situation by igniting a collisional cascade without having to wait for planetesimals to grow to 1000 km, although this may also hinder it by inhibiting planetesimal growth in the first place.

(b) A different model predicts the existence of cold dust rings left over from the protoplanetary disc (Clarke et al. 2001). This model was developed to explain the rapid removal on a 0.1 Myr timescale of T Tauri discs at an age of $`10`$ Myr, and shows how these timescales can be achieved by the viscous evolution of a gas disc in conjunction with its photoevaporation by the central star. In this model it is just the disc within the gravitational radius ($`7`$ AU in their standard model) which is dispersed rapidly (in 0.1 Myr) at 10 Myr; the outer disc is subsequently dispersed over a $`>10`$ Myr timescale as its inner edge expands outwards. Thus Clarke et al. predicted the existence of cold discs that would be preferentially detected in the sub-mm regime beyond $`28`$ Myr, since by this time the only part of the primordial gas disc that would remain would be outside 100 AU. However, a more recent study claims that the rapid clearing of the inner disc is not reproduced when account is made for the reduction in photoionising flux from the central source when the accretion flux is reduced as the inner disc dissipates (Matsuyama, Johnstone & Hartmann 2003). Rather this study predicts that the outer disc is dispersed at the same rate as the inner disc.

While the models provide conflicting arguments as to the likely origin of the dust, it may be possible to determine this observationally. Dust spirals in toward the central star due to the Poynting-Robertson (P-R) drag force on timescales of $`400r^2/\alpha M_{}`$ years, where $`r`$ is the distance of the dust from the star in AU, $`M_{}`$ is the mass of the star in $`M_{}`$, and the parameter $`\alpha `$ is the ratio of the radiation pressure force to stellar gravity acting on the dust particles which is a strong function of their size with smaller particles being more affected (e.g., Wyatt et al. 1999). Thus a disc that is 200-540 AU from the 2.3 solar mass star HD99803B would have a P-R drag lifetime for the smallest remnant grains ($`\alpha =1`$) of 7-50 Myr. As this is shorter than the age of the system of $`120`$ Myr, for the disc we detected to be primordial (i.e., not second generation), and so for its constituent dust to have survived at this distance from the star over the age of the system, this dust must have $`\alpha 0.1`$ corresponding to grains much larger than $`0.1`$ mm; i.e., there can be no small ($`<0.1`$ mm) primordial grains in this cold disc.444For the $`1.6M_{}`$ star HD112412 dust in its disc has a P-R drag lifetime of 5-12 Myr. Similar conclusions to those for the HD99803B disc are less certain due to the uncertainty in the age of this system. On the other hand, such small grains are expected to be abundant in a debris disc, since they are continually replenished by the collisional destruction of larger planetesimals that have longer P-R drag lifetimes.

Thus, while we are not proposing that the size distribution of grains in primordial and debris discs should be inherently different, we note that if these discs are protoplanetary, their necessary lack of small ($`<0.1`$ mm) grains would have a potentially discernable effect on their SEDs: if protoplanetary the discs’ emission would resemble black body emission with $`\beta =0`$ (e.g., Figure 3), whereas if debris discs, their emission would have a $`\beta `$ closer to 1. Thus it may be possible to to use a shallow sub-mm spectral slope (i.e., emission $`1/\lambda ^{<2.5}`$) to infer a lack of small grains (Dent et al. 1998; Sheret et al. in preparation) and a protoplanetary origin. Further information about grain size could also be derived from SED modelling if the radial location of the dust could be determined by imaging the disc emission (e.g., Wyatt & Dent 2002).

### 6.4 Evolution of Dust Mass

Leaving aside the uncertainty in the origin of the emission we detected, in Figure 4 we have plotted the dust masses from Table 2 against system age assuming that the emission is circumstellar. This shows how the dust masses derived in this study compare with those of the discs detected around stars of different ages. While the dust mass limits achieved here vary with system distance, for all but the most distant high mass star in our sample we have been able to rule out the presence of dust masses even an order of magnitude below the levels that are characteristic of younger ($`<10`$ Myr) pre-main sequence (T Tauri or Herbig Ae) stars. The dust masses that were detected in this sample, on the other hand, are similar to those of the most massive debris discs. Thus there is no evidence that massive protoplanetary discs persist far beyond $`10`$ Myr.

Figure 4c also emphasizes how protoplanetary and debris discs appear to come from distinct populations, since there are no known discs with masses in the 1-10$`M_{}`$ range. This implies that the evolution from protoplanetary to debris disc occurs rapidly at an age of $`10`$ Myr. However, the apparent gap in the plot could in fact be caused by a combination of the plot strategy and the limited number of disc masses available to be plotted. What Figure 4 really shows is the maximum disc mass that we know exists around stars of different ages. To interpret this correctly we also need to know the fraction of stars at a given age that are plotted in this figure. Studies of young ($`<10`$ Myr) stars are biased toward either classical or weak-line T Tauris (CTTs and WTTs respectively) found in the nearest sites of recent star formation (at $`150`$ pc). The ratio of these populations (WTT/CTT) is uncertain, but could be as high as 10 (Stahler & Walter 1993). The fraction of CTTs and WTTs that have $`>10M_{}`$ discs is $`50`$% and $`10`$% respectively (Osterloh & Beckwith 1995), and the disc fraction for CTTs (but not that of WTTs) may be higher, up to 100%, when this mass limit is decreased to $`>2M_{}`$ (Duvert et al. 2000). Thus the total fraction of all young ($`<10`$ Myr) stars with massive ($`>2M_{}`$) discs could be as low as 18% (i.e., $`[10\%10+100\%1]/11`$). Given that we would expect disc masses for collisionally replenished discs to decline with age $`t^2`$ as observed (Spangler et al. 2001), we thus might expect that, if this decline starts at $`10`$ Myr, then by 70 Myr (the average age of the Lindroos sample) 18% of stars would have discs more massive than $`0.04M_{}`$. This is consistent with our detection of $`4/22`$ discs in the Lindroos sample at this level, and so from this study alone we cannot state that the disc mass decline after 10 Myr must be steeper than $`t^2`$.

