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# Quantum cryptography with continuous alphabet

## I Introduction

Quantum cryptography (QC) could well be the first practical application of the rapidly developing field of quantum information . Since 1970s when the idea of QC was proposed first  a number of different protocols implementing it have been suggested . Despite their diversity all of them are based on a beautiful idea employing a basic principle of quantum mechanics—no-cloning (or impossibility to copy) quantum states . Thanks to this, an eavesdropper cannot intercept the quantum communication channel without disturbing a transmitting message if it contains a set of *incompatible*, i.e., essentially quantum, not governed by the rules of classical logic, states. Moreover, any attempt to copy this set of states inevitably disturbs the transmitted message.

Keeping this advantage of quantum physics for QC in mind, any QC-protocol uses messages entirely composed of an incompatible set of quantum states or so called *quantum alphabet* that consists of incompatible “letters”. Various protocols of QC are distinguished in essence only by different alphabets, which ensure secure message transmission up to an error level that determines the protocol efficiency. Analyzing distortions in received messages one can reveal an eavesdropping attack, but in order to raise the information transmission rate it is necessary also to counter such attacks. All discussed in the literature QC-protocols have relatively low, about 15%, quantum bit error rate (QBER)  above which they do not ensure secure transmission. Ideally, all perturbations in the transmitted information are caused by an eavesdropper, but in reality imperfections of apparatus used for realization of the QC-protocol and external sources of noise (besides the eavesdropper) also perturb the information.

For the optimal efficiency analysis of various protocols different efficiency criteria are used , which is inconvenient for the objective comparison of the protocols. In this paper, we will use most appropriate criteria based on the classical Shannon information approach estimating amount of information transmitted through the information channels of the QC scheme . In QC, typical information system includes three basic components, Alice, Bob, and Eve (the conventional names for the sender, receiver, and eavesdropper, respectively), which communicate through a quantum channel. Despite the communication nature between Alice, Bob, and Eve is quantum, they in the final analysis exchange classical information. Therefore, the classical Shannon information is a valid measure for a quantitative analysis of the quantum cryptography protocols, which corresponds to the joint probability distribution of the measurement results (which are classical) in the quantum system Alice-Eve-Bob.

An alphabet used for a message encrypting is formed commonly by selection of a set of quantum states at the input and output of the quantum channel. The selection rules determine different QC-protocols. For example, QC-protocol proposed in 1992 by Bennett, hence the name B92 , uses only *two* quantum states, which is the minimum limit of number of incompatible “letters” composed the alphabet. The first protocol for QC proposed in 1984 by Bennett and Brassard (BB84)  gives another example of protocol using *four* quantum incompatible states.

In another limiting case, when selection of quantum states is not performed and, therefore, the alphabet consists of *all* states of the Hilbert space, we have a new QC-protocol, which is analyzed in this paper. It is shown that this protocol surpasses all known QC-protocols by a number of criteria. For instance, its critical QBER exceeds that one for the BB84 protocol and generalization of our protocol to the case of multidimensional Hilbert space further significantly improves the critical QBER. This means that the new protocol can basically work at any level of external errors or eavesdropping attacks, which is a new feature of the QC-protocols.

## II Compatible information as a quantum information measure in QC-protocols

In QC, Alice ($`A`$), Bob ($`B`$), and Eve ($`E`$) are the different, kinematically independent quantum systems. Thus, the quantum events related to these systems belonging to the different Hilbert spaces are mutually compatible. Due to this property, any pair of quantum events at the input and output of the quantum channel can be considered classically. Quantum specific of the channel is revealed then only in the form of intrinsic quantum uncertainty of events at the input and output of the channel. We will call information related to the mutually compatible events in two quantum systems the *compatible* quantum information . A natural quantitative measure for the compatible information is the standard mutual Shannon information functional of the classical input–output (Alice-Bob) joint probability distribution $`P_{AB}`$:

$$I_{AB}[P_{AB}]=S_A[P_A]+S_B[P_B]S_{AB}[P_{AB}],$$
(1)
where $`S[P]`$ is the classical Shannon entropy functional for $`P=P_A`$, $`P_B`$, and $`P_{AB}`$ .

In quantum theory, like in the classical theory of information, one has to clarify which quantum events are used for the information exchange between quantum systems and to define a set of elementary events of which any message is composed. Elementary events for a given quantum system are represented by the wave functions or state vectors of the system. Mathematically, a choice of basis events can be given by defining a set of positive operators $`\widehat{E}_\nu `$ representing a non-orthogonal expansion of unit operator , which is an analog of average classical indicator functions of a complete group of classical random events, which are normalized to the indicator of the reliable net event (with the probability equal to unity) and can be written in quantum case as the unit operator:

$$\widehat{1}=\widehat{E}_\nu .$$
(2)
For simplicity, we will consider in the following two-dimensional spaces, if not defined otherwise.

Two limiting cases of the compatible information—limiting *selected* and *non-selected* information—are defined by two limiting cases of the unit operator expansion—two-component orthogonal

$$\widehat{1}=|\mu \mu |+|\stackrel{~}{\mu }\stackrel{~}{\mu }|,$$
(3)
and continual non-orthogonal

$$\widehat{1}=\underset{\nu }{}|\nu \nu |\mathrm{d}V_\nu ,$$
(4)
where $`|\mu `$ and $`|\stackrel{~}{\mu }`$ are the arbitrary pair of orthogonal wave functions and $`\mathrm{d}V_\nu =\mathrm{sin}\theta d\theta d\phi /(2\pi )`$ with the standard angular parameters on the Bloch sphere.

The selected information determines an information link between two quantum systems $`A`$ and $`B`$ with the joint density matrix $`\widehat{\rho }_{AB}`$ through the selected set of orthogonal quantum events. The orthogonal basis determined by the unitary two-parametric transformation $`U_A(\alpha )`$ and $`U_B(\beta )`$ in quantum systems $`A`$ and $`B`$, respectively, can be chosen differently and the selected information also depends on the choice made:

$$I_{AB}(\alpha ,\beta )=\underset{k,l}{}P_{AB}^{\alpha \beta }(k,l)\mathrm{log}_2\frac{P_{AB}^{\alpha \beta }(k,l)}{P_A^\alpha (k)P_B^\beta (l)},$$
(5)
where parameters $`\alpha =(\theta _1,\phi _1)`$ and $`\beta =(\theta _2,\phi _2)`$ are given by the standard Bloch sphere angles.

Joint distribution $`P_{AB}^{\alpha \beta }(k,l)=\mathrm{Tr}_{AB}\left(\widehat{E}_A^\alpha (k)\widehat{E}_B^\beta (l)\right)\widehat{\rho }_{AB}`$ is defined on the basis states of the input (Alice) and output (Bob) of the channel $`|k_A^\alpha `$, $`|l_B^\beta `$ numbered by two indices $`k`$ and $`l`$. These states are the orthogonal basis states of respected Hilbert spaces $`H_A`$ and $`H_B`$.

For the non-selected information, the information exchange undergoes through all equally participating in the exchange states. In this case, basis states of the information channel are *all* wavefunctions of the Hilbert spaces of all participating in the exchange quantum systems. The respected non-selected information is then given as

$$I_{AB}=\underset{\alpha }{}\underset{\beta }{}P_{AB}(\mathrm{d}\alpha ,\mathrm{d}\beta )\mathrm{log}_2\frac{P_{AB}(\mathrm{d}\alpha ,\mathrm{d}\beta )}{P_A(\mathrm{d}\alpha )P_B(\mathrm{d}\beta )},$$
(6)
where $`P_{AB}(\mathrm{d}\alpha ,\mathrm{d}\beta )=\mathrm{Tr}_{AB}\left(\widehat{E}_A(\mathrm{d}\alpha )\widehat{E}_B(\mathrm{d}\beta )\right)\widehat{\rho }_{AB}`$, $`\widehat{E}_A(\mathrm{d}\nu )=|\nu _A\nu |_A\mathrm{d}V_\nu `$.

Note that the non-selected information is equal to the selected one, which is averaged over all orientations of the orthogonal bases:

$$I_{AB}=\underset{\alpha }{}\underset{\beta }{}I_{AB}(\mathrm{d}\alpha ,\mathrm{d}\beta )\frac{\mathrm{d}V_\alpha \mathrm{d}V_\beta }{V^2},V=dV_\nu =2.$$
(7)
## III QC-protocol employing all states of the Hilbert space of the cryptographic system

Key idea of QC is that secure quantum information channel is used first to transfer a secret key from Alice to Bob, which is then used to encrypt messages transmitted via an insecure classical channel. The quantum channel over which the message out of which the secret key will be extracted is transferred can be eavesdropped by Eve who can perform any physically allowed transformations gaining information about the transferring message. The purpose of Alice and Bob is to establish a secure connection, which prevents copying of useful transmitted information by Eve. Ii was proved that such secure connection is possible if the amount of information Bob received from Alice exceeds information Eve received either from Alice or Bob . This condition can be written as

$$I_{AB}>\mathrm{max}(I_{AE},I_{BE}).$$
(8)
If the condition (8) is fulfilled, it is possible with the help of special methods of encrypting/decrypting the information to reduce up to zero the amount of useful information Eve can gain eavesdropping the quantum channel.

Eve, in her turn, also tries to use optimal strategies of eavesdropping at the given level of interference, i.e., Eve tries to gain maximum information about the transmitting message minimizing the error level she causes.

All known QC-protocols using finite-dimensional spaces of states are built on the alphabets with the finite discrete set of incompatible quantum “letters”, which can be realized as the pure states of a quantum system. In this paper, we suggest a qualitatively new QC-protocol, which is based on the alphabet including all states of the Hilbert space. In other words, this alphabet consists of an infinite number of quantum “letters”, which are formed by arbitrary superpositions of orthogonal basis states of the Hilbert space $`H_A`$.

