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# Analysis of elemental and isotopic composition of a substance obtained in experiments on energy concentration in a solid–state superdense plasma

## Introduction

This work summarizes the results of analysis of the nuclear transmutation products in the supercompressed substance obtained in 1999–2003 by the Electrodynamics Laboratory ‘Proton–21’ (Ukraine, Kiev) that was established to develop a novel approach for radioactive waste utilization.

The project was based on the idea that it is possible to create a special kind of disturbance impact on a solid substance that will induce, under certain conditions, the self–organizing avalanche process of supercompression up to the collapse state at which the conditions for collective multiparticle transmutation reactions of radioactive elements into stable ones will become possible, owing to the redistribution of neutrons in the substance volume and increase of their concentration at the center of the collapse. A few experimental setups have been built in the laboratory. The first successful experiment was performed on February 24, 2000. By March, 2003, 4037 dynamic compressions of solid targets were performed leading to specific explosions and the radial dispersion of a transformed target material from the collapse zone.

## 1 Multinuclear reactions
in a superdense substance

### 1.1 Experiment

The main experimental setup realizes the consecutive space–time energy compression and is capable to impact up to 1 kJ of energy during the pulse time less than 100 ns. The electron beam is used as an initial carrier of the concentrated energy. On the final stage, the substance of target is compressed up to a density of $`>10^{26}`$ cm-3, while the power density in the collapse volume exceeds $`10^{22}`$ W cm-3 by various estimations.

The target evaporates as a result of dynamic compression. Products of a target explosion precipitate on the internal walls of the concentrator and on the special accumulating screen that has a form of a disk 1 cm in diameter. The precipitated products have the form of irregularly scattered drops, beads, films, etc.

### 1.2 Analysis

Precipitated products were analyzed to determine their isotopic and elemental compositions. The analytical methods employed were:

* electron probe microanalysis (EPMA);
* Auger–electron spectroscopy (AES);
* secondary ion mass–spectrometry (SIMS);
* laser mass–spectrometry (LMS);
* Rutherford backscattering of accelerated alpha–particles (RBS).

As a rule, after the experiment, elemental analyzes of the surface and surface layer up to 3 $`\mu `$m deep of each accumulating screen (made of chemically pure material: Cu (99.99 % pure), Ag (99.99 %), Ta (99.97 %), Pb (99.75 %), etc.) were performed. Minimal number of microprobes was from 10 to 20, some regions (spots) were also analyzed by several methods.

By March 12, 2003, altogether 14520 analyzes were performed and registered. The summary of the analytical methods and number of analyzes are listed in Table 1.

### 1.3 Main results of elemental composition analyzes after one of the typical experiments

Analyzes show that the products of impact explosion precipitated on the accumulating screen contain a wide spectrum of the light, medium and heavy chemical elements that are absent in comparative quantities or concentrations in the initial materials involved in the process of nuclear transformation.

This fact is illustrated in Table 2, where the quantities of impurities in chemically pure copper (used for the target and accumulating screen) are compared with those detected in the products precipitated on the accumulating screen after one of the typical experiments. Correlation ratios between the concentration of impurities in the target material and their quantities in the precipitated products have near zero or negative values.

The composition of the initial environment and target materials were measured with a mass–spectrometer of glow discharge VG9000 (VG Elemental, UK), whose sensitivity from 100 % to ppt level in a single analysis.

Three different instruments were used for analysis of the elemental composition of the accumulating screen surface layer after the target impact explosion:

* Auger spectroscope JAMP–10S (JEOL, Japan) — 21 spots $`<`$1.0 $`\mu `$m in diameter and 0.002 $`\mu `$m deep were analyzed;
* EPMA analyzer REMMA 102 (Ukraine) — 113 areas 11$`\times `$11 $`\mu `$m and 3.0 $`\mu `$m deep, and 417 extrinsic beads of different shape on the surface of the accumulating screen.
* SIMS analyzer IMS 4f (CAMECA, France) — 5 areas 250$`\times `$250 $`\mu `$m and 0.4 $`\mu `$m deep (because SIMS is the destructive method of analysis it was used after Auger and EPMA);

As can be seen from Table 2, both the light elements (with the mass number less than the initial copper) and the heavy ones are present. It should be emphasized that the elements with atomic masses exceeding two masses of the initial element (elements with mass number $`Z>58`$) were detected as well. Quantities of the mentioned elements by a few orders of magnitude exceed impurities in the initial material.

To get a quantitative estimations for the number and the concentration of deposited atoms, the statistical analysis was performed for the following layers:

1. Thin surface layer about 0.002 $`\mu `$m;
2. Intermediate layer from 0.002 $`\mu `$m to 0.4 $`\mu `$m;
3. Rest of the material — layer from 0.4 $`\mu `$m to 3.0 $`\mu `$m (maximum depth of analyzes).

As the result of statistical evaluation, the concentrations in the above–mentioned layers were obtained for each element. The validation criterion was the accordance between the calculated element concentration and concentration measured by all applied instruments.

Statistical analysis of the quantity of deposited atoms revealed the following:

* Deposited atoms ($`2.8\times 10^{16}`$ atoms) concentration is maximum in the surface layer 0.002 $`\mu `$m thick (1st layer) and the concentration of copper (main target and screen material) is lower than 10 %.
* Main quantity of deposited elements ($`1.3\times 10^{18}`$ atoms) and the majority of the elements with masses exceeding two masses of the initial material (i.e. Cu) are present in the 2nd layer (From 0.002 to 0.25 $`\mu `$m).
* Quantity of deposited atoms in the 3rd layer (0.25 $`\mu `$m and down to the limit of the analyzer, 3.0 $`\mu `$m) is $`3.1\times 10^{17}`$ atoms.

Total number of deposited atoms, excluding copper, present in the substance up to 3.0 $`\mu `$m deep was calculated as sum of the atom quantities in the volumes of each layer and equals $`1.6\times 10^{18}`$ atoms. Change of the thickness of the 2nd layer containing the main part of deposited elements from 0.2 $`\mu `$m to 0.4 $`\mu `$m gives the range $`(1.4\mathrm{}2.4)\times 10^{18}`$ for the total number of deposited atoms.
* Quantity of deposited atoms in randomly dispersed particles on the surface of the accumulating screen is equal to $`6.0\times 10^{17}`$ atoms.

The total number of deposited atoms, excluding copper, after the experiment in comparison to the initial concentration is shown in Table 2.

The same estimation for the synthesized atoms was derived from the ‘marked target’ experiments. The targets for these experiments were fabricated from radioactive cobalt (60Co). After an impact, the system activity (number of radioactive decays per second) decreased by the amount equal to the transmutation of $`10^{18}`$ atoms of the active target volume — intensity of the 60Co spectral lines decreased while no other radioactive isotopes line did appear.

### 1.4 Isotopic composition analyzes
of accumulating screens

To confirm that we deal with the nucleosynthesis process, the isotopic composition of the products on the surface of the accumulating screens was analyzed. The stimulus for this was the well–known fact that the isotopic composition of any element is almost identical throughout the Solar system111It is not valid for the isotopes of lead and some other elements being the final (stable) isotopes of a nuclear decay chain.  (see, e.g. ).

Analyzes of the isotopic composition were done with two different methods, i.e., LMS and SIMS (see Table 1). As was found out, most of the analyzed spots of an accumulating screen had an isotopic composition that differs from a natural one. Examples of the isotopic composition for some elements are presented in Fig. 1.

As can be seen from this figure, the isotopic composition of the elements synthesized from the copper target, differs significantly from the natural one. Hence, this proves an artificial origin of the detected nuclei.

## 2 Synthesis of the elements at the border of the periodic table and beyond it

The presence of heavy elements (tantalum, tungsten, gold, and lead) among the products of nucleosynthesis from the copper target encouraged us to carry out the experiments with heavier targets. In fact, since lead ($`A(\mathrm{Pb})207`$) was produced from the copper target ($`A(\mathrm{Cu})64`$), one should expect in similar way to get elements at the border of the periodic table and even beyond it if a target is made from heavier elements is used.

For this aim, the experiments with the platinum, lead, and bismuth targets were carried out. The results of analyzes revealed the presence of long-living isotopes of chemical elements at the border and even beyond the known part of periodic table.

To identify the elemental composition of the accumulating screen surface, the Auger spectroscopy (AES) method was used. The method is non-destructive and highly localized ($`50\mathrm{}100`$ nm). The depth of analyzes is low ($`1\mathrm{}2`$ nm). The method ensures a wide range of detectable elements (all but H and He) and a relatively high sensitivity ($`0.1\mathrm{}1`$ at.%).

The spectra obtained with the help of a Auger–microprobe JAMP–10S (JEOL, Japan) typically contained Auger peaks of a considerable amount of chemical elements that hindered their identification. To identify the Auger peaks, the measurement was performed in a wide range of energies ($`30\mathrm{}3000`$ eV, energy resolution $`0.5\mathrm{}1.2`$ %) to cover the maximum number of Auger peaks’ series, and prolonged exposures (up to 3 hours) were used to identify the low intensity peaks. The spectra were recorded in differential form at the accelerating voltage of the electron probe of 10 kV and beam current $`10^6\mathrm{}10^8`$ A. Residual pressure in the sample chamber was $`5\times 10^7`$ Pa. Artifacts like electrical charging, characteristic energy losses, and chemical shift were taken into consideration. A standard concentration calculation program supplied by the manufacturer (JEOL) was used for quantitative analysis.

In the process of analysis, the unidentified peaks with energies of 172, 527, 1096 eV, and a doublet of 130 and 115 eV were registered on the surface of accumulating screens. These peaks do not correspond to any of the catalogued peaks of chemical elements and cannot be referred to any of the known artifacts. One of the possible explanation of the mentioned peaks is the presence of long-living transuranium elements.

Two sections of the Auger spectrum (energies 172, 527 eV) out of six unidentified peaks are presented in Fig. 2.

To provide elemental analysis of the accumulating screens surface in a wide range of masses, a SIMS analyzer IMS 4f (CAMECA, France) was used.

Here are some key characteristics of the instrument:

* mass detection range — up to 480;
* mass resolution ($`M/\mathrm{\Delta }M`$) — 2500;
* locality — 0.2 $`\mu `$m;
* primary ions: Cs+, O$`{}_{2}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{+}`$, O-, Ar+;
* secondary beam stability (20 min): $`I/\mathrm{\Delta }I=0.7\%`$,
$`\mathrm{\Delta }M/M=7\times 10^6`$.

A complex approach was used for elemental analyzes of the accumulating screens surface and included studies of the topography of chemical elements on the surface in the cluster suppression mode (Offset) and high mass resolution mode simultaneously with the photo film recording of the mass distribution.