Rather it is possible that if CTTs and WTTs come from separate populations, and do not form an evolutionary sequence in which CTTs evolve into WTTs in short $`0.1`$ Myr timescales (Skrutskie et al. 1990; Clarke et al. 2001), then a large number of evolved CTTs could have discs with dust masses in the range 1-10 $`M_{}`$ and these would be detected once a larger sample of nearby young stars has been observed. Indeed we may already have observed one, since if the emission toward HD74067 is bound to this system, then if this system had been twice as distant (i.e., at a similar distance to the nearest $`<10`$ Myr stars), the larger contribution of the circumbinary material in central bolometer could have resulted in the inference of a $`110M_{}`$ disc. Apart from this Lindroos sample, suitable young ($`10`$ Myr) nearby ($`<70`$ pc) candidates include members of the $`\beta `$ Pictoris moving group (Zuckerman et al. 2001a) and the TW Hydrae Association (Zuckerman et al. 2001b; Zuckerman et al., in preparation).

## 7 Conclusions

Of the 22 young stars in our sample from the Lindroos catalog, we report the detection of sub-mm emission (detected by us using SCUBA) toward three of these stars and far-IR emission (detected by IRAS) toward another star:

* Two of the sub-mm detections (HD112412 and HD99803B) we attribute to cold ($`<40`$ K assuming $`\beta =1`$) circumsecondary discs, since these were not detected in the far-IR by IRAS and the primary falls outside the beam; these discs have masses of $`0.04`$ and $`0.3M_{}`$, respectively. We were also able to show that a cold ($`<50`$ K assuming $`\beta =0.5`$) circumprimary disc is present around HD112413 with a similar mass to the circumsecondary HD112412 disc. These detections imply that current estimates of disc fractions could be underestimated by a factor of two and indicate that a significant cold submillimetre disc population could be awaiting discovery in future sub-mm surveys. It may be possible to determine whether these discs are protoplanetary remnants or debris discs once their far-IR emission and sub-mm spectral slopes have been measured, since the emission, if protoplanetary, would more closely resemble black body emission.
* The sub-mm emission detected toward the third binary system (HD74067) appears to be centrally peaked and extends out to $`70`$ arcsec from the system. The low temperature and high density of this emission means that it is unlikely to be caused by local cirrus heated by the star. Thus this is either a system containing a cold $`0.3M_{}`$ circumstellar disc as well as a $`>27M_{}`$ circumbinary disc/envelope extending out to $`6000`$ AU, or this is a chance alignment with an unrelated background object. The former interpretation would support the idea that T Tauri discs in binary systems are replenished by extended circumbinary envelopes (Prato & Simon 1997). Since we were chopping onto an extended source, it was difficult to determine the true structure of this emission, thus further mapping of this region will help determine its origin. If this emission is bound to the star this would be an extremely unusual system in that it retains a dust mass of $`1M_{}`$ until an age of $`60`$ Myr.
* The far-IR emission detected toward HD1438 implies that one of the stars in this system harbours a 107 K, 0.05 $`M_{}`$ circumstellar disc. If circumprimary, this disc could be resolved with mid-IR imaging from an 8 metre telescope.

The low inferred dust masses for this sample supports the picture that protoplanetary dust discs are depleted to the levels of the brightest debris discs ($`1M_{}`$) at the end of 10 Myr. However, a larger sample of young stars must be observed before anything more concrete can be said on this subject.

## Acknowledgments

The JCMT is operated by the Joint Astronomy Centre, on behalf of the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the Netherlands Organization for Pure Research, and the National Research Council of Canada. This research has made use of the NASA/ IPAC Infrared Science Archive, which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We would also like to thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments.


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# A Fluorescent Aerogel for Capture and Identification of Interplanetary and Interstellar Dust

## 1 Introduction

Interstellar dust is an important component of the interstellar medium. Dust dominates the opacity from the far ultraviolet through the far infrared and hence controls the spectral appearance of most interstellar objects. Because of dust shielding against dissociating FUV radiation, molecules can form in dense clouds which allows cooling to low temperatures and thus, eventually, gravity to overwhelm pressure support and the formation of new stars. Small dust grains also dominate the heating of the interstellar gas through the photoelectric effect and hence controls the structure of the interstellar medium. Despite some 50+ years of active research, the composition of interstellar dust is still largely guessed at. In essence, our ignorance reflects the difficulty to infer dust composition from remote astronomical observations. Here we propose a novel collection agent which allows the discriminatory collection of interstellar grains and separation from solar system debris. This promises to open up a new window on the solid component of the interstellar medium.