Let us first consider the case of two-dimensional space (multidimensional case is considered in section IV).

Elementary step of the QC-protocol that is transmission of a single “letter” or state from Alice to Bob can be outlined as follows:

1. Alice transmits to Bob via a quantum channel a randomly chosen state $`|\beta `$. Let us assume that the Alice’s state $`|\alpha `$ is totally entangled with the transmitting state $`|\beta `$ and is, for example, the antisymmetric Bell state $`||=\left(|\alpha |\stackrel{~}{\beta }|\stackrel{~}{\alpha }|\beta \right)/\sqrt{2}`$, which means that Alice perfectly knows the transmitting state.
2. Eve eavesdrops the channel performing an unitary transformation $`U_{BE}`$ with her initial state $`|0_E`$ and with transmitted by Alice to Bob state $`|\beta _B`$ and readily measures her final state.
3. Bob reads the perturbed state using for the measurement an *arbitrary* projector because he has no *a priori* information about the received message.

When transmission of the message is completed, Alice and Bob disclose part of the measurement results transmitting them over an insecure classical channel in order to determine the mutual probability distribution, which is then used for calculation of an average amount of transmitted information per an elementary step of the QC-protocol. After that, disclosed results are discarded and not used for further generation of a secret key. If the security condition (8) is fulfilled, Alice and Bob decide that the secret key transfer is completed, otherwise the transmitted key is not used. Note that the described protocol does not require bases reconciliation of Alice and Bob, i.e., selection of only that part of the message for which Alice and Bob used the same measurement projectors, via an additional information exchange over the classical channel.

### A Information analysis of the protocol

For information analysis of the suggested protocol let us first calculate the amount of information Bob received from Alice and Eve received from Alice and Bob at the condition of optimal eavesdropping.

Initial state of the quantum system Alice-Eva-Bob $`\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(1)}=\widehat{\rho }_{AB}^{(1)}|0_E0|_E`$, which is described by the tensor product of the entangled antisymmetric pair Alice-Bob $`\widehat{\rho }_{AB}^{(1)}=\left|\right|_{AB}\left|\right|_{AB}`$ and an initial Eve’s state $`|0_E`$, is transferred after eavesdropping the channel by Eve into the final state that is an entangled state of Alice, Bob, and Eve, $`\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(2)}`$: $`\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(1)}\stackrel{U_{BE}}{}\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(2)}`$.

We can then assume (without reducing the generality of our consideration) that the unitary transformation $`U_{BE}`$ performed by Eve has the form:

$$\{\begin{array}{c}|0_B|0_E\stackrel{U_{BE}}{}|0_B|\mathrm{\Phi }_{00}_E+|1_B|\mathrm{\Phi }_{01}_E\hfill \\ |1_B|0_E\stackrel{U_{BE}}{}|0_B|\mathrm{\Phi }_{10}_E+|1_B|\mathrm{\Phi }_{11}_E.\hfill \end{array}$$
(9)
The unitarity imposes the following restrictions, which are due to the orthogonality and normalization conditions:

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_{00}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{10}+\mathrm{\Phi }_{01}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{11}=0,|\mathrm{\Phi }_{00}|^2+|\mathrm{\Phi }_{01}|^2=|\mathrm{\Phi }_{10}|^2+|\mathrm{\Phi }_{11}|^2=1.$$
(10)
It was suggested in reference  based on the numerical estimations and then proved in reference  that in the QC protocols BB84 and B92 the Eve’s state at the optimal eavesdropping lies in two-dimensional Hilbert space. This is also true (and can be proved) for our QC-protocol. Therefore, the states $`|\mathrm{\Phi }_{ij}`$ can be written with the help of condition (10) as a superposition of two basis states:

$$\stackrel{}{|\mathrm{\Phi }}=\left(\begin{array}{c}|\mathrm{\Phi }_{00}\\ |\mathrm{\Phi }_{01}\\ |\mathrm{\Phi }_{10}\\ |\mathrm{\Phi }_{11}\end{array}\right)=\left(\begin{array}{cc}\gamma _{00}& \gamma _{01}\\ \gamma _{10}& \gamma _{11}\\ \gamma _{11}& \gamma _{10}\\ \gamma _{01}& \gamma _{00}\end{array}\right)\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{|0_E}{|1_E}\right),$$
(11)
where the transformation parameters

$`\gamma _{mn}=(1)^{mn}\mathrm{cos}(\theta m{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}})\mathrm{cos}(\phi n{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}})`$

are determined via two angles $`\theta `$, $`\phi `$ on the Bloch sphere.

Resulted bipartite density matrices Alice-Bob, Alice-Eve, and Bob-Eve received by averaging of the three-partite density matrix over the third system enable us to calculate the respective mutual information:

$$\begin{array}{c}\widehat{\rho }_{AB}^{(2)}=\mathrm{Tr}_E\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(2)}I_{AB},\hfill \\ \widehat{\rho }_{AE}^{(2)}=\mathrm{Tr}_B\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(2)}I_{AE},\hfill \\ \widehat{\rho }_{BE}^{(2)}=\mathrm{Tr}_A\widehat{\rho }_{ABE}^{(2)}I_{BE}.\hfill \end{array}$$
(12)
In our QC-protocol Alice sends Bob any pure state with equal probability and neither Bob nor Eve have an *a priori* chosen basis for the measurement, thus both Eve and Bob use each an arbitrary chosen basis. After averaging over large number of measurements we receive due to the equation (7) that the non-selected information is exactly the information measure for our cryptographic system.

### B Calculations results

Results for the mutual Alice-Bob, Alice-Eve, and Bob-Eve non-selected information ($`I_{AB}`$, $`I_{AE}`$, and $`I_{BE}`$, respectively) calculated with the help of equations (6), (9), (11), and (12) are shown in figure 1 versus parameters $`\theta `$ and $`\phi `$ controlled by Eve. One can clearly see from the figure that for all values of $`\theta `$, $`\phi `$ we have $`I_{AE}I_{BE}`$, thus we will focus in the following only on $`I_{AE}`$.

The optimal eavesdropping condition requires that we look for the maximal $`I_{AE}=I_{AE}(\theta ,\phi )`$ at the given value of $`I_{AB}=I_{AB}(\theta ,\phi )`$. Detailed analysis of data in figure 1 shows that the optimal eavesdropping at any level $`I_{AB}`$ can be realized at $`\theta =\pi /4\phi `$, which corresponds to the solid line in figure 1d.

For most purposes it is enough to consider only two-dimensional plots of $`I_{AB}(\theta )`$ and $`I_{AE}(\theta )`$ along the solid line $`\theta =\pi /4\phi `$, which are shown in figure 2. From analysis of this figure one can see that at $`\theta =0`$ the level of Eve eavesdropping attacks and the respected losses of information are equal to zero. At $`\theta =\pi /4`$ the intervention of Eve is maximal and she acts, in fact, as Bob gaining maximal possible information.

The condition for the protocol to be a secure one, $`I_{AB}>I_{AE}`$, is fulfilled up to a certain critical value $`\theta _0=\pi /8`$, which is the intersection point (1) of the curves for $`I_{AB}`$ and $`I_{AE}`$ in the figure 2. At this point, the QBER $`q=1\mathrm{Tr}\widehat{\rho }_B^{(1)}\widehat{\rho }_B^{(2)}`$, has the critical value of $`q_0=\mathrm{sin}(\pi /8)0.15`$, which is equivalent to the QBER value provided by the BB84 protocol . The respected value of the compatible information is equal to $`I_0=I_{AB}(\theta =\theta _0)0.11`$ bit.

As it is demonstrated in reference , the QBER is not always an adequate characteristic of the degree of Eve eavesdropping attacks, for instance in the B92 protocol. Therefore, we suggest to use another characteristic, the *compatible information error rate* (CIER), which naturally reflects in term of the compatible information the degree of Eve interference to the transmitting information:

$$Q=1\frac{I}{I_{\mathrm{max}}}[0,1],$$
(13)
where $`I`$ is the compatible information $`I_{AB}`$ with the presence of eavesdropping and $`I_{\mathrm{max}}`$ its maximal possible value without Eve attacks. By contrast with QBER ($`q`$), CIER ($`Q`$) is the most adequate parameter for the information properties of the QC-protocols.

Without Eve eavesdropping attacks, both parameters $`q`$ and $`Q`$ are equal to zero, which means that there are no transmission errors. At the maximal level of Eve interference with the transmitting information, we have $`Q=1`$ and $`q=0.5`$, which correspond to the maximal possible level of errors caused by Eve. At the critical point $`\theta _0`$, where the amount of information gained by Eve is equal to the amount of information received by Bob, $`Q_00.4`$ and $`q_00.15`$. For our QC-protocol, the larger critical value $`Q_0`$ the better stability of the protocol to the errors caused by Eve and, therefore, better information properties. Thus, the protocol ensures the security of transmitted data even at essential errors rate during the data transmission. At the error level exceeding critical, i.e. at $`Q>Q_0`$, the protocol does not ensure security of transmitted data and Alice and Bob decide that the transmission is not completed.

In suggested QC-protocol the requirement of bases reconciliation for Alice and Bob is lifted because even with no selection of quantum states made at the Bob’s end he receives about 0.28 bit for every elementary step of the QC-protocol, if there is no external noise during data transmission. However, one can significantly improve stability of the protocol for a noisy quantum channel reconciling the basis states.

After transmission of all data through a noisy quantum channel Alice and Bob can select only those transmitted data for transmitting which they used approximately similar orthogonal bases. In our case, the set of basis states is the continuum, thus it is necessary to split it into several areas and count the bases similar, if they are in the same area on the Bloch sphere. As a result of such selection, Alice and Bob will receive without any intrusion of Eve maximal information value of about 1 bit during one elementary step of the QC-protocol. This can be clearly understood because for an initial state of the Alice-Bob system in the form of antisymmetric Bell state the mutual selected information is equal to unity when use similar oriented bases of Alice and Bob. One can suppose that Eve does not affect the data selection with the reconciling bases and does not use additional transformations after the bases have been reconciled. Then, she gains no additional information.

