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# A VLT spectroscopic study of the ultracompact H ii region G29.96-0.02

## 1 Introduction

H ii regions trace the formation sites of massive stars. The ionizing radiation of the embedded, young OB stars is absorbed by gas and dust in their near surroundings and re-emitted at infrared and radio wavelengths. Their progenitors, the ultracompact H ii (UCHii) regions, represent the earliest recognizable phase of massive-star formation, and are the most luminous sources at 100 $`\mu `$m, observable throughout the Galaxy (Churchwell, 1990; Garay & Lizano, 1999). The small size and large number of UCHii regions indicate that the lifetime of this phase is significantly longer than the $`10^4`$ year predicted by models describing the expansion of young H ii regions.

A possible solution for this “confinement problem” is suggested by the observed morphologies of UCHii regions. The frequently seen cometary structures are suggestive of bow shocks. Wood & Churchwell (1989) proposed that these bow shocks might result from the supersonic motion ($`v_{\mathrm{sound}}1`$  km s-1) of the embedded O stars relative to the ambient molecular cloud. The stand-off distance of the shock, and thus the observed “size” of the UCHii regions, is determined by the density of the ambient medium, the velocity of the O star, and the momentum of its stellar wind. These parameters are not expected to vary rapidly with time, thus delaying the apparent expansion rate of the UCHii region (e.g. van Buren et al., 1990; Mac Low et al., 1991; van Buren & Mac Low, 1992).

G29.96$``$0.02, also denominated IRAS 18434$``$0242 (hereafter G29.96), is a well-studied, cometary-shaped UCHii region at a Galactocentric distance of 4.6 kpc (e.g. Pratap et al., 1999). Arguments based on extinction and the spectral type of the ionizing star favour the near heliocentric distance of 6 kpc instead of the far distance of 9 kpc (Pratap et al., 1999). The cometary structure of G29.96 was first observed by Wood & Churchwell (1989) at radio wavelengths. Follow-up radio observations were performed by Wood & Churchwell (1991), Afflerbach et al. (1994), Cesaroni et al. (1994), Fey et al. (1995) and Kim & Koo (2001). The cometary shape is characterized by a sharp, bright, arc-like leading edge and a low-surface brightness tail of emission which trails off away from the edge. Wood & Churchwell (1989) found the bow shock hypothesis consistent with their radio recombination line observations of G29.96. Alternatively, a champagne-flow model, which describes the spherical expansion of an H ii region into a molecular medium with a steep density gradient (Yorke, 1986), has been proposed to explain the morphology and kinematical structure of G29.96 (Lumsden & Hoare, 1996, 1999).

G29.96 is embedded in a molecular cloud that produces $`15`$ magnitudes of visual extinction (see Martín-Hernández et al., 2002a). This molecular cloud has been extensively studied at low spatial resolution (Churchwell et al., 1990, 1992). Strong emission from different dense gas tracers indicates the presence of hot, dense gas. Just in front of the edge of the H ii region, at approximately 2″ west of the radio continuum peak, a hot molecular core was discovered in interferometric observations (Cesaroni et al., 1994, 1998; Maxia et al., 2001). Recently, this hot core has been found at mid-infrared wavelengths too (De Buizer et al., 2002). The observed offset between the hot core and the H ii region and the detection of masers towards the core (Pratap et al., 1994; Hofner & Churchwell, 1996; Walsh et al., 1998) suggest that the hot core is not heated by the ionizing star of G29.96, but by another young, deeply embedded massive star.

G29.96 seems to be associated with a small cluster of stars (Fey et al., 1995; Lumsden & Hoare, 1996; Watson et al., 1997; Pratap et al., 1999). The main ionizing star is located in the focus of the bright arc. Watson & Hanson (1997) obtained a K-band spectrum of the embedded ionizing star, the first ionizing star of an UCHii region ever detected. Based upon the presence and strength of photospheric lines of C iv and N iii, they deduced a main sequence spectral type between O5 and O8.