Although it is known that IS dust penetrates into the inner solar system (Grün et al., 2000; Taylor et al., 1996), to date not even a single contemporary IS grain has been captured and analyzed in the laboratory. Using sophisticated chemical separation techniques, certain types of refractory ancient IS particles (so-called “pre-solar grains”) have been isolated from chondritic meteorites (e.g. (Amari & Zinner, 1997)). Isotopic abundance patterns within these individual grains often differ wildly from solar-system values, and point to the formation of these grains in specific astrophysical environments such as supernova ejecta and the winds of Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars. But because only the most chemically robust particles (e.g., graphite, SiC, Al2O3) survive the harsh chemical separation, this sample is extremely biased, and it is unlikely that these particles are typical of those found in the interstellar medium. A sample of IS dust collected by spacecraft in the inner solar system would be less biased, and could lead to the first laboratory characterization of the “typical” IS dust particle. Furthermore, such a sample would allow us to detect isotopic, elemental, and mineralogical differences between dust in the protosolar cloud and dust currently residing in the local ISM, and to probe galactic chemical evolution over the 4.6 Gy since the formation of the solar system. Pre-solar grains are already proving to be a valuable probe of galactic chemical evolution and stellar nucleosynthesis (Amari et al., 2001a; Nittler et al., 1997).

The vast majority ($`84`$%) of large ($`>1\mu `$m) ancient pre-solar grains appear to be of one type, so-called “mainstream” SiC grains. These grains are enriched in 22Ne, show s-process signatures in Kr and Xe, and probably originate in the outflows of AGB stars. Grains from other astrophysical sites have been identified but are relatively rare (e.g., Type-A,B SiC, tentatively identified with J-type carbon stars (Amari et al., 2001b), 3-4%; Type-X SiC from supernovae (Amari & Zinner, 1997), 1%; and alumina from high-metallicity red giants, $`<0.5`$%.) A few pre-solar grains show isotopic patterns that are unique among the thousands that have been studied so far (Nittler et al., 1997). If dust in the local ISM shows a similar pattern of diversity, with a dominant common type and relatively rare populations of exotic grains, a large-statistics collection technique will be required to capture, identify and study contemporary IS dust grains from a wide variety of astrophysical sources.

Aerogels are extremely low-density solids whose superiority as capturing media for hypervelocity ($`v>0.5`$km/s) grains has been well established (Barrett et al., 1992; Hörz et al., 2000; Kitazawa et al., 1999). A prominent example is the use of silica aerogel as the collecting medium for cometary and interstellar grains on NASA’s Stardust mission (Brownlee et al., 1997). Aerogel collectors have been deployed in low-earth orbit, but severe background from anthropogenic orbital debris has so far prevented the identification of more than a handful of interplanetary particles (Hörz et al., 2000). No interstellar particles have been identified so far. Since they are on hyperbolic orbits, extraterrestrial particles are faster than orbital debris, so could in principle be identified on that basis, but existing aerogels give little information on impact velocity. With this in mind, we have developed a novel calorimetric aerogel which passively records the kinetic energy of captured hypervelocity particles.

The capture of a hypervelocity dust particle in aerogel produces a shock wave that deforms, heats, and vaporizes the aerogel material in the vicinity of the projectile’s trajectory, resulting in the formation of a permanent track. The correlation between captured projectile velocity and track characteristics (e.g., track length, track volume, etc.) is poor (Kitazawa et al., 1999). This behavior is expected theoretically (Anderson & Ahrens, 1994; Westphal et al., 1998)(G. Domínguez in preparation). The amount of local heating, however, is nearly linearly proportional to the projectile kinetic energy (Anderson & Ahrens, 1994). If this local heating alters some property of the aerogel in the vicinity of the track, then this property could be used as a calorimeter. We chose to focus on inducing a fluorescence signal.

## 2 Observation of Fluorescence from Capture Events

We have observed fluorescence resulting from the thermal alteration of aerogels previously in various doped aerogel systems, which fluoresce weakly in their amorphous state and strongly when baked at high temperatures ($`1000^{}`$C) for extended periods of time ($`1`$hr). A simple example of such a system is alumina aerogel doped with chromium (III). The amorphous, unheated phase is only very weakly fluorescent under UV illumination (254 nm or 365 nm). Heating the aerogel to 1450 C causes it to crystallize to the well-known luminescent phase $`\alpha `$-Al2O3:Cr, known in Nature as ruby, which glows red ($`\lambda _{max}700`$nm) under UV illumination. More complex systems include alumina gels co-doped with Gd and Tb. Gd acts as a sensitizer by absorbing UV light at certain wavelengths and nonradiatively transferring energy to Tb, which emits at several wavelengths, principally in the green.

Local heating that results from the capture of hypervelocity projectiles is rapid and confined to small regions in the aerogel. However, the inducement of a fluorescent state as a result of rapid (t$`<200\mu `$s), local heating (within $`<100\mu `$m of the particle track) in an aerogel has previously not been reported. To test whether local heating in an aerogel could induce an irreversible phase transformation into a fluorescent phase, the effects of hypervelocity projectile capture were first simulated by exposing samples of Cr-doped and (Gd,Tb)-doped alumina aerogels ($`\rho `$170 mg/cc) with a pulsed CO2 laser (300 Hz, 50$`\mu `$m spot size, pulse width$`=`$50$`\mu `$s, power$`=`$0.25-0.50 W). The energy per pulse is approximately the energetic equivalent of a glass sphere 10 microns in diameter impacting at 10 km/s. Some of these aerogels displayed brilliant green fluorescence in the regions of local heating. This was encouraging evidence that the capture of hypervelocity dust particles could induce a fluorescent phase in alumina aerogels. These alumina aerogel samples were selected for shots with hypervelocity projectiles (a mix of powdered meteorite and glass beads) at the Advanced Vertical Gun Range at NASA Ames Research Center. Two of these samples showed intense green fluorescence in the heated material surrounding the particle tracks, thus establishing that the phase transformation occurs in alumina aerogels. Quantitative measurements with these shots were precluded because of the large spread in particle sizes and the unknown effect of particle ablation. These shots were followed more recently, again at Ames, with projectiles consisting of a mixture of monodisperse glass spheres. This allowed us to do quantitative measurements of the fluorescence yield as a function of particle size and velocity.