Information that Bob receives from Alice after the bases reconciliation is shown in figure 2 (dashed line). The critical error rate $`Q`$ is then significantly increased and is of the order of value $`Q_00.81`$ and for the QBER we have $`q_00.42`$, which is much better than for all known QC-protocols.

Note that the bases reconciliation procedure significantly increases the number of messages transmitted over an insecure classical channel, which in the limit of infinitively small areas on which we split the continual quantum alphabet grows up to infinity. Respectively, the number of selected messages transmitted through a quantum channel is decreased. It is not necessary, however, to infinitely increase the accuracy. As a rule, errors during the data transmission have typical for a specific experimental QC setup finite level. Therefore, for the bases reconciliation it is sufficient to increase the accuracy according to the external conditions up to the level that ensures the error rate less than the critical one at which the QC-protocol guarantees the secure transmission of data.

## IV Multidimensional case

We can fundamentally improve the properties of suggested QC-protocol using multidimensional Bob’s and Alice’s spaces ($`D>2`$). In multidimensional case, the maximally possible amount of mutual selected information is equal to $`I_{\mathrm{max}}^D=\mathrm{log}_2D`$ and grows infinitely at $`D\mathrm{}`$. Maximally possible amount of non-selected information is equal to the volume of accessible information :

$`I_{\mathrm{accesible}}^D=\mathrm{log}_2D{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\mathrm{ln}2}}{\displaystyle \underset{k=2}{\overset{D}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{k}},`$

which in the limit $`D\mathrm{}`$ is restricted by the value of $`I^{\mathrm{}}0.61`$ bit.

After reconciliation the Alice’s and Bob’s bases the amount of information in the system Alice-Bob is given by maximally possible selected information, whereas in the Alice-Eve system—by the maximally possible non-selected information. Then, critical level of errors in the limit of $`D\mathrm{}`$ is equal to unit:

$$Q_0^{\mathrm{}}=\underset{D\mathrm{}}{lim}Q_0^D=1\underset{D\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{I_{\mathrm{accessible}}^D}{I_{\mathrm{max}}^D}1\underset{D\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{0.61}{\mathrm{log}_2D}=1.$$
(14)
This means that increasing the dimensionality of the Alice-Bob system one can reach the critical error rate (QBER or CIER), which exceeds any given value. The multidimensional spaces of Alice and Bob can be realized using block coding when information is transmitted simultaneously with the help of several qubits.

Fundamental advantage of the suggested QC-protocol that employs all states of the Hilbert space is that it can work, in principle, at any imperfections or noise in the quantum channel (either internal or external) and has no any critical CIER value after which the protocol becomes insecure. For any given CIER value one can calculate (from technical point of view, calculations in the case of multidimensional space can be readily done) the required dimensionality of the Alice-Bob space in order to meet this value of CIER. Essentially more difficult is the question about Eve’s transformation structure to perform optimal eavesdropping in the multidimensional case, but the outlined above result is qualitatively correct, despite any specific structure of the Eve’s transformation.

## V Experimental setup for QC with continuous alphabet

In this section, we suggest an experimental setup for the QC with continuous alphabet “letters” of which are coded with polarization of the photons (figure 3). Then, a random letter corresponds to an arbitrary photon polarization.

A source of EPR-pairs of photons, for instance an optical parametric oscillator (2) generating pairs of photons in antisymmetric entangled state, is located at the Alice’s end of the cryptographic setup. Alice receives one of the generated photons, another one is transmitted via a secure quantum channel to Bob.

An arbitrary projector can be realized by rotation to an arbitrary angle the polarization plate (3) with the following measurement in the fixed basis. Photons transmitted from Alice to Bob are in the antisymmetric state, thus Alice knows exactly, after the photon measurement on her end, that photon she sent to Bob is an orthogonal state to that one measured by Alice. As a result of the outlined procedure, Alice sends to Bob a randomly chosen quantum “letter”.

Likewise, Bob for the measurement in an arbitrary basis first rotates polarization of the incident photon by polarization plate (3) to the angle value of which he receives from Alice over an insecure classical channel (not shown in the figure) and then performs measurement in the fixed basis.

A case of multidimensional spaces of the quantum channel input and output can be realized when information is transmitted with the help of several entangled qubits (photons). This, however, is an experimental difficulty to generate, operate, and measure arbitrary states in multidimensional spaces, i.e., difficulty to generate and operate multiple entangled photons.

## VI Conclusions

In conclusion, a new QC-protocol based on the quantum alphabet with infinitive number of “letters” (i.e., employing all the quantum states of the Alice-Bob quantum system) is proposed. It has a number of advantages in comparison with other known QC-protocols. Even in two-dimensional case the protocol shows an essential increase of the QBER. In multidimensional case, the protocol has a fundamental, qualitatively new feature, which allows secure data transmission through practically any noisy quantum channel. For estimation of the Eve’s intervention into the data transmission through a quantum channel we use classical mutual Shannon information-based criterion, which adequately reflects the information aspect of the eavesdropping and can be effectively used for both constructing and analyzing the QC-protocols.

###### Acknowledgements.

This work was partially supported by RFBR grants Nos. 01–02–16311, 02–03–32200, and INTAS Grant INFO 00–479.


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# DISORIENTED CHIRAL CONDENSATE FORMATION IN HEAVY ION COLLISIONS? Talk at TH-2002, ’International Conference on Theoretical Physics’, Paris, France.

## 1 The Disoriented Chiral Condensate

Large number of pions with energies below or of the order of a few hundred MeV are commonly produced in high energy hadronic or nuclear collisions experiments. Very soon, it has been proposed to interpret this phenomenon as resulting from classical radiation, in analogy with the classical nature of electromagnetic waves corresponding to a large number of photons. This idea has received only a marginal attention until the early $`1990`$’s where it has been rediscovered and further developed, on solid theoretical grounds . In Ref. , Blaizot and Krzywicki studied the dynamics of a classical pion field configuration described by the non-linear sigma model, in the context of a simple idealized model of a high energy collision. They found a solution where the classical pion field oscillates coherently in a given direction in isospin space. In parallel, Bjorken proposed that, in such collisions, the chiral quark condensate could be momentarily misaligned from its vacuum orientation in isospin space, resulting in a non-trivial long wavelength configuration of the pion field . This intuitive picture corresponds to Blaizot and Krzywicki’s solution. The “disoriented chiral condensate” (DCC) subsequently decays toward ordinary vacuum by coherent (classical) radiation of soft pions. The emitted pions can be though of as being in a coherent state , schematically111Strictly speaking, the following state contains components of arbitrary charge. Generalized coherent or squeezed states of definite charge can be constructed . This is, however, of no relevance for the present discussion.:r

$$|\mathrm{DCC}\mathrm{exp}\left(\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}d^3k\mathrm{J}_a(𝐤)\mathrm{a}_a^{}(𝐤)\right)|0,$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{a}_a^{}(𝐤)`$ is the creation operator of a free pion with isospin $`a=1,2,3`$ and momentum $`𝐤`$ and where $`\mathrm{J}_a(𝐤)`$ is the classical source emitting pions (summation over repeated indices is implied). The latter has the following form:

$$\mathrm{J}_a(𝐤)=\mathrm{J}(𝐤)\mathrm{e}_a,$$
(2)
that is, its orientation in isospin space is momentum independent. This reflects the fact that the disorientation of the pion field in isospin space is assumed to be constant in space (in the volume occupied by the DCC). The classical pion field configuration corresponding to this state is therefore a superposition of waves, which oscillate in the very same direction in isospin space. One can speak of a (linearly) polarized field configuration . This property is at the origin of the most striking signature of the DCC, namely the anomalously large event-by-event fluctuations of the neutral fraction of the total number of radiated pions

$$f=\frac{N_{\pi ^0}}{N_{\pi ^0}+N_{\pi ^\pm }}\frac{N_{\pi ^3}}{N_{\pi ^1}+N_{\pi ^2}+N_{\pi ^3}},$$

where $`N_{\pi ^a}d^3k|\mathrm{J}_a(𝐤)|^\mathrm{𝟐}`$ is the number of pions of type $`a`$. Indeed, exploiting isospin symmetry of strong interactions, it is an easy exercise to show that the probability distribution of the above ratio is given by the inverse square root law (see e.g. ):

$$P(f)=\frac{1}{2\sqrt{f}}.$$
(3)
This is a direct manifestation of the coherence of the DCC state and is to be contrasted with the sharply peaked binomial distribution one obtains in the case of incoherent pion production. In particular, the probability that less than $`10\%`$ of the total number of radiated pions222Of course, this only concerns the pions emitted from the DCC. be neutral is expected to be as large as $`30\%`$. This striking property is at the basis of all present strategies for experimental searches (see e.g.  and references therein)333Various other possible signatures have also been discussed ..

## 2 A dynamical scenario: the out-of-equilibrium chiral phase transition

Although it had been understood that the DCC field configuration is a solution of the low energy dynamics of strong interactions, a microscopic understanding of its possible formation was still lacking. An important progress has been made in this respect in 1993, when K. Rajagopal and F. Wilczek realized that a classical long wavelength pion field configuration could indeed be formed during the out of equilibrium chiral phase transition in heavy ion collisions: the rapid expansion of the system results in a sudden suppression of initial fluctuations (quenching) which in turn triggers a dramatic amplification of soft pion modes .