In the Offset mode, an additional negative voltage is applied to the sample and, owing to the potential barrier, allows us to identify monoatomic ions even in the low–mass resolution mode and, hence, to exclude clusters and multicharged ions.

From the whole mass–spectrum, we consider as unidentified only those peaks which (a) were not observed in the reference material spectrum, (b) did not coincide with the other elements’ distribution on the screen surface, (c) offset voltage increase led to an increase of the intensity in comparison with clusters’ peaks.

Typical mass spectrum in the mass range $`250\mathrm{}280`$ obtained by IMS 4f is presented in Fig. 3. Filled peaks, corresponding to 265 and 267, are unidentified; 268, 270, 272, 274 are Cu4O. Increasing the offset voltage led to a significant decrease of the intensity for copper clusters and the negligible fall of the intensity of 265 and 267 peaks indicating that they belong to monoatomic ions. To exclude possible chemical elements combinations, the photos of all present elements distributions were done, and they show that none of the unidentified masses coincide.

Up to date, 20 samples were thoroughly checked for unidentified masses. On 17 samples, more than 100 unidentified masses were found in the range $`221\mathrm{}475`$. Most frequently were detected the peaks of 271, 272, 330, 341, 343 masses. Accumulating screens that were used repeatedly in experiments with copper targets also revealed the presence of long-living isotopes in the mass range $`300\mathrm{}481`$.

In addition to above–mentioned spectrometric methods, the samples were examined for the presence of superheavy elements with the most direct method — Rutherford backscattering. The samples were irradiated with the beam of 27.6 MeV alpha–particles accelerated in a U–120 cyclotron . The energy spectrum of scattered projectiles exhibited the scattering centers corresponding to mass numbers in the range $`200\mathrm{}400`$ (Fig. 4).

Thus, different methods of analysis detected the presence of unidentified superheavy elements among the products of artificial nucleosynthesis.

## 3 Summary of results and discussion

We have presented the survey of experimental studies of nucleosynthesis products obtained in experiments with the supercompressed substance. The essence of results is as follows:

* In substance compressed up to a superhigh density (presumably, $`10^{26}`$ cm-3), the process of nucleosynthesis and transmutation occurs. This process takes place over a macrovolume of the target substance ($`2\mathrm{}5\times 10^{18}`$ atoms/kJ).
* Nuclear processes in a target are collective and multiparticle that is proved by significant amount ($`>10^{13}`$) of synthesized nuclei with masses more than two masses of the initial nucleus.
* No $`\alpha `$–, $`\beta `$–, $`\gamma `$–active isotopes were observed in the products of laboratory nucleosynthesis, the radiation intensity never exceeded the background intensity.
* The activity of the targets marked with radioactive isotopes was reduced after compression impact by the value equal to the transmutation of $`10^{18}`$ atoms of the active target zone (collapse zone) for every 1 kJ of the driver energy.
* Developed installation showed high reproducibility in reaching the conditions in a compressed substance necessary for the ignition of collective multiparticle fusion–fission reactions of the full spectrum of chemical elements.
* The products of nuclear transmutation reveal the presence of long–living isotopes of superheavy chemical nuclei.

We consider that these reactions are, in some sense, similar to the pycnonuclear reactions that take place under the specific conditions of compact astrophysical objects (white dwarfs, supernovas, outer shells of neutron stars, etc.).

The new challenge is the development of a method and a technique for simultaneous measurement of both the atomic and nuclear properties of superheavy atoms, i.e., nucleus charge and mass.

The results of our experiments allow us to suppose that the synthesized nuclei are the product of clusterization in the decaying superdense electron–nucleon plasma that corresponds to maximization of the binding energy per nucleon, dependent on the substance density, on the one hand, and on the neutron concentration in the certain volume of clusterization, on the other hand.

## Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure for the authors to thank
E.V. Bulyak, I.A. Kossko, Y.V. Syten’ko,
S.A. Shestakov, D.G. Birukov, V.V. Kovylyaev,
M.I. Gorodyskiy, S.S. Ponomarev, G.A. Zykov


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# Red solitons: evidence of spatio–temporal instability in 𝜒⁽²⁾ spatial-soliton dynamics

Permanent address:\] Institute of Photonic Sciences, Jordi Girona 29, NEXUS II, E-08034 Barcelona, Spain

## Abstract

In $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ three-wave mixing, the noise-seeded spatio–temporal modulational instability has a dramatic impact on the spatial-soliton dynamics, leading to the counterintuitive observation of a soliton with no apparent participation of the high-frequency field in the process.

Optical spatial solitons sp\_sol  are ideally monochromatic light beams whose linear diffractive spreading is compensated by a suitable non-linear phase shift. In $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ three-wave mixing, multi-color solitary beams are sustained by energy exchange among the three waves, whose phase-velocity and wavefront-curvature mismatch give rise to an intensity-dependent phase accumulation Steg\_rw . Since their first observation in a second-harmonic generation (SHG) scheme SHsol , $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ spatial solitons have been investigated in a number of different experimental conditions, *i.e.*, in up and down conversion, in bulk, wave-guides and periodically-poled crystals, with gaussian and vortex-type pumps; their unique steering, addressing and switching properties have been studied in great detail for potential applications in all-optical interconnects (see reference reviewSHG  for an updated review on the topic).
With the exception of two recent experiments, where fairly short pulses and long samples were used NLX ; STWG , all the above mentioned phenomenology has been investigated in conditions in which material chromatic dispersion was assumed to play a negligible role. However, no matter how long the input pulses are (*i.e.*, how narrow the input pulse spectra are), one should expect appreciable frequency broadening to occur, due the effect of the noise-seeded modulational instability (MI) MI . In the spatial domain, sizeable MI impact has already been shown to cause spatial filamentation of the SHG-generated temporal soliton, for operation just above threshold Wise\_MI . By analogy, one would expect temporal pulse fragmentation to affect the spatial-soliton regime. This process is, however, difficult to detect directly since it would require ultra-high temporal resolution in single-shot acquisition mode.
In this paper we present the first evidence for the effect of noise-seeded spatio–temporal (ST) MI on $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ spatial-soliton dynamics, which we predict to cause a temporal breakup on the 10-fs scale. We claim ST MI to be the mechanism that explains our counter-intuitive observation of a spatial soliton for which self-trapping only occurs between the low-frequency waves (*e.g.*, the signal and idler), with no apparent participation of the high-frequency wave (*e.g.*, the pump). This is the reason we use the term “red soliton” to indicate such a process even though, strictly speaking, no solitons are formed.
Our first experiment was performed in the regime of optical parametric amplification (OPA) of the vacuum-state fluctuations, with the usual scheme assumed to lead to spatial-soliton formation sp\_sol\_W : a pump pulse (527 nm, 1.3 ps, 32 $`\mu `$m spot FWHM) was launched on the input face of a 15 mm-long lithium triborate (LBO) crystal, operated in non-critical, type-I phase matching. For the given pump frequency ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$), we tuned the signal and idler frequencies ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_s`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$) by changing the crystal temperature. Since the chromatic dispersion (*i.e.*, the group-velocity mismatch GVM and the group-velocity dispersion GVD) experiences large changes with the tuning parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }=\mathrm{\Omega }_s/\mathrm{\Omega }_p`$, the setup allowed easy monitoring of the effects of dispersion on the non-linear dynamics. We should mention that here that the GVM and GVD lengths are respectively 2–4 and $`10^2`$$`10^3`$ times larger than the crystal length, across the whole tuning range.
Two different diagnostics were realized. The first is a traditional, CCD-based, beam-profile detection, which allowed recording of the fluence distribution of the pump and signal waves at the crystal output face. Note that the idler was not recorded, its photon energy being too low for the silicon detector. The second setup provided three-dimensional (*i.e.*, ST) mapping of the pump intensity profile, taken at the same crystal-output plane. The scheme is based on an ultrafast non-linear gating technique Lantz\_gate  realized by mixing the unknown wave packet (WP) with a 200-fs plane pulse generated by nonlinear compression of a portion of the same pump-laser pulse. The achieved temporal resolution is here of 200 fs.
Figure 1 shows the fluence profiles along the beam diameter of the pump (full line) and of the signal field (dashed line) just above threshold for soliton formation.

Figure 1a refers to a crystal temperature $`T=115^{}`$ (which corresponds to $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.684`$ and $`\lambda _s=770`$nm), close to the edge of the tuning curve; Fig. 1b refers to $`T=140^{}`$ (and thus $`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.620`$ and $`\lambda _s=850`$), *i.e.* much closer to degeneracy. By looking at the result in Fig. 1a, one would reasonably affirm that spatial solitons are formed. In fact, mutually trapped pump and signal beams of comparable peak fluence appear. The pump FWHM beam diameter ($`15\mu `$m) is five times smaller than the value obtained in the linear propagation regime. In contrast, Fig. 1b contains quite a puzzling result. In fact, while the signal keeps its narrow size, the focused pump beam almost disappears into the weak background field. The background profile perfectly matches the pump-beam pedestal in Fig. 1a. Note the growth of the signal peak fluence from Fig. 1a to 1b, its value being 20 times larger than that of the pump in the second case. By taking a crystal of twice the length we obtained very similar phenomenology, the diameters of the output self-focused beams being only 30% larger than in the previous case.
A deeper insight into this rather counterintuitive observation is given by the results presented in Fig. 2 (left), where the experimental ST intensity distribution of the pump WP is plotted for two different $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$.

The results show that: (i) the trailing edge of the pulse (about 200 fs) does not experience spatial trapping owing to its low input intensity. This portion accounts for the pedestal and diffracted background in Figs. 1a and 1b respectively. Note the slight temporal asymmetry of the entire ST distribution, caused by GVM. (ii) The central and leading portions, in contrast, always give rise to a spatially self-trapped profile. Its peak intensity, however, decreases dramatically as the tuning condition approaches degeneracy, which explains why the trapping seems to disappear in the time-integrated profiles. Time-resolved measurements closer to degeneracy were prevented by the low sensitivity of our CCD video trigger.
In order to provide a more accurate description of the underlying process, we performed high-resolution (4-fs step) numerical experiments by solving the three-wave parametric equations reviewSHG  within the framework of a 3D+1, ST model with radial symmetry and temporal dispersion up to third order. Figure 2 (center) shows the calculated pump profiles for conditions identical to those in Fig. 2 (left). Here the resolution of the numerical-data presentation is reduced to 200 fs in order to match the resolution of the experimental diagnostic. The excellent agreement between experiment and calculation proves that the key features of the observed phenomenon are determined by the $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ process only. Importantly, the full resolution plots, presented in Fig. 2 (right), indicate the occurrence of a temporal breakup on the 10 fs scale (the corresponding autocorrelation shows a 25 fs FWHM peak). The same structure occurs on the signal and idler waves, which appear spatially and temporally self-trapped with the pump. As to the dependence on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, the idler behaves in the same way as the signal wave.
Evidence for the fundamental role played by the dimensionality in the non-linear process is given by the plots in Fig. 3, where results of the experiment, of the spatio–temporal, spatial and temporal models are compared.