## 3 Analysis of Fluorescence Observations

We measured the fluorescence yield using a standard fluorescence microscope with a cooled color CCD video camera. The fluorescence was excited at 365 nm using a standard bandpass filter cube at the excitation side and imaged using a long pass filter ($`\lambda 395`$nm). The samples were imaged within two hours of each other to minimize the effects of UV lamp intensity variations. High resolution images of the aerogel surface where tracks entered were taken and the background fluorescence (weak and mostly blue) was subtracted as follows. A local blank region of aerogel was sampled, and the average ratio of green to blue, $`\overline{f_{gb}}`$ was determined; for each pixel we defined the net fluorescence in the green as:

$$I_{green}^{net}=I_{green}\overline{f_{gb}}I_{blue}$$
(1)
where $`I_{blue}`$ is the blue pixel value. We chose this background subtraction method because a linear increase in both the green and blue channels would be expected, even in the absence of a phase transformation, due to the increased density of aerogel in the vicinity of the track mouth. We define the fluorescence yield as the sum of $`I_{green}^{net}`$ for $`I_{green}^{net}>2.5\sigma `$ above the pixel noise in the region surrounding the track mouth. The yield increases dramatically with increasing velocity within each particle population (Fig. 1). In Fig. 2, we show the fluorescence yield as a function of kinetic energy. Over the range from 2$`\mu `$m to 20$`\mu `$m (three orders of magnitude in mass), the fluorescence yield appears to be consistent with being a single-valued function of the particle kinetic energy, $`I_gE_k^{0.69}`$. We found that the exponent is insensitive to the choice of fluorescence signal-to-noise threshold.

A reasonable model for the energetics of grain capture can be used to explain, at least qualitatively, the calorimetric aspects of the aerogel. In this model, we treat the aerogel as a fluid. In the limit of large Reynolds number, the energy deposited per unit path length by a grain of radius $`r`$, density $`\rho _g`$, and kinetic energy $`E`$ is

$$\frac{dE}{dx}\frac{3}{2}\frac{1}{r}\frac{\rho _a}{\rho _g}E=\frac{E}{\lambda },$$
(2)
where $`\rho _a`$ is the aerogel density, and

$$\lambda =\frac{2}{3}r\frac{\rho _g}{\rho _a}.$$
(3)
This stopping length scale agrees to within 10% of the value obtained following the more detailed treatment by Anderson and Ahrens (Anderson & Ahrens, 1994). The range of the particle in its supersonic slowing phase $`R`$ is

$$R_{\mathrm{super}}2\lambda \mathrm{ln}\left(\frac{v}{v_{\mathrm{sonic}}}\right),$$
(4)
where $`v_{\mathrm{sonic}}`$ is the speed of sound in the aerogel. The logarithmic dependence of the supersonic range on velocity is consistent with the weak dependence observed experimentally (Kitazawa et al., 1999). If some fraction of the energy loss contributes to the local heating of the aerogel, we should expect the amount of aerogel crystallized to increase as the projectile kinetic energy increases. Assuming that the luminescence we observe is dominated by one fluorescent phase, the mass per unit track length that is converted into this fluorescent phase is expected to be

$$\frac{dm_{fl}}{dx}v^2r^2.$$
(5)
The dependence of $`I_g`$ on the amount of crystallized aerogel is not necessarily straightforward, as it depends on the optical properties (ultraviolet and visible) of the aerogel as well as the track length. For events with large track lengths, such as those due to 20 $`\mu `$m diameter grains, the fluorescence yield may be dominated by the fluorescence at or near the surface of the aerogel. If so, then $`I_g`$ should be proportional to the amount of aerogel crystallized near the track entrance. For constant density, therefore

$$I_gm^{\frac{2}{3}}v_0^2.$$
(6)
where $`v_0`$ is the initial impact velocity. Conversely, for shallow events, the fluorescence yield is expected to be more sensitive to the total amount of aerogel crystallized, hence we would expect $`I_gE_0`$. Interestingly, a fit of $`I_g`$ versus $`m^{\frac{2}{3}}v_0^2`$ appears to be a better fit to the data than $`I_g`$ versus $`E`$. Regardless of which functional form ($`E_0`$ or $`E_0m^{\frac{1}{3}}`$) turns out to be more accurate when additional studies are done, the main implication of the results reported here is the same. Together with an independent measure of the mass, for example using in situ optical imaging or x-ray fluorescence, the velocity of the embedded projectile can be determined (Flynn, 1996, 2000).