### 2.1 The quench scenario

To model the dynamics of the far from equilibrium chiral phase transition, Rajagopal and Wilczek considered the classical $`O(4)`$ linear sigma model, with action

$$𝒮=d^4x\left\{\frac{1}{2}_\mu \varphi _a^\mu \varphi _a\frac{\lambda }{4}\left(\varphi _a\varphi _av^2\right)^2+H\sigma \right\}.$$
(4)
The parameters $`v`$, $`\lambda `$ and $`H`$ are related to physical quantities via:

$$m_\pi ^2=m_\sigma ^22\lambda f_\pi ^2=\lambda \left(f_\pi ^2v^2\right),\text{and}H=f_\pi m_\pi ^2.$$

and are chosen so that $`m_\pi =135`$ MeV, $`m_\sigma =600`$ MeV and $`f_\pi =92.5`$ MeV. The corresponding equations of motion are evolved numerically on a lattice for a given initial field configuration. The dramatic effect of expansion is modeled by assuming an instantaneous quench from above to below the critical temperature at initial time. In practice, the values of the field $`\varphi _a`$ and its first time derivative $`\dot{\varphi }_a`$ are chosen as independent random variables at each site of a lattice444The lattice spacing has therefore the physical meaning of the correlation length in the high temperature phase.. They are sampled from Gaussian distributions centered at $`\varphi _a=\dot{\varphi }_a=0`$, corresponding to a high temperature symmetric phase, and with variances (in lattice units) $`\varphi _a^2=v^2/16`$ and $`\dot{\varphi }_a^2=v^2/4`$, which are smaller than what they would be in the high temperature phase, thereby describing quenched fluctuations.

The main result of Ref.  is reproduced in Fig. 1, which shows the squared amplitude of different field modes as a function of time: due to the far from equilibrium initial condition, one observes a dramatic amplification of low momentum modes of the pion field at intermediate times. This phenomenon is analogous to that of domain formation after quenching a ferromagnet, or to the growth of quantum fluctuation during the preheating of the early universe after a period of inflation. It can be qualitatively understood in a mean-field approximation : at early times, the local curvature of the effective potential (effective mass squared) is negative and soft modes, for which the associated effective frequency is imaginary, experience amplification. This is the so-called spinodal instability, well known in condensed matter or nuclear physics. At intermediate times, the (quasi-)periodic oscillations of field averaged value around the minimum of its effective potential trigger a further amplification via the mechanism of parametric resonance .

In terms of the underlying quantum dynamics, the amplification of Fourier modes amplitudes is to be interpreted as the formation of a classical configuration of the pion field. Because of expansion, which eventually causes interactions to freeze out, the system may be left in such a configuration and subsequently decay through coherent pion emission.

### 2.2 Further developments

This proposal has attracted much attention and the quench scenario has been extensively studied and further developed. In particular, quantum effects in the mean field approximation have been included (see e.g. ) and the drastic quench approximation has been abandoned in favor of a description taking explicitely expansion into account . In this context, the importance of initial conditions has been pointed out . It has been realized that, in most cases, initial fluctuations are not suppressed efficiently enough and expansion hardly drive the system into a region of instability. This observation led to the conclusion that the formation of a strong pion field is a rare phenomenon. Exploiting the assumption of local equilibrium at initial time, it has been possible to estimate the probability that a potentially observable signal is produced in this scenario  (see also Ref. ). For central Pb-Pb collisions at CERN SPS energies, this analysis yields the upper bound

$$\mathrm{Proba}(\mathrm{`}\mathrm{`}\mathrm{observable}\mathrm{"}\mathrm{DCC})10^3.$$
(5)
where “observable” means that the number of produced DCC pions is required to be greater than a typical multiplicity fluctuation . Note that this estimate is obtained within the quench scenario and, therefore, corresponds to a conditional probability, which assumes that the conditions leading to a quench are met. Thus the DCC is expected to be a fairly rare phenomenon, a fact which has important implications. For instance, it is very unlikely that more than one “observable” DCC domain be formed in a single collision555This does not exclude the possibility that many DCCs with small number of pions be formed. However, these do not correspond to classical field configurations.. Moreover, it is clear that the phenomenon should be looked for on an event-by-event basis (see also ).

The quench scenario has been widely accepted as a microscopic description of DCC formation in heavy ion collisions and, as such, has been extensively used for DCC phenomenology . Paradoxically, the expected large event-by-event fluctuations of the neutral ratio (cf. Eq. (3)) have never been observed in actual simulations of the out-of-equilibrium phase transition . Of course, deviations from the perfect law (3) were expected on the basis of a microscopic model underlying the original picture of a perfectly polarized DCC, cf. Eqs. (1) and (2). However, the complete absence of large fluctuations in the quench scenario suggests that this idealized picture is far from being realized in the context of the far-from-equilibrium chiral phase transition .

## 3 A more realistic picture: the unpolarized DCC

Whether the original picture is realized or not in a realistic model is a question of great phenomenological importance and requires a careful investigation. If the rapid suppression of initial fluctuations provides a robust mechanism leading to the formation of a strong coherent pion field, it is not clear whether it can explain the hypothetical polarization (2) originally proposed. The key point is to realize that the usual assumption of a (locally) thermalized initial state implies that the field modes are completely uncorrelated at initial time: they are independent (Gaussian) random numbers. Therefore, in order to generate a DCC configuration, the microscopic mechanism at work needs not only to be efficient in amplifying the modes amplitudes, but it should also build correlations between amplified modes.

To study this question, we have performed a detailed statistical analysis of generic pion field configurations produced after a quench, with particular emphasis on their isospin structure . For this purpose, it is sufficient to consider the original model of Rajagopal and Wilczek , which exhibits all the relevant physical features. In particular, the classical field approximation allows one to take into account the full nonlinearities, which are crucial for the study of correlations. We sample initial field configurations in the Gaussian statistical ensemble described in Sec. 2.1, and we follow the exact time evolution of each configuration by solving numerically the equations of motion corresponding to the classical action (4). In this way, we can study the produced configurations on an event-by-event basis. To analyze the isospin orientations of distinct field modes, a sensitive observable is the neutral fraction of pions in each mode k, defined as666For a more detailed discussion, see Ref. .

$$f(𝐤)=\frac{n_3(𝐤)}{n_1(𝐤)+n_2(𝐤)+n_3(𝐤)},$$
(6)
where $`n_{a=1,\mathrm{},3}(𝐤)`$ are the averaged occupation numbers corresponding to the classical field configuration at the time $`t_f`$ of measurement:

$$n_a(𝐤)=\left|\frac{i\dot{\phi }_a(𝐤,t_f)+\omega _k\phi _a(𝐤,t_f)}{\sqrt{2\omega _k}}\right|^2.$$
(7)
Here $`\phi _a`$ and $`\dot{\phi }_a`$ denote the Fourier component of the field and its time derivative respectively and $`\omega _k=\sqrt{k^2+m_\pi ^2}`$ is the free pion dispersion relation.

In the quench approximation, where the initial fluctuations are suppressed by hand, the system is initially unstable and all initial configurations undergo a dramatic amplification, as in Fig. 1. This procedure therefore selects the interesting events. To distinguish between different mechanisms responsible for amplification, we analyze the properties of the statistical ensemble at various final times $`t_f`$. The plots presented here are obtained for $`t_f=10`$ fm, corresponding to the end of the spinodal instability, but the results to be discussed below are found to be insensitive to this choice.

Let us concentrate on the amplified long wavelength modes, which are the one we are interested in. The event-by-event distribution of the neutral fraction (6) for the zero mode (the most amplified) is shown in Fig. 2. At a given time, all the amplified modes exhibit a similar distribution. In particular, we observe that nothing significant happens concerning their isospin structure: the neutral fraction distribution is essentially the same as the corresponding one in the initial ensemble. The latter can be computed exactly  and is represented by the dashed line in Fig. 2. For a given mode $`𝐤`$, it reads777There is a subtlety associated with the choice of boundary conditions for the field . The following formula is obtained for Neumann boundary conditions, which are convenient for discussing the question of polarization.

$$P(f)=\frac{1}{2}\left[F_\mathrm{\Omega }(f)+F_\mathrm{\Omega }(f)\right],$$
(8)
where

$$F_\mathrm{\Omega }(f)=[\mathrm{\Omega }(1f)]\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }+1}{\mathrm{\Omega }(12f)}\right)^{3/2},$$

and888For a general Gaussian ensemble, one has $`\mathrm{\Omega }=(b^2+\omega _ka^2)/(b^2\omega _ka^2)`$, where $`a^2\phi _a^2`$ and $`b^2\dot{\phi }_a^2`$ are the variances of the Fourier components of the field and its time derivative respectively.

$$\mathrm{\Omega }=\frac{4+\omega _k^2}{4\omega _k^2}.$$

Although not exactly $`1/\sqrt{f}`$, the distribution is very broad, exhibiting large fluctuations around the mean value $`f=1/3`$, which is the relevant point for phenomenology. As emphasized above, these fluctuations are a direct manifestation of the classical nature of the field modes. The small deviations from the perfect law (2) come from the fact that the latter are not strictly linearly polarized .

However, we find that the that distinct modes have completely independent polarizations in isospin space, as can be seen on Fig. 3, which shows the correlation between the neutral fractions in different (amplified) modes. These modes oscillate coherently, but their directions of oscillation in isospin space are completely random. In other words, different modes act as independent DCCs.

This has the important phenomenological consequence that the large event-by-event fluctuations of the neutral fraction are rapidly washed out when the contributions of several modes are added in a momentum bin – as commonly done in experimental analysis – even when one limits one’s attention to soft modes only. This is illustrated on Fig. 4, where we show the neutral fraction distribution in a bin containing $`10`$ modes. The expected signal is considerably reduced, already for such a small bin. This explains the absence of large fluctuations reported in previous works , where the authors typically considered the contribution of a large number of modes999The absence of large fluctuations has also been reported in a recent work in a slightly different context ..