The results indicate that while the ST model describes the experiment fairly well, both the monochromatic and plane-wave approximations completely fail to reproduce the large variation of the fluence ratio with the tuning parameter, giving an almost constant value (about unity) over the entire tuning range. This unequivocally proves that the red solitons appear as a genuine ST effect. Note that, since the temporal dynamics occurs on a time scale much shorter than that of the pulse envelope, one should not expect any appreciable effect of the input-pulse duration on the observed phenomenology. Direct numerical test with 5 ps long pulses did not produce any detectable deviation from the results shown in Fig. 3.
Our claim is that the red solitons appear as a consequence of the ST MI. In justifying this, we should first note that no theory is yet available concerning the instability of an intense, CW and focused pump beam. Therefore we must rely, in first approximation, on the predictions valid for the CW and plane-wave regime. In this case, quantum-noise parametric amplification has already been shown to appear as a branch of the MI process Par\_MI . When the ST features of the noise are accounted for, one should not expect spatial and temporal breakup to occur as independent processes. In fact, *via* the phase-matching constraint, the parametric gain (or, equivalently, the MI) couples space and time by establishing angular dispersion and X-shaped ST spectra in the amplified modes OPA\_XMI . We expect that the same key action of the gain should play a role in our experiment as well. In fact, we detected appreciable angular dispersion in the generated signal wave. Moreover, even if the temporal breakup in Fig. 2 (right) appears similar to what might be expected by a purely temporal MI, the numerical results in Fig. 3 indicate that the imbalance (*i.e.* $`F_p/F_s1`$) is not retrievable as long as spatial and temporal processes are considered independently.

In order to provide an explanation of the observed connection between dimensionality, imbalance and dependence on $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ we focus attention on the dramatic increase of the down-conversion bandwidth close to degeneracy, which should cause a down-conversion rate much larger than that for up-conversion and thus the imbalance to appear. Note that a correlation between bandwidths and imbalance must be expected as long as the signal and idler field are not correlated. In fact, in case of phase-conjugated fields, the expected drop in up-conversion efficiency induced by the filtering action of the narrow up-conversion bandwidth no longer occurs, mutual cancelation of the opposite chirps taking place without losses in the sum-frequency process chirpSF . This consideration explains why the 1D temporal model fails in retrieving the imbalance. In fact, a phase conjugation between signal and idler is established by the down conversion process. However, in the real 3D space, this conjugation is quenched very rapidly owing to the fast phase accumulation caused by diffraction and angular dispersion Martinez86 . In contrast, in the plane-wave approximation, it becomes unrealistically robust, due to the weaker effect of GVD.
With the aim of verifying the generality of the process we performed a second experiment, where the spatial solitons are excited *via* SHG. The measurements, based on time-integrated detection only, were performed by focusing down to a 45$`\mu `$m spot (FWHM) a first-harmonic (FH) pulse (1.5 ps, 1055 nm) on the input face of a 30 mm long LBO crystal, operated in non-critical, type-I phase matching. By changing the crystal temperature we tuned the phase mismatch parameter, $`\mathrm{\Delta }k=2k_{\mathrm{FH}}k_{\mathrm{SH}}`$, while keeping the frequency tuning fixed at degeneracy ($`\mathrm{\Omega }=0.5`$). The results in terms of the ratio between the energy contents, $`E_{\mathrm{FH}}/E_{\mathrm{SH}}`$, at threshold (*both* FH and SH beams trapped) are presented in Fig. 4, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }k<0`$ region being limited close to phase matching by a rapid increase of the threshold with $`|\mathrm{\Delta }k|`$.

The few points, however, are sufficient to highlight the large discrepancy occurring for $`\mathrm{\Delta }k<0`$ between experiment and the CW-model, which predicts solitons with the opposite imbalance with respect to that measured.
The fact that the CW model fails for negative, and not for positive, phase mismatch must be related to the dominant SH content expected in this parameter region, as long as spectral broadening does not occur (see Fig. 4, full line). Due to this, the dynamics that follows the SH generation must resemble that of the OPA-excitation, where only the pump was launched at the input. To this end we mention that, for $`\mathrm{\Delta }k0`$, a slight input-energy reduction caused the quenching of the trapping only in the SH wave; this means an identical red-soliton phenomenology as described for the OPA case. In comparing the two excitation schemes, we expect that for the SHG case classical noise should also contribute to the process. As to the impact of the self-phase modulation, we mention that preliminary 3D+1 calculations performed in the absence of noise failed in retrieving the imbalance. A second peculiarity of the SHG excitation is that it leads to a true instability of the solitary regime, a spatial soliton being expected in the absence of MI. Again, since no theory has yet been developed for the MI of a bulk solitary beam, we must rely on the study of the MI of the FH+SH plane-and-monochromatic eigenmode for disclosing the mechanism of the ST interplay. Indeed, in this case too the MI has been shown to lead to the spontaneous formation of angular dispersion, its gain curve having an X-type profile in the ST frequency domain conicalSHG .
In conclusion, we have shown that conventional, time-integrated, beam-profile measurements reveal the occurrence of a $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ spatial soliton for which only the low-frequency signal and idler waves appear to be self-trapped. The implementation of a spatio–temporal, 3D mapping, technique has revealed that also the high-frequency pump is trapped, but with an unexpectedly weak intensity. Numerical calculations have highlighted the occurrence of a temporal break up of all the three fields on a 10 fs scale. Moreover, they have shown that dispersion, diffraction and noise are all necessary elements for describing the process. Relying upon recent studies on the spatio–temporal instability of the plane and monochromatic wave in OPA and SHG, we propose an interpretation of the process as the manifestation of a noise-seeded spatio–temporal modulational instability on the $`\chi ^{(2)}`$ spatial-soliton dynamics.
The authors wish to acknowledge the technical assistance of G. Tamosauskas and D. Mikalauskas, discussions with S. Trillo and C. Conti, and support of the MIUR (Cofin01/FIRB02), UNESCO UVO-ROSTE (875.586.2), EC CEBIOLA (ICA1-CT-2000-70027) contracts.


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# Statistics of Velocity from Spectral Data: Modified Velocity Centroids

## 1. Introduction

The interstellar medium (ISM) is turbulent, as known from observations of non-thermal cloud velocities (Larson, 1992), and also expected on theoretical grounds, because of the very large Reynolds numbers (defined as the ratio of inertial to viscous forces). Understanding turbulence is crucial for understanding of many physical processes, including energy injection into the ISM, non-photoelectric heating of the ISM, star formation, propagation of cosmic rays, and heat transport. (see review by Vázquez-Semadeni et al. 2000,Cho & Lazarian 2003a), and references therein.

Obtaining properties of ISM turbulence from observations is a long-standing problem (see review by Lazarian 1999, and references therein). The statistics of the random velocity field is essential for describing the turbulence. To obtain the velocity statistics, so-called velocity centroids (Munch 1958) have been frequently attempted. However, the separation of the velocity and density contributions to the velocity centroids has always been a problem. Therefore the relation between the statistics of velocity and velocity centroids is frequently claimed to be trustworthy only when the density fluctuations are negligible (see Vestuto, Ostriker & Stone 2003).

To remedy this situation a statistical technique termed Velocity Channel Analysis, or in short VCA, was developed in Lazarian & Pogosyan (2000). It has been successfully used to obtain the spectra of turbulence in H I in Small Magellanic Cloud and the Milky Way (see Stanimirović & Lazarian 2001,Deshpande, Dwarakanath, & Goss 2000). However, the VCA requires turbulence to be supersonic and to follow power laws (see Esquivel et al. 2003 ).

This paper will identify a technique that can be reliably used with turbulence even if the turbulence is subsonic and/or does not obey a power-law. The latter case can occur when, for instance, self-gravity modifies the turbulence on small scales. In pursuing this goal we introduce modified velocity centroids (MVCs) and derive an analytical relation between the statistics of MVCs and the underlying statistics of the 3D turbulent velocity.

## 2. Model: Turbulence in Magnetized Gas

There has been substantial progress in understanding of compressible magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) turbulence (see a review by Cho & Lazarian 2003a) that will guide us in adopting the model for this paper.

Numerical simulations in Cho & Lazarian (2002, 2003b) revealed anisotropic spectra of Alfvén and slow waves, as well as an isotropic spectrum of the fast waves. The anisotropies are elongated along the local direction of magnetic field. However, since this local direction changes from one place to another, the anisotropy in the system of reference related to the mean magnetic field is rather modest, i.e. of the order of $`\delta B/B`$, where $`\delta B`$ is the dispersion of the random magnetic field. For typical ISM $`\delta BB`$ (Spoelstra, 1972) and the expected anisotropy is modest. Therefore it is possible to characterize the turbulence using isotropic statistics (see testing in Esquivel et al. 2003 and in §4).

Only z-components of the velocity are available through Doppler shift measurements. In what follows we shall assume that the velocity and density of the gas can be presented as sums of a mean value and a fluctuating part: $`V_z=v_0+v`$, $`\rho _{tot}=\rho _0+\rho `$, where $`v_0V_z`$, $`\rho _0\rho _{tot}`$. The fluctuating components $`v`$ and $`\rho `$ satisfy the condition $`v=0`$, $`\rho =0`$. Henceforth we use $`\mathrm{}`$ to denote ensemble averaging. The correlation function of the z-component of velocities at two points $`𝐱_\mathrm{𝟏}`$ and $`𝐱_\mathrm{𝟐}`$, separated a distance $`r`$ (with $`𝐫=𝐱_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐱_\mathrm{𝟐}`$), denoted by subscripts $`1`$ and $`2`$ ($`V_{z,1}=v_0+v_1`$, $`V_{z,2}=v_0+v_2`$) is $`v_1v_2B_{zz}(𝐫)`$. And it is related to the component of the 3D spectrum through a Fourier transform (see Monin & Yaglom 1975):

$$B_{zz}(𝐫)=\mathrm{e}^{i𝐤𝐫}F_{zz}(𝐤)𝑑𝐤,$$
(1)
where

$$F_{zz}(𝐤)=\left(F_{LL}(k)F_{NN}(k)\right)k_z^2/k^2+F_{NN}(k)$$
(2)
is the projection of the spectral tensor, expressed through the transversal $`F_{NN}`$ and longitudinal $`F_{LL}`$ (normal and parallel to $`𝐫`$, respectively) 3D spectra of the velocity field, which are functions of the wavenumber amplitude $`k`$.