The expectation that the amount of crystallized aerogel scale with the amount of heat deposited is not obvious. The dependence of emission intensity on grain kinetic energy is complicated by the fact that several phase transitions can occur as alumina aerogels are heated (amorphous $``$ $`\gamma `$-Al2O3 $``$ $`\theta `$-Al2O3 $``$ $`\alpha `$-Al2O3 (corundum)) (Mizushima & Hori, 1995). Fluorescence efficiencies of dopant ions typically depend strongly on their local crystal field, and thus it is likely that even if higher grain kinetic energy does not crystallize a larger mass of aerogel, the higher temperatures produced within the track will yield phases of different luminescence. For example, the heating of Al2O3:Gd,Tb doped aerogels to even moderate temperatures ($``$ 1100 C) can precipitate phases such as the perovskite phase GdAlO3:Tb and the meta-stable garnet phase Gd3Al5O12:Tb, which yield brilliant green luminescence under UV illumination.

The kinetics of crystallization in doped alumina aerogels are not known but a more detailed understanding should be helpful in maximizing their usefulness. The density of the aerogels used in this study are higher than optimal for capture of small hypervelocity particles. Developing larger samples with lower density is a major focus of our current work. This will allow us to characterize the optical properties of our calorimetric aerogel, which will in turn help us understand the effects that oblique impacts and particle fragmentation may have on integrated fluorescence. Studies of the crystallographic phase and fluorescence dependence on temperature could be used as an in situ temperature gauge along tracks and could improve our understanding of the kinetics of grain capture in aerogels. Detailed, systematic studies of *fluorescence along a track* may provide information on the instantaneous energy loss that a captured dust particle experiences (see Fig. 3).

## 4 Discussion

The Stardust spacecraft, whose primary mission is to return samples of cometary dust to Earth for laboratory study, has exposed aerogel collectors to the interstellar dust stream during two periods of its cruise phase. The Stardust collectors will be returned in 2006. Models of the IS dust flux in the inner solar system indicate that the Stardust collectors will capture $`10`$ 1-$`\mu `$m particles, and perhaps one 2-$`\mu `$m particle. An array of calorimetric aerogel, with collecting area of 3 m2 deployed in low earth orbit for two years, would have enough collecting power to collect several hundred 1-$`\mu `$m IS particles (Landgraf et al., 2000). A collector deployed on the wake side of a spacecraft in low-earth orbit could collect IS dust at moderate velocites ($`<10`$ km/s) during periods of the year when the earth’s motion is most parallel to that of the IS dust stream (Grün et al., 2000). Furthermore, the largest particle expected to be captured by such an array would be $``$30 times more massive than the largest particle expected to be collected by Stardust (Landgraf et al., 2000) (see Figure 4). These particles would be large enough to apply multiple chemical, mineralogical, and isotopic analysis techniques to each particle (Zolensky et al., 2000).

The main point of this paper is that we have discovered a method of distinguishing between copious anthropogenic debris and relatively rare extraterrestrial particles captured in a collector in low earth orbit. Although we have chosen to emphasize the importance of capturing large numbers of contemporary interstellar grains for the first time, it is inevitable that interplanetary dust particles would also be collected. Both of these populations would be of scientific interest, and separating these two population is a complex problem and beyond the scope of this paper. A large-statistics collection of interplanetary dust collected in space would be a valuable resource for the meteoritics and planetary science community. So-called Interplanetary Dust Particles (IDPs) have been collected in the stratosphere for many years (Brownlee et al., 2002). Micrometeorites have also been collected terrestrially in Antarctica — these are the so-called Antarctic Micrometeorites (AMMs) (Engrand & Maurette, 1998). Each of these collection techniques has its own biases. Both are biased towards particles that can survive atmospheric entry. The effects of atmospheric contamination are poorly understood (Flynn, Bajt, Sutton, & Klock, 1995). Terrestrially-collected micrometeorites are selected towards particles that survive weathering and that are readily recognized as extraterrestrial.

A few chondritic particles have been extracted from ordinary silica aerogel collectors flown in space and analyzed (Hörz et al., 2000). These chondritic grains were selected from a large background of anthropogenic particles. The relationship between IDPs, AMMs, micrometeorites and ordinary chondrites is not clear (Brownlee et al., 2002; Flynn, 2002), but it appears that AMMs constitute a different population than IDPs, and may have a different origin. A single collector that is large enough to capture, in space, several 100 $`\mu `$m particles — characteristic of AMMs — along with IDPs could clarify the relationship between them. The origin of AMMs in particular is important since they constitute the greatest contemporary mass input to the earth (Maurette, 2000), and could have contributed a significant amount of water and organics to the early earth.

This work was supported by NASA Grant NAG5-10411. We thank David King, Christopher J. Snead, Peter Schultz, and the crew of the AVGR for helping make these tests possible. We thank John Bradley and Xander Tielens for useful discussions. G. Dominguez would like to thank the NPSC Graduate Fellowship Program for their support.
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to G.D.


text:
# Bohmian Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory

(August 23, 2004)

## Abstract

We discuss a recently proposed extension of Bohmian mechanics to quantum field theory. For more or less any regularized quantum field theory there is a corresponding theory of particle motion, which in particular ascribes trajectories to the electrons or whatever sort of particles the quantum field theory is about. Corresponding to the nonconservation of the particle number operator in the quantum field theory, the theory describes explicit creation and annihilation events: the world lines for the particles can begin and end.

Despite the uncertainty principle, the predictions of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics permit particles to have precise positions at all times. The simplest theory demonstrating that this is so is Bohmian mechanics Bohm52 ; Ischia ; Stanford ; in this theory the position of a particle cannot be known to macroscopic observers more accurately than the $`|\psi |^2`$ distribution would allow. A frequent complaint about Bohmian mechanics is that, in the words of Steven Weinberg weinlet , “it does not seem possible to extend Bohm’s version of quantum mechanics to theories in which particles can be created and destroyed, which includes all known relativistic quantum theories.”