In conclusion, contrarily to what is usually assumed, the non-linear dynamics does not build the required correlation between modes: the state produced in the simplest form of the quench scenario, where no correlations are present initially, is not the originally proposed DCC. Our detailed analysis reveals that a more realistic picture is that of a superposition of waves having independent orientations in isospin space: an “unpolarized” DCC configuration, as depicted on Fig. 5.

Of course, one cannot exclude the possibility that the required correlations between modes be indeed (partially) formed in actual nuclear or hadronic collisions by means of some other mechanism101010For example, the scenario proposed in Ref.  could give rise to correlations in the initial state.. The resulting configuration would lie between the two extreme pictures represented on Fig. 5. Our point here is that there exits, at present, no microscopic justification for the polarized DCC state which has been looked for so far in experiments . Instead, within our present theoretical understanding of DCC formation in heavy ion collisions, one expects an unpolarized state to be produced. It is, therefore, important to take this information into account in further theoretical as well as experimental investigations.

## 4 What next?

Since it has been proposed in the early 1990’s, the idea that a DCC might be formed in high energy collisions experiments has triggered an intense activity, both theoretical and experimental. Attempts to detect this phenomenon include the T-864 MiniMax experiment, a dedicated search in proton-antiproton collisions at the Fermilab Tevatron , or event-by-event analysis of Pb-Pb collisions by the WA98 and NA49 collaborations at CERN SPS . No clear experimental evidence for DCC formation has been reported so far111111DCC has, however, been proposed to be responsible for so-called Centauro events, reported in the cosmic ray literature .. This is a bit disappointing in view of the fact that the phenomenon seems so natural, at least in the context of heavy ion collisions. Indeed, the growth of long wavelength fluctuations after a quench is a generic phenomenon, observed in many actual situations, for example in condensed matter experiments, and which is likely to happen in heavy ion collisions as well. In particular, it has been shown to occur in various different models . The absence of experimental evidence may indicate that the appropriate conditions for DCC formation have not been met yet (see the interesting discussion in Ref. , where it is argued that semi-peripheral heavy ion collisions at RHIC energies might provide more favorable conditions for efficient quenching).

However, we would like to point out that the present experimental situation can actually be simply understood within our present theoretical understanding. Indeed, the upper bound (5) for the probability of DCC formation at SPS energies is at the edge of the current experimental limit probed by the WA98 and NA49 collaborations . Moreover, our results concerning the (iso-)polarization of the DCC indicates that the phenomenon we are seeking may actually be more difficult to observe than originally thought. In particular, it would be of first interest to analyze existing data in the light of the present results and to design new strategies for future DCC searches at RHIC and LHC , taking into account its unpolarized nature.

Besides providing a useful tool for the experimental study of the QCD chiral phase transition , the detection of a DCC is of fundamental interest on its own. Indeed, the possible formation of a coherent classical pion field is to be expected on very general grounds as a direct consequence of the bosonic nature of pions. This phenomenon is analogous to that of Bose-Einstein condensation, currently observed in condensed matter experiments. The fact that such a macroscopic wave of QCD matter may be produced is a very exciting possibility. I think it is worth the effort.

## Acknowledgments

I acknowledge a fruitful collaboration with A. Krzywicki about the present subject as well as many interesting conversations about physics and other topics. I thank J.-P. Blaizot for stimulating discussions.


text:
# The Role of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Ultraviolet Extinction. I. Probing small molecular PAHsBased on observations made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-26555.

## 1 Introduction

Because a large fraction of the photons passing through the interstellar medium (ISM) is absorbed and re-emitted in the infrared (IR), the intrinsic spectral energy distribution of reddened astrophysical objects (particularly in the ultraviolet) cannot be accurately determined without detailed knowledge of the absorbing medium. In particular, recent research suggests that ultraviolet (UV) extinction, particularly the rise toward shorter wavelengths, may be due to either very small grains or large molecules, or a combination of both. It is crucially important for studies of the chemistry and physics of the ISM to determine which it is.

While efforts have been made to study interstellar dust in various Galactic environments at wavelengths from the x-ray to the radio, a single line of sight is rarely subjected to observations over a wide wavelength range. This is particularly true for the UV and infrared regimes. In the UV, the amount of extinction due to dust rises rapidly toward shorter wavelengths and a moderate column density can easily lead to a paucity of photons. Consequently, the typical interstellar sightline used for UV studies has a small column of dust. These lines of sight probe the diffuse ISM and avoid all but the very outer edges of dark or molecular clouds. IR studies of dust, on the other hand, probe the dense regions of the ISM and concentrate on molecular bands of many different solid materials including mixed molecular ices, silicates and carbon grains associated with dense cloud environments. So, to a large extent, studies of interstellar dust in the UV and IR have been two “separate worlds.” Another important difference between the two is that UV and optical photons probe transitions between electronic levels and are uniquely capable of identifying specific atoms and molecules. IR photons, on the other hand, probe radiative transitions between states associated with molecular vibrations and are characteristic of functional molecular groups rather than specific molecules. The result of this dichotomy has been models of dust grains which are strongly biased toward fitting observations in one wavelength regime or the other. The absence of lines of sight for which both UV and IR data are available makes it difficult to reconcile the constraints derived separately from each wavelength regime.

Until fairly recently, the popular dust grain models were fairly simple, having two or three major grain components. The Mathis model consisted of power-law size distributions of separate populations of bare spherical silicate and graphite grains (Mathis, Rumpl, & Nordsieck 1977). The Greenberg model consisted of large grains with silicate cores surrounded by organic mantles and small carbonaceous grains, possibly polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) 111We use the term PAH generically to describe the entire class that includes regular PAHs, ionized PAHs, dehydrogenated PAHS, PAHs with sidegroups, etc. (e.g., Greenberg 1989). This kind of simple model has been valuable and gives reasonable fits to the observed Milky Way dust extinction, polarization and spectral features, but empirical evidence indicates that interstellar grains are far more complex. Attempts are now being made to produce a unified model of interstellar dust to satisfy observational constraints across all wavelengths (Mathis 1996, 1998; Li & Greenberg 1997; Dwek 1997; Zubko 1999; Witt 2000). These much more complex and realistic models of interstellar dust are now possible through the use of improved observational constraints and the development of sophisticated (and efficient) numerical techniques. The abundance of each element available for grain formation provides important constraints (Sofia & Meyer 2001). Carbon is an important constituent in all major grain models and may be involved in some or all of the so-called unidentified infrared emission bands (UIBs) which are ascribed to PAHs, the diffuse interstellar absorption bands (DIBs), the near-IR emission continuum, the extended red emission (ERE), the 2175 Å absorption “bump”, and the continuous extinction in the visible and UV (Mathis 1998; Whittet 2003).

While the models cited above vary quite considerably in the grain types used, they all associate the production of the UIBs with PAHs. Over the past two decades, a combination of observational, laboratory and theoretical astrophysics has led to the suggestion that PAH molecules may be the carriers of the UIBs, which consist of a related series of emission features seen most strongly at wavelengths of 3.3, 6.8, 7.7, 8.6, and 11.3 $`\mu `$m in the spectra of astronomical sources (Duley & Williams 1981; Puget & Léger 1989; Allamandola, Tielens, & Barker 1989). However, critical uncertainties remain regarding the amount of carbon needed: PAHs are estimated to require from 5% to almost 20% of the available carbon in the ISM (Boulanger et al. 1998; Tielens et al. 1999). Some grain models also suggest that PAHs are at least partially responsible for the 2175 Å bump and the far-UV extinction (Li & Greenberg 1997). These claims are driven in part by laboratory measurements which show that some PAHs absorb heavily at far-UV wavelengths, and some even show absorption bands near the position of the 2175 Å bump (Salama et al. 1996, Salama 1999). However, it is not likely that PAHs alone could produce the bump. The strength of the bump is not well correlated with the far-UV extinction strength, so neither PAHs nor any other single grain-type can be used to completely explain both extinction components (Mathis & Cardelli 1992).

Observations indicate that the carriers of the IR bands must be a ubiquitous and abundant component of the interstellar medium. The bands have been observed in a large variety of sources - the diffuse ISM, H II regions, reflection nebulae, planetary nebulae, and galactic nuclei - all characterized by the presence of dust and ultraviolet radiation (e.g., Tielens 1993; Mattila et al. 1996; Onaka et al. 1996; Schutte et al. 1998). PAH emission is most often associated with photo-dissociation regions (PDRs) which are characterized by fairly high densities and intense UV radiation fields. Such densities are often significantly higher than those seen along most of the diffuse ISM sightlines studied in the UV. Two exceptions are the reflection nebulae, NGC 2023 and NGC 7023. The central stars of these nebulae have moderate reddening (E(B-V)=0.4-0.5 mag) and have been studied with IUE. Here, PAH emission is seen primarily in filaments in these nebulae where there are density enhancements. No unusual structure is seen in the IUE UV extinction curves of the central stars (HD 37903 and HD 200775; Fitzpatrick & Massa 1990; Walker et al. 1980). However, the S/N in IUE data is not very high and, as we describe below, the predicted UV PAH band strengths are small for these values of E(B-V). Other attempts to detect and identify absorption features in the UV are detailed in Tripp, Cardelli, & Savage (1994). Successful detection of the UV electronic transitions would allow for the identification of specific species, something that is not possible through observations of the IR vibrational transitions, which probe only the presence of particular molecular bonding arrangements (e.g., aromatic vs. aliphatic hydrocarbons).