Similarly, the two point density statistics can be given by the structure function $`(\rho _1\rho _2)^2d(r)`$.

## 3. Modified Velocity Centroids (MVCs)

In what follows we consider the emissivity of our media proportional to the first power of density111This is the case for the H I $`21cm`$ line. For recombination radiation (such as H$`\alpha `$ for instance) the emissivity is proportional to the square of the density, and modifications of the present technique are necessary. and no absorption present. In this case, the intensity, $`I(𝐗)\rho _s𝑑V`$, is proportional to the column density, where $`\rho _s`$ is the density of emitters in the Position-Position Velocity (PPV) space (see Lazarian & Pogosyan 2000). That is, $`I(𝐗)=\rho _s𝑑V=\alpha \rho _{tot}𝑑z`$, where, $`\rho _{tot}`$ is the density of atoms, $`\alpha `$ is a proportionality constant, $`dz`$ denotes integration along the line of sight, and $`𝐗`$ is a two dimensional vector in the plane of the sky.

The structure function of MVCs consists of two terms. It will be clear from the discussion below that it may be safe to use ordinary centroids when the second term is much smaller than the first term. In particular,

$$M(𝐑)=\left[S(𝐗_\mathrm{𝟏})S(𝐗_\mathrm{𝟐})\right]^2V^2\left[I(𝐗_\mathrm{𝟏})I(𝐗_\mathrm{𝟐})\right]^2$$
(3)
where $`𝐑=𝐗_\mathrm{𝟏}𝐗_\mathrm{𝟐}`$, $`S(𝐗)`$ is a “unnormalized centroid” of the z-component of velocity $`V_z`$, and $`V_z^2=v_0^2+v_{turb}^2+v_{thermal}^2`$. To simplify our notations we shall omit the $`turb`$ and $`z`$-subscripts (also for eq.(3)). We do not discuss the effect of $`v_{thermal}`$ separately because for the technique presented here it acts in the same way as regular motion, and one can formally introduce $`v_0^2=v_0^2+v_{thermal}^2`$. $`S(𝐗)_𝐗V\rho _s𝑑V`$, that is, at a given position $`𝐗`$, integrating along the line of sight222In terms of practical data handling, to minimize the effect of absorption at the centers of the lines, subtracting of mean values of velocity $`v_0`$ in the expression for $`S(𝐗)`$ and $`V^2`$ may be advantageous. In terms of $`S(𝐗)`$ the use of $`\delta S(𝐗)S(𝐗)S(𝐗)`$ may be preferable..

From an observational standpoint, the velocity dispersion $`V^2`$ can be obtained using the second moment of the spectral lines:

$$V^2_𝐗V^2\rho _s𝑑V/_𝐗\rho _s𝑑V.$$
(4)
To express the 2D statistics of the modified centroids $`M(𝐑)`$ through the underlying 3D velocity and density statistics we shall have to make several elementary transformations. First of all, the difference of integrals that enter the expression for the modified centroids should be presented as a double integral. Then using an elementary identity $`(ab)(cd)=1/2[(ad)^2+(bc)^2(ac)^2(bd)^2]`$ it is possible to find (see Lazarian 1995)

$$(S(𝐗_\mathrm{𝟏})S(𝐗_\mathrm{𝟐}))^2=\alpha ^2𝑑z_1𝑑z_2[D(𝐫)D(|z_1z_2|)],$$
(5)
where $`D(V_1\rho _{tot,1}V_2\rho _{tot,2})^2`$. Using the Millionshikov hypothesis (see Monin & Yaglom 1975) to relate the fourth moments of the fields with the second moments, namely that $`h_1h_2h_3h_4h_1h_2h_3h_4+h_1h_3h_2h_4+h_1h_4h_2h_3`$ we get sufficient simplifications of the expression:

$$DV^2d(r)+\rho _{tot}^2(V_1V_2)^2\frac{1}{2}(V_1V_2)^2d(r)+c(𝐫),$$
(6)
where $`c(𝐫)`$ denote the cross terms arising from correlations between the fluctuations of the velocity and density

$$c(𝐫)=2v_1\rho _2^24v_0v_1\rho _1\rho _24\rho _0\rho _1v_1v_2.$$
(7)
The correlations between velocity and density fluctuations have been studied earlier (Lazarian et al., 2001; Esquivel et al., 2003) and found not to have a strong impact on the VCA. In particular, the first term in eq. (7) was directly obtained in Esquivel et al. (2003), and numerical integration of the corresponding fluctuations provides fluctuations in the centroid value that does not exceed 8% of the MVCs values at small $`|R|`$. In this paper we will neglect the cross terms and test this assumption by analyzing synthetic maps of compressible MHD simulations. A more detailed analysis, with more sets of data, and the cross terms, will be included in a forthcoming paper.

Eq. (6) depends on both density and velocity statistics. The dominant contribution arising from density fluctuations is the first term of eq. (6). Integration of this term yields the second term in eq. (3), as result the expression for the MVCs is

$$M(𝐑)\alpha ^2V^2\rho _{tot}^2𝑑z_1𝑑z_2\left[b(𝐫)b(|z_1z_2|)\right],$$
(8)
where

$$b(𝐫)=\frac{(V_1V_2)^2}{V^2}\left(1\frac{1}{2}\frac{d(r)}{\rho _{tot}^2}\right).$$
(9)
If $`(1/2)(d(r)/\rho _{tot}^2)1`$ then eq.(9) recovers the statistics of the velocity field. This is certainly the case if the turbulence is subsonic, where the amplitude of the density fluctuations is small, or when the density spectrum is steep (i.e. most of the power residing at large scales) given that we are interested in the fluctuations at small $`R`$.333By steep spectrum we mean $`P_{3D}k^n`$ with $`n<3`$. If $`n>3`$ the spectrum is shallow (see Lazarian & Pogosyan 2000). However, if the amplitude fluctuations of density at small scales is large (i.e. shallow spectrum or highly supersonic turbulence), the contribution could be important. If we omit the density term in eq.(9) and take a 2D Fourier transform to resulting distribution of MVCs we have:

$$P_2(𝐊)=\frac{1}{4\pi ^2}d^2𝐑\mathrm{e}^{i𝐊𝐑}M(𝐑),$$
(10)
where we have used again the notation of using capital letters to distinguish 2D vectors from the 3D counterparts. Substituting eqs. (8), (1), and (2) into eq. (10) one gets

$$P_2(K)C_1F_{NN}(K,0)+C_2\delta (K)$$
(11)
where $`C_1`$ and $`C_2`$ are constants ($`C_1=4\pi \alpha ^2\rho _{tot}^2L`$, where $`L`$ is the extent of the emitting region) and the second term provides only a $`\delta `$ function contribution at $`K=0`$. Thus eq. (11) provides a relation444Our result is similar to that in Kitamura (1993) who used normalized centroids given by eq. (12) but implicitly assumed that $`\rho =const`$ (see also Vestuto et al. 2003). between the spectrum of the modified centroids and the transversal spectrum of the 3D velocity field. We should note that the relation in eq. (11) does not depend on a particular form (power-law is a common assumption) of the underlying spectra. If the turbulent velocity field is mostly solenoidal (see Porter, Woodward & Pouquet 1998; Matthaeus et al. 1996), the isotropic spectrum $`E(k)`$ that is used for describing hydrodynamic turbulence is uniquely defined through $`F_{NN}(k)`$, namely, $`E(k)4\pi k^2F_{NN}(k)`$.

## 4. Numerical Testing

In what follows we will include the normalized centroids in their usual form (see Miesch & Bally 1994)

$$C(𝐗)_𝐗V\rho _s𝑑V/_𝐗\rho _s𝑑V.$$
(12)
Intuitively it is clear that the power spectrum of the centroids given by eq. (12) should provide a better fit to the power spectrum of the velocity (the spectral index, not the amplitude) than that of $`S(𝐗)`$. Indeed, the contributions of density fluctuations are mitigated by the division over the column density in eq. (12).

The testing was done using the files obtained through simulations of compressible MHD turbulence. The description of the code and the numerical simulations can be found in Cho & Lazarian (2002) and in Esquivel et al. (2003). We use the same data cube that we used in Esquivel et al. (2003). Namely, the dimension of the cube is $`216^3`$, and the Mach number $`2.5`$. The result of the MHD simulations are velocity, density and magnetic field data. We use density and velocity to produce spectral line data cubes, the procedure is described in Esquivel et al. (2003).

We calculated $`S(𝐗)`$, $`C(𝐗)`$, and $`I(𝐗)`$ from synthetic spectral line data cubes. The spectra $`P_2(𝐊)`$ were obtained by applying a fast Fourier transform to the 2D distribution of the centroids and column density values. The power spectrum of the MVCs was calculated subtracting $`V^2`$ times the column density power spectrum, from the power spectrum of $`S(𝐗)`$ (see eq. 3). For the original data cubes (with a steep density spectrum), the differences among all three types of centroids were marginal for the dynamical range studied, although unnormalized centroids systematically show more deviations from the velocity power spectrum. To enhance the effect of density, we made the density shallow by changing the Fourier components of the density amplitudes, but, in order to preserve the density-velocity correlations, we kept the phase information (see Esquivel et al. 2003). The results are shown in Fig 1. It is clear that the three measures provide a good fit at large scales, but at small scales normalized and unnormalized centroids tend to be density dominated. An additional advantage of using MVC over the conventional normalized centroids is that MVC provides the correct amplitude of the spectrum, while normalized centroids at best give the correct index (logarithmic slope).

It is also clear that for a shallow density spectrum, the improvement from unnormalized centroids to normalized centroids is marginal.

Our numerical study shows that MVCs are advantageous when the underlying spectrum of density is dominated by fluctuations at small scales. And, the main advantage of MVCs is that they allow an explicit statistical description of the procedures involved, which makes the analysis more reliable.

## 5. Discussion

Our study revealed that the MVCs can be successfully used to obtain the velocity statistics from synthetic observational data. Another technique, namely, the VCA is complementary to the MVCs. VCA is more robust to density-velocity correlations. For instance, it was shown in Lazarian & Pogosyan (2000) that VCA can provide correct statistics of velocity fluctuations even in the case when the velocity and density are correlated at their maximum given by the Cauchy-Swartz inequality (see Mathews & Walker 1970). On the contrary, if we assume such a maximum correlation for the MVCs we will not get the correct scaling. Comparing results obtained with the MVCs and the VCA one can get a better handle on what are the velocity statistics.