To remove the grounds of the concern that such an extension may be impossible, we show how, with (more or less) any regularized quantum field theory (QFT), one can associate a particle theory—describing moving particles—that is empirically equivalent to that QFT. In particular, there is a particle theory that recovers all predictions of regularized QED footn1 .

However, we will not attempt to achieve full Lorentz invariance; that would lead to quite a different set of questions, orthogonal to those with which we shall be concerned here. But we note that though the theories we present here require a preferred reference frame, there can be no experiment that would allow an observer to determine which frame is the preferred one, provided the corresponding QFTs are such that their empirical predictions are Lorentz invariant.

The theories we present are based on the work of Bell BellBeables  and our own recent results crea1 ; crea2a ; crea2b ; in crea1  we study a simple model QFT, and in crea2a ; crea2b  we give a detailed account of the mathematics needed for treating other QFTs. While Bell replaced physical 3-space by a lattice, we describe directly what presumably is the continuum limit of Bell’s model crea2a ; crea2b ; Sudbery ; Vink . Since Bell’s proposal was the first in this direction, we call these models “Bell-type QFTs”. The trajectories we use as the world lines consist of pieces of Bohmian trajectories, or similar ones. A novel element is that the world lines can begin and end. This is essential for describing processes involving particle creation or annihilation, such as, e.g., positron–electron pair creation. Our description of such events is the most naive and natural one: the world line of the particle begins at some space-time point, its creation event, and ends at another (see figure 1). The models thus involve “particle creation” in the literal sense.

The patterns of world lines are reminiscent of Feynman diagrams, and the possible Feynman diagrams correspond to the possible types of world-line patterns. Note, however, that the role of Feynman diagrams is to aid with computing the evolution of the state vector $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$, while the world lines here are supposed to exist in addition to $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$. Unlike Feynman diagrams, which are computational tools not to be confused with actual particle paths, the world-line patterns of our models are to be regarded as describing the possibilities for what might actually happen (in a universe governed by that model).

Whatever the pattern of world lines may look like, it can be described by a time-dependent configuration $`Q_t=Q(t)`$ moving in the configuration space $`𝒬`$ of possible positions for a variable number of particles. In the case of a single particle species, this is the disjoint union of the $`n`$-particle configuration spaces,

$$𝒬=\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}𝒬^{[n]}.$$
(1)
Since the particles are identical, the sector $`𝒬^{[n]}`$ is best defined as $`^{3n}`$ modulo permutations, $`^{3n}/S_n`$. For simplicity, we will henceforth pretend that $`𝒬^{[n]}`$ is simply $`^{3n}`$; we discuss $`^{3n}/S_n`$ in crea2b . For several particle species, one forms the Cartesian product of several copies of the space (1), one for each species. One obtains in this way a configuration space which is, like (1), a union of sectors $`𝒬^{[n]}`$ where, however, now $`n=(n_1,\mathrm{},n_{\mathrm{}})`$ is an $`\mathrm{}`$-tuple of particle numbers for the $`\mathrm{}`$ species of particles. For QED, for example, $`𝒬`$ is the product of three copies of the space (1), corresponding to electrons, positrons, and photons; thus, a configuration specifies the number and positions of all electrons, positrons, and photons foot2 .

Let us explore what $`Q(t)`$ looks like for a typical world line pattern (see figure 2).

$`Q(t)`$ will typically have discontinuities, even if there is nothing discontinuous in the world line pattern (figure 1), because it jumps to a different sector at every creation or annihilation event. Between such events, $`Q(t)`$ moves smoothly within one sector.

It is helpful to note that the bosonic Fock space can be understood as a space of $`L^2`$ (i.e., square-integrable) functions on $`_n^{3n}/S_n`$. The fermionic Fock space consists of $`L^2`$ functions on $`_n^{3n}`$ which are anti-symmetric under permutations.

A Bell-type QFT specifies such world-line patterns, or histories in configuration space, by specifying three sorts of “laws of motion”: when to jump, where to jump, and how to move between the jumps. Before we say more on what precisely the laws are, we elucidate one consequence of the laws: if at $`t=0`$, the configuration $`Q(0)`$ is chosen at random with probability distribution $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_0|^2`$, then at any later time $`t`$, $`Q(t)`$ has distribution $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_t|^2`$. This property we call *equivariance*. The main consequence is that these theories are empirically equivalent to their corresponding QFTs. This conlusion has been explained in detail in DGZ  for Bohmian mechanics and the predictions of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, and the same reasoning applies here. It involves a law of large numbers governing the empirical frequencies in a typical universe, and involves the recognition that the variables that record the outcome of an experiment are ultimately particle positions (orientations of meter pointers, ink marks on paper, etc.).