## 2 Observations and Analysis

We selected reddened stars whose dust columns are significantly higher than those of previous UV studies. Specifically, we observed three reddened stars, listed in Table 1, having E(B-V) between 1.3 and 1.7 mag. All three of these sightlines pass through relatively dense clouds; two, HD 194279 and HD 229059, in the Cyg OB2 cloud and one, HD 283809, in the Taurus dark cloud. They all show evidence for the 3.4 µm feature in absorption (Smith, Sellgren, & Brooke 1993; Pendleton et al. 1994; Gordon et al. 2003). The 3.4 µm feature is associated with a C-H stretching vibration in aliphatic hydrocarbons that are believed to be part of organic refractory grains made of aromatic and aliphatic units (Pendleton & Allamandola 2002). Relatively unreddened stars with spectral types well-matched to the reddened stars were also observed. The unreddened standards were selected to match the reddened stars to within one half of a spectral subtype (B1.5 versus B1). This minimizes the noise due to mismatch between the stellar features of the reddened and unreddened stars. There was some difficulty in finding lightly reddened stars of matching spectral types that were faint enough to observe with STIS without saturating the detector. For instance, we were forced to choose HD 151805 even though it has a significant reddening.

The five stars in this program were all observed with STIS/HST and the MAMA detectors with both the G140L (1150-1730 Å) and G230L (1570-3180 Å) gratings. These low resolution gratings provide two-pixel resolutions of 1.2 Å (G140L) and 3.2 Å (G230L). The observation dates, exposure times and apertures used are listed in Table 1 for each of the five stars. HD 283809 and HD 229059 were observed through the 52x2 slit and the data were reduced using the On-The-Fly calibration. However, the count rates for the other three stars required that a neutral-density slit be used. Neutral-density-slit modes are unsupported but good calibrations were possible using observations of the white dwarf, GD 153, made through both the standard slit (52x2) and the neutral-density slits (31x0.05NDB, 31x0.05NDC), which were available in the MAST archive. The GD 153 observations are also listed in Table 1. The conversions between the neutral-density slits and the standard slit were derived by dividing the 52x2 aperture spectrum by 31x0.05NDB and 31x0.05NDC spectra of GD 153. The ratio spectra were smoothed with a 31-pixel-width boxcar. These ratio spectra were essentially flat with smooth variations across the wavelength range of around 25%. These smoothed spectra were used to convert the measured counts for the neutral-density aperture observations to calibrated spectra.

The calibrated G140L and G230L spectra were coadded using weights defined by the pipeline-produced uncertainties to produce a single spectrum for each star. Extinction curves were constructed using the standard pair method (e.g., Massa, Savage, & Fitzpatrick 1983). The estimated uncertainties in the extinction curve contain terms that depend on the broadband photometric uncertainties as well as uncertainties in the STIS fluxes. For details of our error analysis, the reader is referred to Gordon & Clayton (1998). The uncertainty term which most affects our ability to search for new structure in extinction curves is that due to random uncertainties in the flux measurements. Uncertainty terms which affect the overall level of the extinction curve (e.g., B and V magnitude uncertainties) do not mask the presence of structure.

The extinction curves for the reddened/comparison star pairs, HD 229059/HD 151805 and HD 283809/HD 51038, are shown in the upper panels of Figures 1 and 2, respectively. We have not shown the extinction curve for the HD 194279/HD 151805 pair as it suffers from significant spectral mismatch (mainly luminosity mismatch). This results in an extinction curve dominated by mismatches in stellar lines which is unsuitable for our purposes. Therefore, the HD 194279 sightline is not included in the discussion below. The STIS/HST spectra of the stars are plotted in the lower panels of Figures 1 and 2 for HD 229059/HD 151805 and HD 283809/HD 51038, respectively.

In order to look for new structure in the extinction curves, we made fits to the full UV through near-IR extinction curves. These fits included the known structures of the 2175 Å bump and far-UV rise. The most commonly used fit to UV extinction curves is the Fitzpatrick & Massa (1990) parameterization. However, the Fitzpatrick & Massa fitting function is not valid to the red of 2700 Å (Fitzpatrick 2002, personal communication). Therefore, we adopted a function similar to that of eq. 20 of Pei (1992). This fitting function covers the entire range from X-ray to far-IR wavelengths and consists of 6 terms with a total of 19 free parameters. Restricting the function to just the near-IR to UV wavelength range reduces the fit to 3 terms (Background, Far-UV, and 2175 Å terms) with 9 free parameters. Pei (1992) used this function to fit, by eye, the average extinction curves in the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds and found it to be accurate to $`0.1A_V`$. We used a numerical curve fitting routine in IDL (mpfitfun) to determine the 9 free parameters and find that the fitting function can reproduce the broad structure of the extinction curve quite accurately.

The fits were subtracted from the measured extinction curves and the resulting residuals are plotted in the middle panel of Figures 1 and 2. The uncertainties which limit our ability to detect new extinction curve structure are those associated with random uncertainties in the ultraviolet flux measurements and, to a lesser extent, spectral mismatch uncertainties. The random uncertainties are plotted in the middle panel of Figures 1 and 2. The uncertainties associated with spectral mismatches will occur at specific wavelengths (coincident with known stellar lines) and must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

The residuals were examined for previously unseen features above the uncertainties. A positive feature in the residuals would signify excess absorption. In the HD 229059 extinction curve, there are significant residuals at approximately 4.6, 6.5, and 7.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}^1`$. The 4.6 $`\mathrm{\mu m}^1`$ residual is at the center of the 2175 Å bump and is due to the absence of stellar flux in the middle of the 2175 Å feature where the absorption is strongest (see Figure 1 bottom panel). The resulting large uncertainties in the extinction curve for HD 229059 cause the bump fit parameters to be less certain. The oscillations seen in the residuals from 4 to 5 $`\mathrm{\mu m}^1`$ for this extinction curve are caused by the uncertain bump fit parameters. The 6.5 and 7.2 $`\mathrm{\mu m}^1`$ residuals are due to known stellar lines, C IV and Si IV, which are difficult to match exactly for supergiants (Cardelli, Sembach, & Mathis 1992). In the HD 283809 extinction curve, there is a residual feature at approximately 6.5 $`\mathrm{\mu m}^1`$. This apparent feature is caused by a luminosity mismatch (Massa et al. 1983) . Well-known interstellar absorption lines such as Mg II $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$2798, 2803, Fe II $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$2344, 2382, 2600, C II $`\lambda `$1334, O I $`\lambda `$1302 and Si II $`\lambda `$$`\lambda `$1260, 1304 are clearly present in the spectra of the reddened stars. These lines cause narrow mismatch features between the reddened and unreddened stars. Thus, we do not find any new features in the extinction curves of HD 229059 or HD 283809 at a 3$`\sigma `$ limit of $`0.02A_V`$. See further quantification below.

## 3 Discussion

The intensity ratios in the UIB emission imply that PAH molecules with 20-200 C atoms are responsible for most of the emission from the ISM (Allamandola et al. 1989; Schutte, Tielens & Allamandola 1993, Salama et al. 1996; Allain, Leach, & Sedlmayr 1996a,b). More recent modeling work, which had the benefit of having a much more extensive ISO data base available for comparison, also suggests minimum numbers of carbon atoms in PAH molecules of order 20 - 30 (Verstraete et al. 2001; Pech, Joblin & Boissel 2002; Peeters et al. 2002). Indeed, comparing the astronomical spectra with the laboratory spectra of mixtures of larger PAHs seems to do somewhat better. The detection of the IR bands in reflection nebulae, where the starlight energy densities are quite insufficient to produce equilibrium thermal emission, has led to the point of view that they are excited in a fluorescence process (Allamandola & Norman 1978; Allamandola, Greenberg, & Norman 1979; Sellgren 1984, Li & Draine 2002). Under the PAH hypothesis, the fluorescence is induced by the absorption of UV and visible photons, with the IR emission features being produced by vibrational relaxation of the excited molecule. PAH molecules and ions have absorption bands that span the UV-visible and near-IR ranges (e.g., Chillier et al. 1999).

The photodestruction of PAHs under interstellar conditions has been modeled (Jochims et al. 1994; Allain et al. 1996a,b; LePage, Snow, & Bierbaum 2003). The first group find a critical size in the range of 30 - 40 carbon atoms, below which PAHs are likely being destroyed. The second group concludes that the critical size is more likely around 50 atoms. LePage et al. (2003) suggest that PAHs with fewer than 15-20 atoms are mostly destroyed, those with 20-30 atoms are dehydrogenated, and larger PAHs are largely ionized. The apparent scarcity of small PAHs in the ISM is supported by the absence of any detection of dust luminescence associated with neutral PAHs shortward of 5400 Å in the spectra of reflection nebulae, which are known sources of UIB emission (Donn et al. 1989; Rush & Witt 1975). Other studies have suggested dominance by both neutral and ionic species in the ISM (Salama et al. 1996; Weingartner & Draine 2001).

UV absorption spectra of isolated PAH species at the low temperatures characteristic of the ISM have been obtained in the laboratory for PAHs ranging from naphthalene ($`C_{10}H_8`$) up to dicoronene ($`C_{48}H_{20}`$) (e.g., Salama, Joblin & Allamandola 1995; Salama et al. 1996; Chillier et al. 1999; Salama 1999; Ruiterkamp et al. 2002). These data constitute a representative dataset for the UV and visible spectra of PAHs. Figure 3 shows selected examples.