It is advantageous to combine VCA and MVCs techniques. We can apply VCA to the largest scales, where turbulence is supersonic, and study MVCs at all scaless, including those where the turbulence becomes subsonic. The correspondence of the spectral slope obtained with the two different techniques would substantially increase the reliability of the result. There is a more subtle, but important point. MVCs provide the spectrum of solenoidal motions given by $`F_{NN}`$, while VCA is sensitive to both potential and solenoidal motions. This may be used to get both potential and solenoidal motions in order to estimate the role of compressibility. In addition, because the thermal velocity acts in the VCA analysis the same way as the thickness of the channel maps, measurements of the spectrum with the MVCs can provide a means of estimating the thermal velocity. It is essential to combine the advantages of the techniques.

Our analysis of numerical data in §4 shows that the worries about the velocity centroids (see Stenholm 1990) although justified, may be somewhat exaggerated.

If we assume that the criterion for the use of the centroids is satisfied (that the second term in eq. (3) is small compared to the first one) for earlier data sets, the analysis of observational data in (Miesch & Bally, 1994) provides a range of power-law indexes. Their results obtained with structure functions if translated into spectra are consistent with $`E(k)=k^\beta `$, where $`\beta =1.86`$ with a standard deviation of $`0.3`$. The Kolmogorov index $`5/3`$ falls into the range of the measured values. L1228 exhibits exactly the Kolmogorov index $`1.66`$ as the mean value, while other low mass star forming regions L1551 and HH83 exhibit indexes close to those of shocks, i.e. $`2`$. The giant molecular cloud regions show shallow indexes in the range of $`1.9<\beta <1.3`$ (see Miesch, Scalo & Bally 1999). It worth noting that Miesch & Bally (1994) obtained somewhat more shallow indexes that are closer to the Kolmogorov value using autocorrelation functions. Those may be closer to the truth as in the presence of absorption in the center of lines, minimizing the regular velocity used for individual centroids might make the results more reliable (see also first footnote in §3). Repeating of the study using MVCs and taking care of the absorption effects may be advantageous.

The emergence of the Kolmogorov index for the compressible magnetized gas may not be so surprising. Cho & Lazarian (2002) for a range of Mach numbers reported the existence of distinct Alfvenic, slow, and fast wave cascades. The Alfvén and slow waves result in Kolmogorov-type scaling. The application of the VCA to Small Magellanic Cloud (Stanimirović & Lazarian, 2001) resulted in the velocity spectrum consistent with those predictions. However, other researchers (e.g. Vestuto et al. 2003) reported indexes that varied with the Mach number of the simulations. It is clear that more theoretical and observational work is necessary.

## 6. Summary

1. We derived a criterion when the velocity centroids may reflect the actual underlying velocity statistics. We introduced MVCs that may recover velocity statistics from spectral line data in cases when the traditional centroid analysis fails.

2. Our numerical tests show that both the MVCs and the normalized velocity centroids (see eq. (12)) successfully recover the velocity information from data cubes obtained via numerical simulations of the compressible MHD turbulence if the density spectrum is steep.

3. MVCs and the VCA are complementary independent techniques. Obtaining the same power spectrum with both of them enhances confidence in the result. MVCs are most useful when turbulence is subsonic or/and does not follow the power law. Additional information on the solenoidal versus potential motions, temperatures of gas etc. may be obtained combining these two techniques.
We thank the referee Anthony Minter for valuable suggestions that improved this work. The research by A.L. is supported by the NSF Grant AST-0125544. A.E. acknowledges financial support from CONACyT (Mexico). Fruitful communications with Volker Ossenkopf are acknowledged.


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# Global Observables at PHENIX

## 1 Introduction

Charged particle multiplicity ($`N_{ch}`$) and transverse energy ($`E_T`$) are global variables which give excellent characterization of the high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions, thus providing information about the initial conditions . They help to constrain the wide range of theoretical predictions and discriminate among various mechanisms of particle production. $`N_{ch}`$ measurements also provide one with an opportunity to study high density QCD effects in relativistic nuclear collisions .

First results for $`N_{ch}`$ and $`E_T`$ at mid-rapidity in Au-Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV and 200 GeV measured with the PHENIX detector were published in . In this paper we extend the $`N_{ch}`$ and $`E_T`$ analysis to more peripheral collisions, up to 65%-70% centrality class corresponding to the average number of participating nucleons $`N_p22`$. The results for the $`<E_T>/<N_{ch}>`$ are presented at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV, 130 GeV and 200 GeV.

We used the same experimental techniques to analyze data obtained at different beam energies. The minimum bias (MB) trigger in $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV data was formed by the coincidence of two beam-beam counters. In $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV and 200 GeV data the MB trigger additionally required the signals from two zero degree calorimeters . The corrections for the measured $`E_T`$ and $`N_{ch}`$ related to particle composition and mean transverse momentum are performed based on PHENIX results obtained at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV  and 200 GeV . $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV data corrections are based on NA49 measurements obtained at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=17.2`$ GeV .

The part of the PbSc electromagnetic calorimeter used for the $`E_T`$ measurements covers the pseudorapidity range $`|\eta |0.38`$ with an azimuthal aperture of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =44.4^{}`$ in Run-1 data ($`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV) and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =112^{}`$ in Run-2 data ($`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV and 200 GeV). The pad chambers used for $`N_{ch}`$ measurements have a fiducial aperture of $`|\eta |0.35`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }\varphi =90^{}`$ and $`180^{}`$ in the Run-1 and Run-2 data respectively.

## 2 Results

Fig. 1 shows the centrality dependence of $`dE_T/d\eta `$ and $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ per participant pair measured at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV and 200 GeV. Both values show a steady rise with $`N_p`$.

The ratio of the pseudorapidity densities measured at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV and 200 GeV ($`R_{200/130}`$) for each centrality bin, corresponding to 5% of the nuclear interaction cross section, is shown in Fig. 2. The centrality dependence of the ratios is consistent with a constant from the most central to semiperipheral collisions. For $`N_p<70`$, ratios tend to drop.

Fig. 3 shows the comparison of our results to different model predictions. A powerful test for theoretical models is the comparison to the measured ratios $`R_{200/130}`$, since many systematic errors in experimental measurements cancel out. The increase of $`dN_{ch}/d\eta `$ with centrality is in contrast to the predictions of the EKRT model . HIJING  is in qualitative agreement with this scenario, however the strong centrality dependence of the ratio $`R_{200/130}`$ predicted by HIJING is excluded by the data. Demonstrating a very good agreement with PHENIX measurements at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV and 200 GeV, String Fusion model  seems to underestimate the $`R_{200/130}`$. Our experimental results are well described by two-component mini-jet  and high energy QCD gluon saturation  model calculations from central to semiperipheral events. The PHENIX measurements of the ratio $`R_{200/130}`$ dropping at $`N_p<70`$ might set a centrality limit for gluon saturation model application, which predicts a near constant behavior of $`R_{200/130}`$ vs $`N_p`$.

$`E_T`$ and $`N_{ch}`$ behave in a very similar manner such that the mean $`E_T`$ per charged particle remains unchanged over a broad range of centralities (see Fig. 4). Fig. 4 also presents our preliminary result obtained at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV. Since we haven’t yet finalized the centrality determination in $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV data, we present our result with one point with large uncertainty in $`N_p`$ (this error cancels out in the ratio $`<E_T>/<N_{ch}>`$).

## 3 Conclusions

We presented our results for $`N_{ch}`$ and $`E_T`$ in a broad range of centralities corresponding to $`N_p`$ varying from 22 to 350. Our results were compared to the various theoretical model calculations. Two-component mini-jet  and high energy QCD gluon saturation  model calculations describe our data reasonably well. The ratio $`R_{200/130}`$ of charged particle multiplicities measured at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=200`$ GeV and 130 GeV tends to drop at $`N_p<70`$. This implies a centrality limit for gluon saturation model application, which predicts a near constant behavior of $`R_{200/130}`$.

The ratio of the mean $`E_T`$ and $`N_{ch}`$ stays near constant over the broad range of centralities. It also doesn’t change from $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV to 200 GeV within our systematic errors. However, the $`<E_T>/<N_{ch}>`$ measured at $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=19.6`$ GeV was about 20% below that obtained at higher $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}`$. This is consistent with mean $`p_t`$ decrease from RHIC $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=130`$ GeV and 200 GeV  to SPS $`\sqrt{s_{_{NN}}}=17.2`$ GeV .

## Acknowledgements

We thank the staff of the RHIC project, Collider-Accelerator, and Physics Departments at BNL and the staff of PHENIX participating institutions for their vital contributions. We acknowledge support from the Department of Energy and NSF (U.S.A.), MEXT and JSPS (Japan), RAS, RMAE, and RMS (Russia), BMBF, DAAD, and AvH (Germany), VR and the Wallenberg Foundation (Sweden), MIST and NSERC (Canada), CNPq and FAPESP (Brazil), IN2P3/CNRS (France), DAE and DST (India), LG-YF, KRF and KOSEF (Korea), and the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation.


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# A simple empirical redshift indicator for gamma-ray bursts

## 1 Introduction

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are huge stellar explosions which have been observed at redshifts ranging from 0.0085 to 4.5. While GRBs are in principle detectable out to very large redshifts ($`z=1020`$, Lamb & Reichart (2000)), redshifts measured to date do not exceed 4.5. The method most frequently used to measure GRB redshifts is to find a visible afterglow, and to identify absorption lines in its spectrum, caused by the gas in the GRB host galaxy. The redshift of the host can also be measured at late times from the host emission lines, when the afterglow has faded below detection. Another, less frequent, method uses X-ray lines detected in the X-ray afterglows of some GRBs. The absence of GRB detection beyond $`z=5`$ could be explained by the fact that the afterglows of such distant GRBs must be searched for in the infrared, due to the Lyman alpha cutoff. The difficulty to measure spectroscopic redshifts led various authors to propose alternate ways to determine GRB redshifts. Norris et al. (2000) and Reichart et al. (2001) have found empirical luminosity estimators based on GRB light curves. Such luminosity estimators can be used to infer the intrinsic luminosity of individual GRBs, and consequently their redshifts. While these estimators cannot be used to obtain precise redshifts for individual GRBs, they are useful to derive statistical properties of the GRB population.

Redshift estimators based on the gamma-ray data only present two distinctive advantages: they provide redshift estimates for most GRBs detected in gamma-rays, and they do not require extensive follow-up campaigns involving large telescopes on the ground or in space. Important issues can be addressed with moderatly accurate redshifts, like the amount of energy released by GRBs in gamma-rays, the luminosity function of GRBs, or the history of stellar formation at high redshifts.