In a Bell-type QFT, the state of a system is described by the pair $`(\mathrm{\Psi }_t,Q_t)`$, where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$ is an (arbitrary) vector in the appropriate Fock space and may well involve a superposition of states of different particle numbers. As remarked before, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$ can thus be viewed as a function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t(q)`$ on the configuration space $`𝒬`$ of a variable number of particles. (For photons, whose position observable is represented by a positive-operator-valued measure (POVM), $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$ can be represented by a wavefunction $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t(q)`$ satisfying a constraint.) $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$ evolves according to the appropriate Schrödinger equation

$$i\mathrm{}\frac{d\mathrm{\Psi }_t}{dt}=H\mathrm{\Psi }_t.$$
(2)
Typically $`H=H_0+H_I`$ is the sum of a free Hamiltonian $`H_0`$ and an interaction Hamiltonian $`H_I`$. It is important to appreciate that although there is an actual particle number, defined by $`N(t)=\mathrm{\#}Q(t):=[\text{number of entries in }Q(t)]`$ or $`Q(t)𝒬^{[N(t)]}`$, $`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ need not be a number eigenstate (i.e., concentrated on one sector). This is similar to the situation in the usual double-slit experiment, in which the particle passes through only one slit although the wavefunction passes through both. And as with the double-slit experiment, the part of the wavefunction that passes through another sector of $`𝒬`$ (or another slit) may well influence the behavior of $`Q(t)`$ at a later time.

The laws of motion for $`Q_t`$ depend on $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$ (and on $`H`$). The continuous part of the motion is governed by a first-order ordinary differential equation

$$\frac{dQ_t}{dt}=v^{\mathrm{\Psi }_t}(Q_t)=\mathrm{Re}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_t^{}(Q_t)\left(\dot{\widehat{q}}\mathrm{\Psi }_t\right)(Q_t)}{\mathrm{\Psi }_t^{}(Q_t)\mathrm{\Psi }_t(Q_t)}$$
(3)
$$\text{where }\dot{\widehat{q}}=\frac{d}{d\tau }e^{iH_0\tau /\mathrm{}}\widehat{q}e^{iH_0\tau /\mathrm{}}|_{\tau =0}=\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H_0,\widehat{q}]$$
(4)
is the time derivative of the $`𝒬`$-valued Heisenberg position operator $`\widehat{q}`$, evolved with $`H_0`$ alone. Since in the absence of global coordinates on $`𝒬`$, the notion of a “$`𝒬`$-valued operator” may be somewhat obscure, one should understand (3) as saying this: for any smooth function $`f:𝒬`$,

$$\frac{df(Q_t)}{dt}=\mathrm{Re}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }_t^{}(Q_t)(\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H_0,\widehat{f}]\mathrm{\Psi }_t)(Q_t)}{\mathrm{\Psi }_t^{}(Q_t)\mathrm{\Psi }_t(Q_t)}$$
(5)
where $`\widehat{f}`$ is the multiplication operator corresponding to $`f`$. This expression is of the form $`v^\mathrm{\Psi }f(Q_t)`$, as it must be for defining a dynamics for $`Q_t`$, if the free Hamiltonian is a differential operator of up to second order crea2b . The Klein–Gordon operator is not covered by (3) or (5); its treatment will be discussed in future work klein2 . The numerator and denominator of (3) resp. (5) involve, when appropriate, scalar products in spin space. One may view $`v`$ as a vector field on $`𝒬`$, and thus as consisting of one vector field $`v^{[n]}`$ on every manifold $`𝒬^{[n]}`$; it is then $`v^{[N(t)]}`$ that governs the motion of $`Q(t)`$ in (3).

If $`H_0`$ were the Schrödinger operator $`_{i=1}^n\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{2m_i}\mathrm{\Delta }_i+V`$ of quantum mechanics, formula (3) would yield the velocity proposed by Bohm in Bohm52 ,

$$v_i^\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{\mathrm{}}{m_i}\mathrm{Im}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}_i\mathrm{\Psi }}{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\mathrm{\Psi }},i=1,\mathrm{},n.$$
(6)
When $`H_0`$ is the “second quantization” of a one-particle Schrödinger operator, (3) amounts to (6), with equal masses, in every sector $`𝒬^{[n]}`$. Similarly, in case $`H_0`$ is the second quantization of the Dirac operator $`ic\mathrm{}𝜶+\beta mc^2`$, (3) says a configuration $`Q(t)`$ (with $`N`$ particles) moves according to (the $`N`$-particle version of) the known variant of Bohm’s velocity formula for Dirac wavefunctions BH ,

$$v^\mathrm{\Psi }=\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }}{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}\mathrm{\Psi }}c.$$
(7)
The jumps are stochastic in nature, i.e., they occur at random times and lead to random destinations. In Bell-type QFTs, God does play dice. There are no hidden variables which would fully pre-determine the time and destination of a jump. (Note also that a deterministic jump law that prescribes the time and destination of the jump as a (smooth) function of the initial configuration would lack sufficient randomness to be compatible with equivariance, since after a jump from a sector with dimension $`d^{}`$ to a sector with dimension $`d>d^{}`$ the configuration would have to belong, at any specific time, to a $`d^{}`$-dimensional submanifold.)

The probability of jumping, within the next $`dt`$ seconds, to the volume $`dq`$ in $`𝒬`$, is $`\sigma ^\mathrm{\Psi }(dq|Q_t)dt`$ with

$$\sigma ^\mathrm{\Psi }(dq|q^{})=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}\frac{[\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(q)q|H_I|q^{}\mathrm{\Psi }(q^{})]^+}{\mathrm{\Psi }^{}(q^{})\mathrm{\Psi }(q^{})}dq,$$
(8)
where $`x^+=\mathrm{max}(x,0)`$ means the positive part of $`x`$. Thus the jump rate $`\sigma ^\mathrm{\Psi }`$ depends on the present configuration $`Q_t`$, on the state vector $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$, which has a “guiding” role similar to that in Bohm’s velocity law (6), and of course on the overall setup of the QFT as encoded in the interaction Hamiltonian $`H_I`$. In crea1 , we spelled out in detail a simple example of a Bell-type QFT.