G29.96 provides an excellent laboratory to test models describing the ionization structure of an UCHii region. The ionization structure can be traced by the nebular hydrogen and helium recombination lines. The comparison between observations and model provides an important constraint on the stellar parameters of the ionizing star(s), yielding important information on the properties of newly formed massive stars (e.g. Vanzi et al., 1996; Lumsden & Puxley, 1996; Lumsden et al., 2001a; Hanson et al., 2002). Due to the large visual extinction towards H ii regions like G29.96, such a study has only recently become possible thanks to the technological development of near-IR spectrometers.

In this paper we present new, high quality, long-slit K-band spectra of G29.96 (2.07–2.19 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$). Besides Br$`\gamma `$, a large number of He i lines and a H2 line are covered. The study of the relative strengths of the H i and He i lines as a function of position along the slit allows different lines of investigation. First, it is possible to study the impact of large line opacities on the He i lines. Second, the conditions present in the ionized gas can be determined. Third, the results constrain the effective temperature of the ionizing star, which can be compared with the spectral type implied by its K-band spectrum. Finally, the kinematical structure of the ionized gas can be studied at higher spatial resolution than in previous studies (Wood & Churchwell, 1991; Afflerbach et al., 1994; Lumsden & Hoare, 1996, 1999) and compared with the molecular gas motions. This comparison can be used to test the different models (bow shock, champagne flow, etc.) that have been proposed to explain the cometary morphology of G29.96.

This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 describes the observations and the data reduction. Section 3 presents the resulting spectra and the variations and kinematics of the lines across G29.96. Section 4 describes the H i and He i recombination theory and shows the different applications of these lines. Section 5 reviews the various observational constraints on the effective temperature of the ionizing star. Section 6 discusses the dynamics of G29.96. Finally, Sect. 7 summarizes the results of the paper.

## 2 Observations

Long-slit (120″) K-band spectra were obtained of the UCHii region G29.96 with ISAAC mounted on Antu (UT1) of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), Paranal, Chile. The observations were carried out on 19 March 2000. A slit-width of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$3 was used, resulting in a spectral resolving power R$`8000`$ ($`=`$c/$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$v). The slit was positioned along the symmetry axis of the object (116.2 degrees with respect to the north-south axis). Figure 1 shows the location of the slit in the (acquisition) image of G29.96 obtained through a narrow-band H2 filter (central wavelength 2.13 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$).

The observing conditions at Paranal Observatory were excellent (humidity less than 10% and seeing of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$6). In order to correct for the sky background, the object was “nodded” between two positions on the slit (A and B) such that the background emission registered at position B (when the source is at position A) is subtracted from the source plus sky background observation at position B in the next frame, and vice versa. This strategy has the advantage that observing time is very efficiently used, but it reduces the effective length of the slit by about 50%; for G29.96 this is not a problem.

The electrical ghosts and bias were removed from the frames before flatfielding. Subsequently, the sky background emission was subtracted following the procedure outlined above. Wavelength calibration was performed using the telluric OH lines. The accuracy of the wavelength calibration is 3  km s-1. To correct for absorption lines due to the Earth’s atmosphere, the target spectra were divided by the spectrum of a telluric standard star. For this purpose, an A-type star was observed under identical sky conditions, which provides a continuous spectrum only containing telluric absorption lines. The hydrogen Br$`\gamma `$ line in the A-star spectrum was removed by a model fit. The telluric standard was also used to correct for the throughput of telescope and instrument. For a more detailed description of the data reduction procedures we refer to Bik et al. (in preparation).

Spectra were extracted along the slit (1 pixel = 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$147) in the spatial direction. The peak positions, equivalent widths and fluxes of the lines were measured by fitting a Voigt profile. A line is defined as being detected if its peak intensity exceeds the rms noise level of the local continuum by at least a factor three. The central wavelength of the line was measured with respect to the local standard of rest, i.e. corrected for the projected velocity of the Earth with respect to the Sun at the time of observation and for the solar motion in the direction of G29.96 ($`v_{\mathrm{LSR}}=44`$  km s-1).