We propose here a new method to obtain redshift indicators for GRBs from gamma-ray observations. Our method is calibrated with 17 GRBs detected with BeppoSAX (Boella et al. (1997)) and HETE (Ricker et al. (2001)). In the following we call the redshifts inferred from our redshift indicator “pseudo-redshifts”. Pseudo-redshifts have the advantage of being very easily computed. In addition to the possible applications already mentioned, pseudo-redshifts may become a useful tool to quickly identify high-redshift GRBs.

## 2 An empirical redshift indicator

Finding redshift indicators for GRBs based on the gamma-ray data alone has always faced the problem of the large intrinsic dispersion of GRB properties. This intrinsic dispersion prevents the determination of the redshifts of individual GRBs. With the measure of an increasing number of GRB redshifts it appeared, however, that several properties of GRBs are correlated with the isotropic-equivalent energy radiated in gamma-rays (called Erad in the following). For instance, the correlation of the spectral hardness with Erad has been suspected for a long time (see e.g. Atteia (2000), and Lloyd, Petrosian, & Mallozzi (2000)). It has only been demonstrated recently by Amati et al. (2002) for 12 GRBs with known redshifts. The correlation of the duration with Erad is discussed in Lee, Bloom, & Petrosian (2000). These correlations have led some authors to propose using the observed GRB properties to infer Erad, and then to deduce the redshift from the comparison of the observed fluence with Erad. Norris et al. (2000), for instance, estimate Erad from the magnitude of the time lags between a high energy band and a low energy band. Reichart et al. (2001) estimate Erad from the variability of the light curve. We propose and test here another approach: we search a quantity which depends little on Erad, and which has a small intrinsic dispersion which does not blur the dependence on redshift. Starting from empirical considerations, We find such a quantity essentially based on the spectral characteristics of GRBs.

GRB energy spectra are well fit with the so-called GRB model, consisting of two smoothly connected power laws (Band et al. (1993)). In the following, $`\alpha `$ is the index of the low-energy power law, $`\beta `$ the index of the high-energy power law, and $`\mathrm{E}_0`$ is the break energy. With this parametrization, the peak energy of the $`\nu f_\nu `$ spectrum is $`E_\mathrm{p}=E_0\times (2+\alpha )`$. $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$ is well defined for $`\alpha 2`$ and $`\beta <2`$.

Our method is based on the recent finding by Amati et al. (2002) of a correlation between the intrinsic (redshift corrected) $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$ of 12 GRBs with known redshifts, and Erad, their isotropic-equivalent energy radiated in gamma-rays. According to Amati et al., $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$ is roughly proportional to the square-root of $`E_{rad}`$. Since $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$ do not vary too much from burst to burst, and since the energy radiated in gamma-rays is more or less the product of the number of photons by their typical energy, we make the assumption that the isotropic-equivalent number of photons in a GRB, Nγ, is also roughly proportional to the square-root of Erad. For this study, we define Nγ as the number of photons below the break, integrated from $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$/100 to $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$/2 .

Fig. 1 shows $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$, the intrinsic peak energy, and Nγ, the isotropic-equivalent number of photons as a function of Erad for a sample of 17 GRBs detected by BeppoSAX, BATSE, and HETE. The main characteristics of these GRBs are given in Table 1, along with references for their spectral parameters. The redshifts have been taken from J. Greiner’s GRB page at http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~jcg/grbgen.html (except for GRB 020124, which comes from Hjorth et al. (2003)). Figure 1 shows that, as we suspected, $`\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{p}`$ and Nγ have roughly the same dependence on Erad. We can thus go one step further with our main conjecture: we suppose that the ratio Nγ/Ep is almost independent of Erad, and can be used as a redshift indicator. Fig. 2 shows that indeed the ratio Nγ/Ep shows very little dependence on Erad, confirming our conjecture. This is not sufficient, however, to make it a correct redshift indicator. The critical issue is to find an indicator which has a small dependence on Erad, a strong dependence on the redshift, and a not too strong intrinsic dispersion. This issue is discussed in the next section.

### 2.1 Definition of the redshift indicator

The theoretical considerations in the previous section are based on the study of intrinsic GRB properties. Defining a redshift indicator implies that we do not know the redshifts of the GRBs which are being studied, but only their observed properties. To keep in mind this difference, in all the following we use capital letters for intrinsic quantities, and lower case for observed quantities.

As discussed earlier, the best redshift indicator is not necessarily the one with the smallest intrinsic dispersion, but rather the one which has the best combination of a small intrinsic dispersion and a large dependence on redshift. Relying on the analysis of the previous section, we propose to base our redshift indicator on nγ/ep the ratio of the observed number of photons in the GRB on the observed peak energy. We tried various simple combinations of GRB parameters, all involving the ratio nγ/ep, and found that $`X=`$ nγ/ep/$`\sqrt{\mathrm{t}_{90}}`$ has the right combination of properties for a redshift indicator. In this equation ep is the observed peak energy, nγ the observed number of photons between ep/100 and ep/2, and $`\mathrm{t}_{90}`$ the observed duration. We do not claim here that $`X`$ is definitely the best redshift indicator, we nevertheless believe that it is sufficiently good to deserve further discussion.

We derive pseudo-redshifts from the measure of $`X`$ in the following way: in a first step we compute the theoretical evolution of $`X`$ with redshift; then we invert this relation to derive a pseudo-redshift from the observed value of $`X`$. The evolution of $`X`$ with redshift can be written as

$$X=A\times f(z)$$

$`A`$ is a constant of normalization, and $`f`$ describes the evolution of $`X`$ with redshift for a “standard” GRB ($`\alpha =1.0`$, $`\beta =2.3`$, and $`\mathrm{E}_0`$= 250 keV) in a “standard” universe (H0 = 65 km s-1 Mpc-1, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$). GRB spectral parameters are not critical here, because we have shown in the previous section that the ratio Nγ/Ep does not vary much from burst to burst. The normalization constant $`A`$ has been chosen to have about the same number of GRBs below and above the theoretical curve in Fig. 3 ($`A=60`$).

Pseudo-redshifts $`\widehat{z}`$ are then defined by

$$\widehat{z}=\frac{1}{A}\times f^1(X)$$
(1)
Their use as redshift indicators is discussed below.

### 2.2 Evaluation of pseudo-redshifts

Fig. 3 shows the values of $`X`$ as a function of $`z`$, for the 17 GRBs of Table 1. This figure displays a clear anticorrelation between the two quantities. The dotted line indicates the theoretical dependence $`X=A\times f(z)`$. The coefficient of correlation between $`z`$ and $`X`$ is $`0.875`$, corresponding to a correlation significant at the level of 4.9 sigmas using Fisher’s Z transformation. We consider that this anticorrelation provides a good support to our intention of using $`X`$ as a redshift indicator, and we use the equation (1) above to compute the pseudo-redshifts of GRBs in Table 1. Table 1 gives the values of $`z`$, $`\widehat{z}`$, and their ratio, for the 17 GRBs with known redshift used in our analysis.111Two GRBs in Amati et al. (2002) are not included in Table 1 because they do not have spectroscopic redshifts. The redshift of GRB 980326 was estimated to be 1 from the observation of a supernova bump in the late light curve of the afterglow (Bloom et al. (1999)), and we find $`\widehat{z}`$=1.05. The redshift of GRB 000214 was estimated to be 0.42 from the observation of an iron line in its X-ray afterglow (Antonelli et al. (2000)), and we find $`\widehat{z}`$=0.39. It shows that $`\widehat{z}`$ is usually within a factor of two of $`z`$, except for GRB 000131 (at $`z=4.5`$), for which $`z`$ and $`\widehat{z}`$ differ by a factor 3.3. This discrepancy could be the consequence of the low quality of our redshift indicator for this burst (most probably) or of a problem with the measure of the spectral parameters of this GRB or of its redshift. It might also indicate that the relation between $`z`$ and $`\widehat{z}`$ is only working (or calibrated) to $`z=3.5`$. Because this event is clearly an outlier, we recomputed the coefficient of correlation between $`z`$ and $`X`$ without it. We find a coefficient of correlation of $`0.927`$, corresponding to a correlation significant at the level of 6.1 sigmas using Fisher’s Z transformation.

We conclude that the intrinsic dispersion of $`X`$ is not such that it prevents its use as a redshift indicator. We prefer the term redshift indicator than redshift estimator, because the ratio of $`\widehat{z}`$ over $`z`$ varies too much for a true redshift estimator. In the following we use the name pseudo-redshifts for $`\widehat{z}`$. Because $`\widehat{z}`$ was derived from a purely empirical approach, we expect that an approach based on a physical treatment of GRB emission might provide a better redshift estimator. While pseudo-redshifts are a potentially useful tool, they deserve a word of caution here because we do not know how observational biases affect Figure 3. We note for instance that GRBs with spectroscopic redshifts certainly represent a biased sample. In addition the relations linking the GRB properties (from which we compute $`X`$) to those of their afterglows (from which we measure $`z`$) are far from being understood. Anyone using this tool should thus keep in mind that Figure 3 provides a biased view of the true distribution of GRBs in the ($`z`$,$`X`$) plane.

## 3 An example of using pseudo-redshifts

In this section we compute the pseudo-redshifts of 18 GRBs detected by HETE/FREGATE, whose spectral parameters are given in Barraud et al. (2003). We compare them with the pseudo-redshifts of 8 GRBs with known redshifts in Table 1 in order to assess the role of the redshift in the non-detection of the afterglows for these GRBs. The pseudo-redshifts of these 18 GRBs are given in Table 2.

The first remark is that short/hard GRBs should probably not be integrated in our framework. GRB 020531 for instance has a low $`X`$ value, which results in an unrealistically high pseudo-redshift. Having no redshift for short/hard bursts we cannot evaluate, and eventually calibrate, our redshift indicator for these bursts. The two shord/hard GRBs of our sample, GRB 020113 and GRB 020531, are thus excluded from the rest of our analysis.

The median pseudo-redshift of long GRBs in Table 2 is 1.65, while it is only 0.88 for the 8 FREGATE GRBs with a measured redshift in Table 1. If we believe the correlation between the pseudo-redshifts and the true redshifts, this indicates that the redshift certainly plays a role in the non-detection of the afterglows of FREGATE GRBs, even if this is not the only factor as emphasized by Crew et al. (2003).

While pseudo-redshifts can be useful for statistical analyses, the information they convey is probably not meaningful for individual GRBs. We believe however that pseudo-redshifts could become a useful tool to quickly identify high redshift GRBs from the gamma-ray data alone. A first step in this direction is obviously to prove the validity of pseudo-redshifts for this task. GRB 020127 may appear as a good test case in this context because it has a high pseudo-redshift ($`\widehat{z}=3.9`$ in Table 2), a possible X-ray afterglow, a possible radio afterglow, and a candidate host galaxy (Fox et al. 2002a , 2002b, 2002c). If the host candidate is at a redshift of about 3, this would strengthen the validity of pseudo-redshifts as a tool for the quick identification of high redshift GRBs.