Together, (3) and (8) define a Markov process on $`𝒬`$. The “free” part of this process, defined by (3), can also be regarded as arising as follows: if $`H_0`$ is as usual the “second quantization” of a 1-particle Hamiltonian $`h`$, one can construct the dynamics corresponding to $`H_0`$ from a given 1-particle dynamics corresponding to $`h`$ (be it deterministic or stochastic) by an algorithm that one may call the “second quantization” of a Markov process crea2b . Moreover, this algorithm can still be used when formula (3) fails to define a dynamics (in particular when $`H_0`$ is the second quantized Klein–Gordon operator).

We now discuss the role of field operators (operator-valued fields on space-time) in a theory of particles. Almost by definition, it would seem that QFT concerns fields, and not particles. But there is less to this than might be expected. The field operators do not function as observables in QFT. It is far from clear how to actually “observe” them, and even if this could somehow, in some sense, be done, it is important to bear in mind that the standard predictions of QFT are grounded in the particle representation, not the field representation: Experiments in high energy physics are scattering experiments, in which what is observed is the asymptotic motion of the outgoing particles. Moreover, for Fermi fields—the matter fields—the field as a whole (at a given time) could not possibly be observable, since Fermi fields anti-commute, rather than commute, at space-like separation. We note, though, that a theory in which $`\mathrm{\Psi }_t`$ guides an actual field can be devised, at least formally Bohm52 .

The role of the field operators is to provide a connection, the only connection in fact, between space-time and the abstract Hilbert space containing the quantum states $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$, which are usually regarded not as functions but as abstract vectors. For our purpose, what is crucial are the following facts that we shall explain presently: (i) the field operators naturally correspond to the spatial structure provided by a projection-valued (PV) measure on configuration space $`𝒬`$, and (ii) the process we have defined in this paper can be efficiently expressed in terms of a PV measure.

Consider a PV measure $`P`$ on $`𝒬`$ acting on $``$: For $`B𝒬`$, $`P(B)`$ means the projection to the space of states localized in $`B`$. All our formulas above can be formulated in terms of $`P`$ and $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$: (5) becomes

$$\frac{df(Q_t)}{dt}=\mathrm{Re}\frac{\mathrm{\Psi }|P(dq)\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H_0,\widehat{f}]|\mathrm{\Psi }}{\mathrm{\Psi }|P(dq)|\mathrm{\Psi }}|_{q=Q_t}$$
(9)
$$\text{with }\widehat{f}=\underset{q𝒬}{}f(q)P(dq),$$
(10)
for any smooth function $`f:𝒬`$, and (8) becomes

$$\sigma ^\mathrm{\Psi }(dq|q^{})=\frac{2}{\mathrm{}}\frac{[\mathrm{Im}\mathrm{\Psi }|P(dq)H_IP(dq^{})|\mathrm{\Psi }]^+}{\mathrm{\Psi }|P(dq^{})|\mathrm{\Psi }}.$$
(11)
Note that $`\mathrm{\Psi }|P(dq)|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ is the probability distribution analogous to $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(q)|^2dq`$.

We now turn to (i): how we obtain the PV measure $`P`$ from the field operators. For the configuration space $`𝒬=_n^{3n}/S_n`$ of a variable number of identical particles, a configuration can be specified by giving the number of particles $`n(R)`$ in every region $`R^3`$. A PV measure $`P`$ on $`𝒬`$ is mathematically equivalent to a family of number operators: an additive operator-valued set function $`N(R)`$, $`R^3`$, such that the $`N(R)`$ commute pairwise and have spectra in the nonnegative integers. Indeed, $`P`$ is the joint spectral decomposition of the $`N(R)`$ crea2b . And the easiest way to obtain such a family of number operators is by setting

$$N(R)=_R\varphi ^{}(𝒙)\varphi (𝒙)d^3𝒙,$$

exploiting the canonical commutation or anti-commutation relations for the field operators $`\varphi (𝒙)`$. These observations suggest that field operators are just what the doctor ordered for the efficient construction of a theory describing the creation, motion, and annihilation of particles.

(It is only the positive-energy one-particle states that are used for constructing the Fock space $``$, so that $``$ is really a subspace of a larger Hilbert space $`_0`$ which contains also unphysical states (with contributions from one-particle states of negative energy). Since position operators may fail to map positive energy states into positive energy states, the PV measure $`P`$ is typically defined on $`_0`$ but not on $``$, in which case (9) and (11) have to be read as applying in $`_0`$. While $`H_0`$ is defined on $`_0`$, $`H_I`$ is usually not and needs to be “filled up with zeroes”, i.e. replaced by $`P^{}H_IP^{}`$ where $`P^{}`$ is the projection $`_0`$.)

To sum up, we have shown how the realist view which Bohmian mechanics provides for the realm of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics can be extended to QFT, including creation and annihilation of particles. Those who find the all too widespread positivistic attitude in quantum theory unsatisfactory may find these ideas helpful. But even those who think that Copenhagen quantum theory is just fine may find it interesting to see how the particle picture, ubiquitous in the pictorial lingo and heuristic intuition of QFT, can be made consistent, internally and with the observable facts of QFT, by introducing suitable laws of motion.