## 3 Results

Figure 2 shows the nebular spectrum of G29.96 extracted from a 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$3 $`\times `$ 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$882 region around the peak of the emission. The strongest line corresponds to Br$`\gamma `$. The detected He i emission lines are the transitions of 43S–33P at 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, 41S–31P at 2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, 73S–43P at 2.1501 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, 73F–43D at 2.1615 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, 71F–41D at 2.1624 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, the 71,3G–41,3F blend at 2.1649 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and the transitions of 73P–43D and 71D–41P at 2.1824 and 2.1848 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, respectively. From these He i lines, significant emission along the slit was found for the transitions of 43S–33P at 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, 41S–31P at 2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, 73F–43D at 2.1615 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and the 71,3G–41,3F blend at 2.1649 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$. The 1–0 S(1) transition of H2 at 2.1218 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and the forbidden line of \[Fe iii\] at 2.1457 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ are also evident. Table 1 lists the observed lines with their identifications and their fluxes relative to that of Br$`\gamma `$ at the peak position. An unidentified feature is present at 2.1022 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$. This feature has also been detected in near-infrared spectra of compact planetary nebula (Lumsden et al., 2001b).

We could measure the nebular line emission along $`20`$″ of the slit, centered on the position of the ionizing star. Figure 3 illustrates the spatial variation of the strongest lines in this region. Moving from right to left along the slit (see Fig. 1), the Br$`\gamma `$ flux (Fig. 3 a) slowly increases until the position of the star. After the star, the Br$`\gamma `$ flux rapidly reaches a maximum and subsequently decreases. This maximum is at 2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$27 ahead of the star and coincides with the arc observed at radio wavelengths (e.g. Wood & Churchwell, 1989). The peak corresponding to the arc is fitted by a Gaussian profile with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 1$`\stackrel{}{.}`$14. The global structure of the tail to the right of the star can be fitted by a semi-Gaussian centered at the position of the star and with a FWHM of 7$`\stackrel{}{.}`$1 and a height 0.21 times the peak flux. The following panels (b–f) in Fig. 3 compare the flux distribution of the strongest He i lines and the H2 2.1218 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line to that of Br$`\gamma `$. The He i and Br$`\gamma `$ distributions trace each other very well, indicating that the zones of H+ and He+ are of roughly the same size. This indicates that the central ionizing star must be hot enough to produce ionized helium throughout the H ii region (see Sect. 4.2 for a detailed discussion). The variation in the H2 line strength resembles the ionized gas profile well, although it displays some significant deviations. It peaks 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$93 ahead of the Br$`\gamma `$ maximum and exhibits a different structure in the tail of G29.96. The H2 peak corresponding to the arc can be fitted by a Gaussian profile with a FWHM of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$87. Since the spatial profiles of the H i, He i and H2 lines have been obtained simultaneously in one same setting, the relative separation of the Br$`\gamma `$ and H2 peaks is reliable.

The velocity structure of the ionized (as traced by, for instance, Br$`\gamma `$) and molecular gas (as traced by H2) along the symmetry axis of G29.96 is shown in Fig. 4. Figure 4 a plots the centroid velocity of the Br$`\gamma `$ line along the central 20″ of the slit. There is a large variation in radial velocity ($`38`$ km s-1) across the object. The gas in front of the head of the arc has a velocity which increases from 67 (position $`7`$″) to 87  km s-1 (position $`3`$″). At the arc, between positions $`3`$″ and $`1`$″, the velocity increases more rapidly, reaching a value of 99  km s-1 at the position of the line intensity peak. It continues to increase towards the tail where it reaches 105  km s-1 at approximately 3″ behind the star. Afterwards, the velocity drops to a value of approximately 94  km s-1 at $`5`$″ behind the star.

Figure 4 c shows the behaviour of the Br$`\gamma `$ FWHM. As can be seen, there is a very rapid increase of the linewidth ahead of the line intensity peak, which gets up to $`62`$  km s-1 wide. The Br$`\gamma `$ line is $`4246`$  km s-1 wide behind the arc.