## 4 Conclusion

We propose an empirical redshift indicator for GRBs, which is easily computed from the gamma-ray data alone and provides “pseudo-redshifts” accurate to a factor of two. Despite their moderate accuracy, we believe that their easy computation will make these pseudo-redshifts useful in future GRB studies. Their possible applications include a statistical comparison of the distance distribution of distinct GRB populations, constraints on the star formation rate at high redshifts, and the fast identification of remote GRBs, with redshifts beyond three.

The usefulness of these pseudo-redshifts will ultimately depend on the confirmation of their accuracy, which will be tested as a larger number of GRBs with known redshifts become available.

###### Acknowledgements.

The author is grateful to R. Mochkovitch for insightful discussions on pseudo-redshifts and to C. Barraud for helpful suggestions. JLA acknowledges the use of J. Greiner GRB page at http://www.mpe.mpg.de/~jcg/grbgen.html, and useful comments from the referees.


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# Untitled Document

Quasiparticles in quantum Hall effect: Smet’s fractional charges. Keshav N. Shrivastava
School of Physics, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad 500046, India

It has been pointed out by Smet that there are fractional-charge values which do not fit their formula of composite fermions. We find that our formula predicts these fractional charges very well and in fact there exists a relationship between spin and the effective charge of a quasiparticle.

Corresponding author: keshav@mailaps.org
Fax: +91-40-2301 0145.Phone: 2301 0811.

1. Introduction

For some years it was thought that “flux quanta” are attached to the electron. Considerable effort was put into this “flux attached” model to explain the quantum Hall effect. An “incompressible” model was suggested but it turns out that $`a_o`$=1 is not a solution of the algebraic equations involved, $`Ba_o^2`$=$`\varphi _o`$. Here $`a_o`$=1 is required for incompressibility. After a lapse of twenty years, now Pan et al have pointed out that quantum Hall effect occurs at some of the fractions which can not be obtained by their model. It was thought that plateaus occur at the filling factors, $`\nu `$=$`p/(2mp\pm 1)`$, where $`m`$ and $`p`$ are integers. Now, the recently reported fractions do not fit with this formula. Smet has also agreed that the formula, $`\nu `$=$`p/(2mp\pm 1)`$ of the composite fermion model (CF) has no rigorous foundation. Similarly, composite bosons (CB) will not be feasible. The flux quanta are not so abundant, such as 10 per electron, that they can attach to electrons. Therefore, the idea of “ flux quanta” attachment to the electrons should be discarded. Considerable effort has been made to examine many papers in which a claim is made that flux quanta are attached to the electrons but in all cases internal inconsistencies have been found. References to some of the papers which point out the inconsistencies are as follows.

cond-mat/0209666 shows that CF violates classical electrodynamics;
0210320 shows that there are far too many parameters in CF model;
0211223 shows that CF effective field is incorrect;
0301380 shows that CF requires E, H decoupling in Maxwell equations;
0302009 shows that CF and CB transformation has not been carried out;
0302315 shows that mass of the CF is not consistent with the available space;
0302461 shows what quantity is measured in fractional charge experiments;
0303146 shows that CF lacks in Lorentz invariance;
0303014 shows that CF model is internally inconsistent.

Usually a Jordan-Wigner transformation transforms the spin operators into fermions. Similarly, the Holstein-Primakopf transformation transforms the spin operators into magnons. Under special conditions, such as zero temperature in the case of Jordan-Wigner and low temperatures in the case of Holstein-Primakopf, the solution of the transformed hamiltonian is quite close to that of the starting hamiltonian so that some useful results can be obtained. However, in the case of “flux attachment” no transformation has been found. Therefore, there is no way except to discard the “CF” model. Dyakonov has clearly noted that CF model is not based on good theoretical principles and Farid has pointed out that the field formula is not correct. We are then left with no solution of the problem of quantum Hall effect. We have found the correct theory of the quantum Hall effect. According to this theory all of the fractional charges which do not fit in the CF model, are correctly predicted. In particular, the fractions, observed by Pan et al have been well predicted. At an earlier time, Pan et al thought that even feature is present in the data. However, we have shown that the experimental data is not consistent with the even feature. Here even feature means the quantity $`2mp`$ which occurs in the denominator.

In this paper, we show that the fractional charges observed by Smet are well predicted by our theory.

2. Smet’s observation

Motivated by the work of Pan et al, Smet searched for the fractional charges which are not found in the composite fermion model. Smet searched the region in the center of 2/5 and 1/3. Small steps were found at,

$$\nu =4/11,7/19,10/27,\mathrm{},11/29,8/21,5/13$$
(1)
in the experimental measurement of transverse resistivity. These fractions do not fit the CF model. However, if 1/2 of these values could fit the formula, it will be sufficient and we could declare that these are two-particle states but for integer values of $`m`$ and $`p`$ the formula $`p/(2mp\pm 1)`$ does not fit the data. For two particle bound state, there will be the need for a binding energy and it becomes more difficult to fit the CF model with the experimental data.

Wöjs et al have suggested to use $`2l+1`$ as the denominator as in our theory and add an arbitrary pseudopotential parameter untill the CF agrees with the data, if not for one particle, then for any two-particle bound state. This is obviously arbitrary and not like physics because of the arbitrary parameter. Therefore, Wöjs et al have not solved the problem. There is a suggestion that the fractional charges like 4/11, etc. are generated by a process similar to fractals. The fractal model of phase transition with fractional dimensionality does not satisfy the quantum Hall effect data. A nuclear decay type model also does not satisfy the data.

4. Theory

Our theory is explained in a recent book. Needless to say that this theory agrees with the quantum Hall effect data. We find that Laughlin has not resolved whether the area becomes fractional or the charge. Since the magnetic area is $`a_o^2`$=$`\varphi _o/B`$, it is important to know that the quantity which enters in the Laughlin’s paper is the product $`eB`$ and not $`e`$ alone. Schrieffer has used the Laughlin’s work as if it is $`e`$. There is no serious problem created by this type of treatment as long as we keep track of the product $`eB`$. We have explained our theory in comparison with Laughlin and Schrieffer in ref.. Ref. shows the interpretation of the data of Pan et al. At this stage our attention was drawn to a paper by Mani and von Klitzing which has 146 different fractions. Surprizingly, we are able to understand all of these 146 values . Pan et al are concerned with 4/11, 5/13, 6/17, 4/13, 5/17 and 7/11. Let us add these 6 values to our 146 values so that it may be thought that 152 values come out to be correct from our theory. To this we add another 6 values from Smet so that we have 158 values. The interpretation of Smet’s values is given below. In our theory, the effective charge is given by the formula,

$$e_{eff}/e=\frac{l+\frac{1}{2}\pm s}{2l+1}$$
(2)
which gives 4/11 for $`l`$=5 and $`s`$=-3/2, 7/19 comes for $`l`$=9, $`s`$=-5/2; 10/27 comes for $`l`$=13, $`s`$=-7/2; 11/29 comes for $`l`$=14, $`s`$=-7/2; 8/21 has $`l`$=10, $`s`$=-5/2; 5/13 has $`l`$=6 and $`s`$=-3/2. Thus 4/11 belongs to a cluster of 3 electrons with $`l`$=5 and all polarized with negative sign for the spin. The fraction 7/19 has five electrons in $`l`$=9 with all spin polarized with negative sign, etc. Thus all of Smet’s experimentally measured values fit well in our formula showing that there are clusters of electrons with a small number of electrons in each cluster. For $`l`$=7, $`s`$=-3/2, $`\nu _{}`$=6/15; for $`l`$=7, $`s`$=-1/2, $`\nu _{}`$=7/15; for $`l`$=8, $`s`$=-3/2, $`\nu _{}`$=7/17, etc are predicted but not noted by Smet from experimental work. Thus we learn that there is a linear relationship between charge and spin. For $`l`$=0, the charge $`\nu _\pm `$ is related to spin, $`s`$ as,

$$\nu _\pm =\frac{1}{2}\pm s.$$
(3)
We can tabulate this expression as in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Predicted fractional charge for $`l`$=0

| S.No. | $`s`$ | $`\nu _+`$ | $`\nu _{}`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | 1/2 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 3/2 | 2 | -1 |
| 3 | 5/2 | 3 | -2 |
| 4 | 7/2 | 4 | -3 |

This means that in the case of spherically symmetric states, half integer spin gives rise to integer charge with pairwise production of quasiparticles such that $`\nu _++\nu _{}`$=1 but there is spin polarization. The zero charge for $`s`$=1/2 means that there is a charge-density wave which is linked to distortions in the solid. Integer charge is seen in electron clusters. For $`l`$=0, one electron gives rise to quasiparticles of zero charge and also equal to that of one electron. Three electrons must occupy three sites and then the quasiparticle charge may be 2 for one quasiparticle and -1 for the other, etc. Why should three electrons give a charge of 2? Actually, it is quite simple to understand. If all the three electrons are at one point, then it is justified that charge should be 3, otherwise, charge must be transported to one point before it is added. Fractional charge is developed due to this transport.

3. Conclusions.

It is clear that our formula predicts all of Smet’s values correctly. We have explained that composite fermion(CF) model is internally inconsistent and the transformation from electrons to composite fermions has not been done. In any case, the composite fermion series $`p/(2mp\pm 1)`$ is inconsistent with the experimental data of Smet. Our theory is based on quantum mechanics and works very well on all of the experimentally observed values of the fractional charges. We have discovered a new spin-charge relationship.

4. References

1. W. Pan, H. L. Stormer, D. C. Tsui, L. N. Pfeiffer, K. W. Baldwin and K. W. West, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 016801(2003).
2. J. H. Smet, Nature 422, 391(2003).
3. K. N. Shrivastava, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. J1.209(2003).
4. M. I. Dyakonov, cond-mat/0209206.
5. B. Farid, cond-mat/0003064.
6. K. N. Shrivastava, Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. J1.108(2003).
7. K. N. Shrivastava, cond-mat/0302610\[Interpretation of ref.1\]
8. W. Pan, et al, Phys. Rev. Lett.88,176802 (2002)
9. K. N. Shrivastava, cond-mat/0204627.
10. A. Wöjs, K-S. Yi and J. J. Quinn, cond-mat/0304130.
11. K. N. Shrivastava, Introduction to quantum Hall effect,
Nova Science Pub. Inc., N. Y. (2002).
12. K. N. Shrivastava, cond-mat/0212552.
13. R. Mani and K. von Klitzing, Z. Phys. B100, 635 (1996).
14. K. N. Shrivastava, cond-mat/0303309.
15. K. N. Shrivastava, cond-mat/0303621.
16. K. N. Shrivastava, cond-mat/0304014.