Earlier attempts to detect such features with IUE and Copernicus failed because the S/N was too low in the stellar spectra and the dust column was too small (Snow, York, & Resnick 1977; Seab & Snow 1985). The accuracy of the residuals of the two extinction curves plotted in A($`\lambda `$)/AV space in Figures 1 and 2, is inversely proportional to the amount of extinction and also depends on the quality of the spectral-type match. Of the two residual curves, HD 283809 has the best combination of high reddening and good spectral match. The residual curve for HD 229059 is not as smooth, but is good enough to put a similar limit on broad features. For narrow (a few Å, near the resolution limit of our data) stellar photopheric-type lines, the 3$`\sigma `$ limit is $``$0.03-0.04 AV. Laboratory spectra show that PAH features are considerably broader than our resolution. The detectability of a feature rises as it becomes broader, the detection limit goes down as the square root of the width of the feature. For example, we should be able to detect a 20 Å wide feature222 Recent gas-phase data indicate that PAH bands are broadened by a factor of 4 -5 in solid matrices (Biennier et al. 2003). down to a 3$`\sigma `$ limit of $``$0.02 AV. Looking at Figures 1 and 2, clearly, there are no broad PAH-like features with depths greater than $``$0.02 AV.

From this we can estimate the upper limit on the abundance of a PAH molecule. The absorption cross-section of the naphthalene molecule averaged over the strong 2120 Å band is about 4 x 10-16 cm2. The strong bands of the other PAH species have comparable strengths. We assume the average Galactic gas-to-dust ratio, NH/E(B-V) = 5.8 x 1021 atoms cm-2 mag-1 (Bohlin, Savage, & Drake 1978). So with AV = N$`{}_{H}{}^{}R_{V}^{}`$/5.8 x 1021 mag, and taking 2.5 x 10-16 cm2 as a typical band strength, we find that the average optical depth in a strong PAH band would be: $`\tau `$ = 2.5 x 10-16(N(PAH)/N(H))(AV/RV)5.8 x 1021. The upper limit on our detection is $`\tau <`$ (1.086)0.02AV so N(PAH)/NH $`<`$ (1.086) 0.02RV /((2.5 x 10-16)(5.8 x 1021)) = 4.6 x 10-8(RV/3.1). We assume here for simplicity that NH/E(B-V) is a constant for all RV (see Kim & Martin 1996).

The abundance of a single species of PAH could be given by N(single species of PAH)/NH =(the Cosmic carbon abundance, C/H) x (the fraction of C in all PAHs) x (the fraction of C in all PAHs in a single PAH species)/(the number of C atoms in this PAH molecule). The cosmic abundance of carbon is not well known (e.g., Sofia & Meyer 2001; Prieto, Lambert & Asplund 2002). We will assume C/H = 3 x 10-4. As discussed above, it has been estimated that 5 - 20% of the carbon is in the form of PAHs, and that PAHs with 20 - 200 C atoms best fit the UIB emission. So, using these ranges, assuming that the fraction of this one PAH species is 0.10, that the fraction of available C in PAHs is 0.05, and the number of C atoms in the PAH species is 20 then N(single species of PAH)/NH = 7.5 x 10-8. For a larger PAH species of 200 C atoms, we get N(single species of PAH)/NH = 7.5 x 10-9. For a fraction of available C in all PAHs of 0.20, we get N(single species of PAH)/NH = 3.0 x 10-7 for a 20-atom PAH species and 3.0 x 10-8 for a 200-atom species, respectively. ¿From these estimates, we would expect that 20-atom PAH species should be above our detection limit, while 200-atom species would only be detectable if they are very abundant.

The predicted UV spectral signatures of PAHs while weaker than the well-known 2175 Å absorption feature, nevertheless, were expected to be much stronger in the highly reddened sightlines of our sample than in those previously studied. However, individual PAH molecules whose absorption cross-sections are typical of those measured in the laboratory do not seem to be present in numbers large enough to produce measurable UV absorption bands. As described above, PAHs with fewer than 30-50 carbon atoms, thought to have strong UV absorptions, may be destroyed by the ambient interstellar radiation field. Another possibility is that many PAH species are present in small numbers each producing a small amount of absorption throughout the UV wavelength range, i.e., the absence of detectable PAH absorption does not, in and of itself, prove an absence of PAH molecules in the ISM. There is nothing known about the sightlines toward the Taurus cloud (HD 283809) or Cyg OB2 (HD 229059) that would imply that the abundance of PAH molecules would be low along these sightlines. The UIB emission seems to be ubiquitous in the Galaxy, even being present in the diffuse ISM (e.g., Chan et al. 2001).

These new STIS data provide a critical test of the PAH model. The results of this study serve to put upper limits on the abundance of individual PAH species in the ISM. They provide, in particular, constraints on the abundance of smaller PAHs (i.e., containing fewer than 30-50 carbon atoms) in these lines of sight. They also call for higher S/N observations (at the $`0.01A_V`$ level or better) in the UV to search for absorption associated with larger molecular PAHs that are now thought to be representative of the interstellar PAH population.

This work was supported by STScI grant GO-08670.01-A.


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# The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager observation of the 1809 keV Line from Galactic 26Al

## 1 Introduction

The 1809 keV line of 26Al was the first astronomical gamma-ray line from radioactive decay discovered in the Galaxy (Mahoney et al., 1984), confirming a prediction made by Ramaty & Lingenfelter (1977) and Arnett (1977). It is the brightest Galactic line after the line from positron annihilation at 511 keV. This first result was from HEAO 3, which used high-resolution germanium detectors. Mahoney et al. (1984) found that the line width was consistent with their instrumental resolution of about 3 keV, but the statistical significance of the result was low (4.8 $`\sigma `$).

This isotope is thought to be produced by proton capture on magnesium, and therefore can occur in any site of nucleosynthesis where these two components are abundant (Prantzos & Diehl, 1996). Environments suggested for its creation and release into the interstellar medium include type-II supernovae, novae, and the winds of Wolf-Rayet and Asymptotic Giant Branch stars. Because its half-life is around 106 yr, much shorter than scales of Galactic evolution, its distribution on the sky reflects the current Galactic distribution of the relevant parent events. Maps of the Galactic 1809 keV emission (Knödlseder et al., 1999, and references therein) were made with the COMPTEL instrument on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory and have given us the first detailed look at where the emission is concentrated. The maps correlate better with early than late stellar populations, suggesting that supernovae and/or Wolf-Rayet stars are likely to be the primary contributors.

Many other observations of this line, with high- and low-resolution balloon instruments and with low-resolution satellite instruments, have occurred since HEAO 3 (see Prantzos & Diehl (1996) for a comprehensive review). Only one high-resolution measurement has had a statistical significance comparable to the HEAO 3 data and thus been able to further advance our understanding of the shape of the line. This was performed by the Gamma-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (GRIS) balloon (Naya et al., 1996). The authors found the line to be significantly broadened, with an intrinsic width of $`(5.4_{1.3}^{+1.4})`$ keV derived from a measured width of $`(6.4_{1.1}^{+1.2})`$ keV by subtracting their instrumental width of $`(3.4\pm 0.1)`$ keV in quadrature. The significance of their overall detection was $`6.8\sigma `$, slightly higher than that of HEAO 3.

This Doppler broadening corresponds to isotropic velocities of 540 km s-1 or a temperature of $`4.5\times 10^8`$K (Sturner & Naya, 1999), and there is no model for how either could be maintained by a gas in the interstellar medium for anything approaching the lifetime of the isotope. This result has stimulated interesting theoretical work centered on concentrating the 26Al in grains, which can maintain their birth velocities much longer than gaseous material and even be re-accelerated in supernova shocks (Chen et al., 1997; Ellison, Drury, & Meyer, 1997; Lingenfelter, Ramaty & Kozlovsky, 1998; Sturner & Naya, 1999).

## 2 The instrument and analysis technique

The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) is a NASA Small Explorer satellite in a nearly circular $``$600 km orbit (96–minute period) with inclination $``$38o. Its primary mission is to make high-resolution images and spectra of solar flares in the range from 3 keV to 17 MeV (Lin et al., 2002, 2003). Its detector array is a set of nine high-purity coaxial germanium detectors cooled to liquid nitrogen temperature by a Stirling-cycle refrigerator (Smith et al., 2002). Each of RHESSI’s detectors is segmented into a thin front segment facing the Sun (to stop hard x-rays) and a much thicker rear segment meant to record solar gamma-rays that penetrate the front segment. Because the front segments have little effective area at 1809 keV for any incident angle, I did not use them for this analysis. One of the nine detectors operates in an unsegmented mode with poor energy resolution, and is excluded as well. The spacecraft rotates at close to 15 rpm about the axis pointing at the Sun.

Because the array is unshielded and the spacecraft is very light, the effective area of the array to highly penetrating 1809 keV photons is nearly independent of the direction of incidence, either in azimuth or zenith angle with respect to the spacecraft axis. This has been verified with Monte Carlo simulations using the GEANT3 package with a highly detailed model of the spacecraft, which show a maximum deviation of $`\pm `$10% at any angle from the mean effective area averaged over all angles. Thus the annual rotation of the spacecraft with respect to the stars cannot be used to modulate the Galactic signal as was done with data from the Solar Maximum Mission Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (Harris et al., 1990). As an additional complication, there is a background line in the instrument at 1809 keV due to cosmic-ray interactions with aluminum in the spacecraft. This must be understood and subtracted before the Galactic line can be studied.

The lack of directionality and strong background line can be overcome by using the Earth as an occulter. To begin the analysis, I divided nine months of RHESSI data (1 March 2002 to 2 December 2002) into one-minute (and therefore spin-averaged) intervals. I defined the “inner Galaxy” as a box running from $`\pm 30^\mathrm{o}`$ in Galactic longitude and $`\pm 5^\mathrm{o}`$ in Galactic latitude. “Source” intervals were times when this entire box was unocculted by the Earth, and “background” intervals were defined as times when it was entirely occulted. The rest of the data were discarded. Because the Earth subtends less than half the sky, the set of source pointings is larger. The total amount of time accumulated in the source spectra is 75.0 dy, and the total accumulation of background data is 33.7 dy. Data contaminated by the precipitation of magnetospheric electrons were identified with the onboard particle detector and were removed from consideration, as were data taken during the X4.8 solar flare of 23 July, the only flare observed so far with emission at energies approaching 1809 keV.