This behaviour of the Br$`\gamma `$ line velocity across the symmetry axis of G29.96 agrees well with the radio recombination line studies of Wood & Churchwell (1991) and Afflerbach et al. (1994). Low spatial resolution observations of Br$`\gamma `$ have been presented by Lumsden & Hoare (1996, 1999). In contrast to their results, we see a larger variation in the peak velocity of the Br$`\gamma `$ line along the symmetry axis. In particular, the appreciable increase in velocity by more than 30  km s-1 just ahead of the arc is not apparent from their study. This is likely due to the poorer spatial resolution of this earlier study combined with the steep increase in peak intensity towards the arc, which gets a high weight in their spatial averaging procedure.

The velocity structure observed for Br$`\gamma `$ is compared to that of the molecular gas traced by the H2 1–0 S(1) line (see Figs. 4 b and 4 d). There is little variation in the peak velocity of the H2 line, which shows an almost constant value of 100  km s-1 across G29.96 (calculated between positions $`3`$″ and $`+5`$″, where the H2 line emission is significant, i.e. above 3$`\sigma `$). The average velocity of 100  km s-1 is consistent with the values (around 98  km s-1) obtained from single dish observations of rotational transitions of CS (e.g. Churchwell et al., 1992; Bronfman et al., 1996; Olmi & Cesaroni, 1999) and NH3 (e.g. Churchwell et al., 1990; Cesaroni et al., 1992). VLA measurements of ammonia by Cesaroni et al. (1994) resulted in a value of 98.7  km s-1 towards the hot core detected just in front of the arc of G29.96. Thus, the H2 gas is practically at rest with respect to the ambient medium. The H2 FWHM shows a practically constant value of 33  km s-1 in the interval \[0″, $`+`$7″\]. This FWHM is of the order of the spectral resolution, implying that the H2 line is unresolved between these positions. Similarly to the case of the ionized gas, a significant increase of the FWHM up to $`50`$  km s-1 is observed in front of the star.

The K-band spectral observations of G29.96 by Lumsden & Hoare (1999), although of much lower spatial resolution than ours, have about twice our spectral resolution ($`18`$  km s-1). Their observations of the $`10`$ S(1) H2 line show, as well, a very rapid increase in linewidth (from $`20`$ to 28  km s-1 in their case) ahead of the arc. They were also able to discern small variations of the H2 centroid velocity in the same direction as those of the ionized gas. This behaviour is, however, not evident from our data.

Comparing the Br$`\gamma `$ and H2 velocity structure, we note that around the position of the ionizing star (between positions $`2`$″ and $`+3`$″), the ionized gas is systematically redshifted relative to the molecular gas by a few (2–5)  km s-1, whereas in the tail and ahead of the arc it becomes progressively more blueshifted. The increasing blueshift of the ionized gas in front of the arc coincides with the significant increase in the Br$`\gamma `$ and H2 FWHM. This pattern has to be due to acceleration of the ionized gas along the line of sight.

## 4 The recombination lines

The nebular spectrum of G29.96 is dominated by recombination lines of hydrogen and helium. For most of the H i emission lines observed in nebulae, there are no radiative transfer problems; hence, the Case B approximation (Hummer & Storey, 1987), which assumes that the Lyman transitions are optically thick, reproduces well, apart from dust extinction, the observed nebular spectra. The recombination radiation of He i singlets is very similar to that of H i, and can also be approximated by the Case B treatment. In this case, by considering Case B it is assumed that the nebula has a large optical depth in transitions arising from the 11S level. However, the recombination cascade of the He i triplets can be modified by the fact that the 23S level (see Fig. 5) is highly metastable. All recaptures to triplets eventually cascade down to the 23S level. Depopulation of this level can only occur through photoionization, through collisional transitions to 21S and 21P, or through the forbidden 23S–11S transition. The rates of these processes are small and hence, the population of the 23S level is large; in turn, the optical depth of the lower n3P–23S transitions is substantial. Moreover, the collisional transitions from 23S to upper levels become significant and the emission from these levels is enhanced with respect to the predictions of a pure recombination model. Because of this interplay of collisional and radiative transfer effects, the triplet lines become sensitive to the density and optical depth.