Note: Ref.11 is available from:
Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 400 Oser Avenue, Suite 1600,
Hauppauge, N. Y.. 11788-3619, Tel.(631)-231-7269, Fax: (631)-231-8175,
ISBN 1-59033-419-1 US$`\$69`$. E-mail: novascience@Earthlink.net


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# An Upper Limit on the Granularity of the Local Stellar Halo

## 1 Introduction

In the conflict between the two competing models for the formation of the Milky Way, the Searle & Zinn (1978) scenario of cannibalistic assimilation of pre-existing protogalaxies has generally been gaining ground on the earlier monolithic collapse model of Eggen, Lynden-Bell & Sandage (1962). In part this is because the former fits naturally into the picture of hierarchical structure formation predicted by cold dark matter models, which have so many successes on larger scales. Even more compelling is the direct observational evidence. The best example is the Sgr dwarf galaxy (Ibata, Gilmore & Irwin, 1994), whose disruption is taking place right before our eyes. However, while it is especially striking (Majewski et al. 2003 and references therein), the Sgr dwarf is by no means unique. Palomar 5 (Odenkirchen et al., 2001; Rockosi et al., 2002) and possibly the Ursa Minor dwarf spheroidal (Palma, 2003) show extended tidal tails as evidence of ongoing disruption.

However, these disintegrating satellites are all in the outer halo. While individual moving groups have been reported in the local stellar halo for several decades (Eggen, 1965), it is not clear whether these associations are an exotic froth on an underlying well-mixed homogeneous stellar population, or whether the local stellar halo is basically granular, being composed of a number of streams, each tightly clumped in velocity space but so extended in physical space that they cannot be distinguished photometrically from the myriad of other streams.

Numerical simulations demonstrate that kinematically cold, initially spherical systems will form cold streams when tidally disrupted (McGlynn, 1990), and such disruption has been studied in considerable detail (Johnston, 1998). Bullock, Kravtsov & Weinberg (2001) simulated the formation of a network of streams within the framework of hierarchical structure formation and showed that halo tracers such as RR Lyrae stars would exhibit dramatic variations in surface density projected on the sky. While these variations are most pronounced at large distances, they are also clearly discernible in the simulated solar neighborhood. Simulations of satellite disruption by Helmi & White (1999) also support the granular picture. They specifically predict a local halo composed of 300–500 streams, each with a velocity dispersion of order $`5\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.

Here I show that if the local stellar halo is composed of such streams, they are extremely numerous, with typical streams each contributing less than 0.08% to the local stellar halo.

## 2 Limits on Granularity

In Gould (2003), I analyzed a sample of 4588 halo stars selected from the revised NLTT catalog (rNLTT) (Salim & Gould, 2003; Gould & Salim, 2003) by means of an optical-infrared reduced proper motion (RPM) diagram (Salim & Gould, 2002). In particular, I found that five of the nine parameters describing the local halo velocity ellipsoid were consistent with zero. These were the mean radial and vertical motions of the halo relative to the local standard of rest (LSR), $`V_1=1.4\pm 2.2\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`V_3=1.8\pm 2.4\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$, and the normalized off-diagonal components components of the velocity dispersion tensor, $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{12}=0.024\pm 0.014`$, $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{13}=0.005\pm 0.023`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{23}=0.004\pm 0.026`$. (Of the remaining four velocity-ellipsoid parameters, the fit values of the three velocity dispersions were found to be compatible with previous determinations and the motion in the tangential direction relative to the Sun was fixed as part of the analysis at the previously determined value of $`U_2=216.6\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$.)

There are many possible effects that could have driven these five numbers away from zero, which is the value predicted by the simplest axisymmetric Galactic model. For example, if the LSR were moving inward or outward relative to the Galactic potential, the reflex motion of the halo would have driven $`V_1`$ away from zero. Or if the halo had been rotating around the 2-axis, this would have shown up in $`V_3`$. Or if the dark halo were significantly triaxial with principle axes misaligned relative to standard Galactic coordinates, this would have driven $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{12}`$ to significant non-zero values. However, and this is the key point, there are no systematic effects that could have driven these parameters systematically toward zero if that were not their actual value. In particular, the likelihood routine actually fit for motions relative to the Sun, which were found to differ from zero by 5.2 and 2.3 sigma. It was only after the known motion of the LSR was removed that they became consistent with zero. Since these five parameters agree with the predictions of the simplest model, their statistical fluctuations, as codified by $`\chi ^2`$, can be used to test the statistical properties of the underlying sample. Note that $`\chi _{\mathrm{nom}}^2=3.97`$ for 5 degrees of freedom (dof).

Let us now suppose that the local halo were composed of 459 streams, each with 10 stars and each with an internal velocity dispersion well below the $`100\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ to $`170\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1`$ values measured for the three components of the halo. The 10 stars would then have had essentially identical kinematics, and I would therefore have overcounted the number of independent measurements by a factor of 10. The best fit parameters for the halo that I derived would have been correct, but the errors would have been underestimated by a factor of $`10^{1/2}`$. Hence, $`\chi ^2`$ would have been $`\chi _{\mathrm{true}}^2=\chi _{\mathrm{nom}}^2/10=0.397`$. This scenario can be immediately ruled out because the probability of finding such a low $`\chi ^2`$ for 5 dof is less than 0.5%.

More generally, one can imagine that the 4588 stars in the sample are divided into $`N`$ streams, with the $`i`$th stream having $`m_i`$ members, $`m_i1`$. Then $`\chi ^2`$ would have been overestimated by $`_im_i^2/4588`$. Hence,

$$\chi _{\mathrm{true}}^2=\frac{4588}{_im_i^2}\chi _{\mathrm{nom}}^2.$$
(1)
I now demand that $`\chi _{\mathrm{true}}^2>1.145`$, so that it does not fall within the 5% lowest part of the $`\chi ^2`$ distribution for 5 dof. I thereby obtain a limit,

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}m_i^2=\frac{\chi _{\mathrm{nom}}^2}{\chi _{\mathrm{true}}^2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}m_i<15908,\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}m_i=4588.$$
(2)
If the $`m_i`$ were real variables, the minimum value of $`N`$ that would saturate this constraint would be $`N=4588^2/15908=1323`$, with $`m_i=15908/4588=3.47`$. Since the $`m_i`$ must be integers, the minimum is $`N=1350`$, in which case there would be 816 streams with 3 stars and 535 with 4 stars. That is, each stream would have about 0.08% of the total local halo population. The maximum number of stars that can be in any stream is 106. In this case, all the other 4483 “streams” would have only one star each.

## 3 Discussion

If the statistical errors in Gould (2003) had been overestimated, this would have artificially decreased $`\chi ^2`$ and so made the limits derived in the present Letter appear stronger than they actually are. Is such an error overestimation a possibility? No. The Gould (2003) errors are strongly dominated by Poisson statistics, not measurement errors, so that even if the measurement errors were set to zero in the analysis, the errors on the derived parameters would not be reduced by more than a few percent (Popowski & Gould, 1998).

Suppose that the Gould (2003) halo sample were contaminated at a fractional level $`f`$ by another population (e.g. thick disk stars) whose five velocity-ellipsoid parameters were also zero. Suppose that the halo sample were clumpy but the other population was not. The lower limit derived in § 2 should then be decreased by a fraction $`f(r1)/(rf)0.7f`$, where $`r\chi _{\mathrm{nom}}^2/\chi ^2(5\%)=3.47.`$ From figure 3 of Salim & Gould (2003), I estimate $`f2\%`$, so this effect is negligibly small.

Can the technique presented here be extended to probe more effectively for granularity in the stellar halo? The rNLTT covers only 44% of the sky and moreover is derived from a proper-motion selected catalog $`\mu >180\mathrm{mas}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. If the catalog were extended to most of the rest of the sky (see Salim & Gould 2003), the number of stars could be doubled. By comparing first epoch Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS I) plates with Early Release Data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), Digby et al. (2003) were able to identify halo stars from a RPM diagram for proper motion stars down to $`40\mathrm{mas}\mathrm{yr}^1`$. This extends the distance out to which they can be found by a factor 4.5 relative to rNLTT and therefore increases the volume by a factor 90. Because halo stars are distributed roughly uniformly in space, the sample size will increase in proportion to the volume. Since SDSS will eventually cover 1/4 of the sky, the prospects for increasing the sample by a factor $`50`$ are good. Future surveys may do even better. If the five velocity ellipsoid parameters continue to be consistent with zero, it will be possible to push down the limits on halo granularity by roughly the same factor.

But what if some of these parameters begin to deviate significantly from zero? How can one tell, within the framework of this approach, whether these formally significant detections reflect the real properties of the halo velocity ellipsoid or an underestimation of the velocity-ellipsoid errors due to clumpiness of the stellar halo?

Two of the five parameters, $`V_1`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{12}`$ are much more likely to really be non-zero than the other three. If the halo is triaxial and one of its axes is not perfectly aligned with the Sun, then this should induce both inward (or outward) net motion of the LSR ($`V_1`$) and a vertex deviation in the halo ($`\stackrel{~}{c}_{12}`$). If one or both of these parameters begins to differ significantly from zero, but the remaining three remain consistent with zero, then the same test developed here can be used to constrain granularity, except that it would have to be restricted to the three remaining parameters, $`V_3`$, $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{13}`$, and $`\stackrel{~}{c}_{23}`$. On the other hand, if halo granularity is causing the errors to be underestimated, it should affect both groups of parameters equally.

While the statistical power of a $`\chi ^2`$ test for 3 dof is somewhat weaker than for 5 dof, this would be more than compensated by the increase in star counts. Thus, there are reasonable prospects for simultaneously carrying out high-precision tests of Galactic structure using two of the five parameters while tightly constraining or precisely measuring the degree of halo granularity using the other three.

The limits derived here are in strong formal conflict with the predictions of Helmi & White (1999). No formal comparison can be made with the predictions of Bullock, Kravtsov & Weinberg (2001) because they do not report on the quantity measured here, the total number of cold streams in the local halo. It is nevertheless possible that a prediction for this quantity could be extracted from their simulation.

However, this formal conflict does not necessarily contradict the picture of hierarchical structure formation on galaxy scales. The simulations conducted to date have considered one or a few realizations without an attempt to tune parameters to fit any quantitative measurement of streams. With the advent of the limits presented here, as well as the prospect of much better limits and/or measurements in the reasonably near future, it should be possible to quantitatively constrain such scenarios or, perhaps, to rule them out.

I thank Scott Tremaine and Scott Gaudi for stimulating discussions. This work was supported by grant AST 02-01266 from the NSF and by JPL contract 1226901.