The background subtraction algorithm is adapted from one used to derive the most precise value to date for the flux of positron-annihilation radiation from the Galactic Center region: $`(1.49\pm 0.02)`$$`\times 10^3`$ ph cm-2 s-1 (Smith et al., 1997). In that case the instrument was the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO). The principle is to sort the background spectra into a two-dimensional library based on the two most important parameters that control the background. For each source spectrum, a background spectrum is generated by selecting among the library spectra using the values of the controlling parameters for that source spectrum. The computer code tracks the repeated contributions of each original raw background spectrum in order to propagate statistical errors correctly.

All background lines with half-lives less than a few hours are fairly well controlled by choosing two particular parameters on which to sort the library: the longitude of the ascending node (LAN) of the current orbit, and the orbital phase since the ascending node (PAN). These parameters define a particular spot on the Earth, so that the cosmic-ray flux (which is controlled primarily by geomagnetic latitude) is reproduced. The lines with half-lives of seconds or less are proportional to the instantaneous cosmic-ray flux: this includes the 1809 keV background line due to cosmic-ray production of 26∗Mg in aluminum, which decays with a 0.49 ps half-life (Wheaton et al., 1989). Unlike simple geographic or geomagnetic coordinates, however, LAN and PAN also contain a memory of the recent history of the spacecraft trajectory – most usefully, how recently and how deeply the spacecraft passed through the SAA. Thus matching LAN and PAN also produces a good match for the SAA-induced background lines, which have half-lives from minutes to hours. We see such a line around 1811 keV that blends with the 1809 keV line. The only candidate in the gamma-ray tables of Chu, Ekström & Firestone (1999) is the 1810.77 keV line of 56Mn (half-life 2.6 hr), presumably created by interactions of SAA protons with iron near the detectors. This line was suggested as a contributor to the background of the germanium spectrometer on the Wind spacecraft (Weidenspointner et al., 2001), and the published 1809 keV background line from HEAO 3 (Mahoney et al., 1984) shows an excess in the blue wing that is consistent with the 56Mn line appearing at a low level. There is no very long-lived background line (such as the 1275 keV line from 22Na) near 1809 keV. Such a line would require a background-selection system which is cognizant of the total time since the start of the mission, rather than relying entirely on LAN and PAN.

## 3 Results

Figure 1 (left) shows the RHESSI background-subtracted spectrum of the Galactic 26Al line. The smooth curve shown is 3% of the average background for comparison. Fitting the spectrum from 1790–1825 keV to a Gaussian plus a linear background, I find a center energy of $`(1808.87\pm 0.18)`$ keV, 1.2$`\sigma `$ from the expected rest energy of the line at 1808.65 keV (Chu, Ekström & Firestone, 1999). The area of the line is $`(1.17\pm 0.11)`$$`\times 10^2`$ counts s-1 (11$`\sigma `$), which is 12.9% of the background line (averaged over the entire set of background spectra interpolated from the background library). Its FWHM, which includes instrumental broadening, is $`(4.58\pm 0.44)`$ keV. The fit is good ($`\chi ^2`$ = 26.7 with 30 degrees of freedom).

By fitting seven narrow background lines ranging from 186 keV to 2243 keV, I interpolate the intrinsic instrumental resolution to its value at 1809 keV and find $`(4.10\pm 0.07)`$ keV. I avoid the instrumental background line at 1809 keV itself because of the blend with the line at 1811 keV, which makes it much broader than the interpolation ($`(4.86\pm 0.08)`$ keV FWHM) and raises its center energy to $`(1809.34\pm 0.03)`$ keV. Subtracting the instrumental resolution in quadrature from the Galactic line gives an intrinsic width of $`(2.03_{1.21}^{+0.78})`$ keV, corresponding to velocities of $``$200 km/s or a temperature of $`1.7\times 10^8`$K.

To demonstrate the quality of the background subtraction, I show in Figure 1 (right) the region around a background line at 1014 keV. This line, like the background line at 1809 keV, is due to the prompt decay of a short-lived isomer created by cosmic-ray interactions in aluminum. Thus, if it subtracts well, one should be able to assume that the 1809 keV background line does also. The figure demonstrates subtraction better than the 3% shown for comparison. There is a hint of a residual 1014 keV line which, when fit with a Gaussian, gives a flux of $`(1.2\pm 0.5)`$% of the background line. The averaged cosmic-ray count rate in the detectors over all the periods used for source pointings is 0.46% higher than the same average over the background periods. This is consistent with the slight undersubtraction hinted at in Figure 1 (right). I find that subtracting out an extra 0.46% or 1.2% of the 1809 keV background line has no significant effect on the Galactic 1809 keV line width, whether I use the natural form of the background spectrum (which includes the 1811 keV line) or whether I substitute an artificial single Gaussian line at exactly 1808.65 keV with the instrumental resolution. Since the Galactic line flux is 12.9% of the average background, these extra subtractions would reduce its value by 4% and 9%, respectively.

To further demonstrate that the cosmic-ray-induced background line is well-subtracted, I divided the data set into two roughly equal parts by the value of the cosmic-ray count rate during each one-minute spectrum. The rate averaged 158 counts s-1 for the lower data set and 237 counts s-1 for the higher data set, for a ratio of 1.50. The count rate in the total, unsubtracted 1809 keV line had a similar ratio of 1.42, with 8.00$`\times 10^2`$ counts s-1 and 11.36$`\times 10^2`$ counts s-1 in the two sets, respectively. Once the backgrounds were subtracted, however, the values for the residual (Galactic) line were $`(1.13\pm 0.15)`$$`\times 10^2`$ counts s-1 and $`(1.23\pm 0.15)`$$`\times 10^2`$ counts s-1, respectively, a ratio of only 1.09 and well within statistical agreement. The derived Galactic signal thus appears to be independent of the intensity of the background line.

The conversion of the count rate in the Galactic line to a total Galactic flux is strongly dependent on the assumed Galactic distribution. The effective area of the eight rear segments used, calculated at 1809 keV using the distribution of angles of incidence over the observation period assuming the source is concentrated at the Galactic center, is 20.5 cm2. The incident flux is then $`(5.71\pm 0.54)`$$`\times 10^4`$ ph cm-2 s-1 for the artificial case of a point source. Since the effective area of the instrument is nearly independent of angle, the model distribution is important in determining the flux only because of occultation of parts of the distribution by the Earth. As noted above, I required the inner 60o of Galactic longitude to be visible in each pointing, but on average a considerable additional amount of the plane is also included. A certain amount of this high-longitude plane emission also appears in the background intervals, however, and is subtracted off.

## 4 Discussion

Adding the GRIS best-fit value of 5.4 keV for the Galactic line width in quadrature with RHESSI’s instrumental resolution would give a 6.78 keV width. Fixing the width at that value for the fit from 1790–1825 keV causes $`\chi ^2`$ to increase by 17.3 to 44.0 (now with 31 degrees of freedom). The probability of RHESSI’s result being consistent with the GRIS best fit is then 4$`\times 10^5`$ for one parameter of interest.

The RHESSI value for the Galactic line’s width is only marginally consistent with zero. It is expected, however, that the interstellar 26Al will share in Galactic rotation and display appropriate Doppler shifts (Skibo & Ramaty, 1991; Gehrels & Chen, 1996). Gehrels & Chen (1996) combined a three-dimensional model 26Al distribution derived from COMPTEL data with a Galactic rotation model to produce a map of the radial velocity versus Galactic longitude (integrated over Galactic latitude and line of sight). This map has a Galactic bulge component with velocities up to $``$75 km/s and spiral arm components with velocities up to $``$150 km/s. Although an integration of this map over the inner Galaxy has not been published, from the slices shown at different longitudes it appears that a integrated FWHM of not more than 150 km/s or about 0.9 keV would be obtained. This is within 1$`\sigma `$ of our result. Additional broadening due to more local motions of the 26Al-bearing gas or dust is possible, and of course the most recently-created portion of the 26Al can be traveling near its birth velocity in supernovae, etc., even if this portion is small.

RHESSI’s flux value of $`(5.71\pm 0.54)`$$`\times 10^4`$ ph cm-2 s-1 is comparable to previous measurements. A value of $`4`$$`\times 10^4`$ ph cm-2 s-1 rad-1 was considered consistent with the existing ensemble of data sets at the time by Diehl & Timmes (1997). For a uniform distribution in the plane, this would imply about 1.4 rad for RHESSI’s effective field of view (including the effect of subtracted flux in the background pointings). Realistic distributions fall off with longitude, however, and would require an even larger effective field of view. Naya et al. (1998), however, using the GRIS data, found higher fluxes per radian, with the value depending on the model used and ranging up to $`(5.48\pm 0.78)`$$`\times 10^4`$ ph cm-2 s-1 rad-1 assuming the COMPTEL distribution available at that time. They suggested that COMPTEL, which subtracts background by imaging with the Compton telescope technique, would be insensitive to a spatially diffuse component that the large, integrating field of view of GRIS would accept. At first glance the RHESSI result seems to support this higher value, since the effective field of view required to match the GRIS data, 1.04 radians, is identical to the region I required to be visible for the source intervals. In future work, these RHESSI source and background fields of view, with the addition of data from those times in which the central radian is partially occulted, will be convolved with different model distributions to provide a normalization for each distribution and to help choose among them. Comparison with upcoming results from INTEGRAL/SPI, which has a smaller field of view, will allow us to test for the existence of very large-scale diffuse emission.

I would like to thank the rest of the RHESSI team for making this work possible, particularly those who worked on the spectrometer and the data-analysis software. G. H. Share made valuable suggestions related to this analysis, and R. P. Lin and H. Hudson thoughtfully reviewed the manuscript. This work was supported by NASA contract NAS5-98033.