Recently, Benjamin et al. (2002) have considered the effect of the optical depth of the 23S level on the recombination spectrum of a spherically symmetric nebula. They used a model atom with individual levels up to $`n=20`$ and parameterized their calculations in terms of the line center optical depth of the 33P–23S 3890 Å line. A FORTRAN program to calculate emissivities of lines arising from levels with $`n10`$ over a large range of nebular conditions is available from Benjamin et al.111http://wisp.physics.wisc.edu/$``$benjamin

We use this program to estimate the Case B line fluxes of the He i lines observed in the spectrum of G29.96 and their possible enhancement due to collisional excitation from the 23S level, or as a result of significant opacity in the n3P–23S series.

Although Benjamin et al. (2002) include the collisional coupling between the triplet and singlet levels, they find that only the triplet lines arising from low levels show a noticeable enhancement in strength with respect to the zero optical depth case. From the triplet lines observed in the spectrum of G29.96, we find that the effect of the finite optical depth of the 23S level is only evident in the transition of 43S–33P at 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$. Adopting the nomenclature by Benjamin et al. (2002), we define the optical depth correction factor $`f_{\mathrm{line}}`$($`n_\mathrm{e}`$,$`T_\mathrm{e}`$,$`\tau _{3890}`$)= $`j`$($`n_\mathrm{e}`$,$`T_\mathrm{e}`$,$`\tau _{3890}`$)/$`j`$($`n_\mathrm{e}`$,$`T_\mathrm{e}`$,0), i.e. the ratio of the line emissivity for optical depth $`\tau _{3890}`$ to the emissivity for zero optical depth. Figure 6 presents the variation of the optical depth correction factor for the 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line as a function of $`\tau _{3890}`$ and $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ for the case of a nebula with $`n_\mathrm{e}`$=$`10^4`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$.

The optical depth of the 33P–23S 3890 Å line in G29.96 can be roughly estimated. We have that $`\tau _{3890}=n(2^3\mathrm{S})\sigma _{3890}R`$, where $`n(2^3\mathrm{S})`$ is the density of atoms in the metastable state, $`\sigma _{3890}`$ is the cross section at the line center of the 3890 Å line and $`R`$ is the radius of the nebula. The relative population of the $`2^3\mathrm{S}`$ level depends on the local electron density and temperature, and can be estimated using equation 5 in Kingdon & Ferland (1995). Assuming an electron density of 2$`\times 10^4`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$ and an electron temperature of 6500 K (Afflerbach et al., 1994), we find that $`n(2^3\mathrm{S})/n(\mathrm{He}^+)8\times 10^6`$ in the tail of G29.96. Equation 1 in Benjamin et al. (2002) gives that $`\sigma _{3890}7\times 10^{14}`$ cm2 for $`T_\mathrm{e}`$$`=6500`$ K and a turbulent velocity of 0 km s-1. Assuming a helium abundance of 10% by number and a nebular radius of 7″ (see Sect. 3), which at a distance of 6 kpc corresponds to $`0.20`$ pc, we obtain $`\tau _{3890}100`$. Considering a turbulent velocity of 20  km s-1 and a filling factor of 0.1, we obtain $`\tau _{3890}80`$. Hence, the 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line is expected to be enhanced (see Fig. 6) with respect to the pure recombination model.

It is illustrative at this point to use the relative strengths of the He i recombination lines to (1) determine how closely these lines follow the recombination theory and (2) study their dependence on the local nebular conditions. The ratio between any two He i lines is insensitive to the electron density, but can depend on the electron temperature.

### 4.1 The electron temperature

Figure 7 a shows the relation between the He i line ratios 2.1615-73F–43D/2.1137-41S–31P and 2.1649-71,3G–41,3F/2.1137-41S–31P. These ratios show the largest dependence on $`T_\mathrm{e}`$. The calculations by Benjamin et al. (2002) show that these ratios are expected to be independent of radiative transfer problems arising from the metastable 23S level. The solid line represents the theoretical predictions by Benjamin et al. (2002) for $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ = 5, 7.5, 10, 15 $`\times 10^3`$ K and $`n_\mathrm{e}`$ $`=10^4`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$. The model reproduces the trend in the data reasonably well, although there is a slight mismatch between data and theory. The data points are, on average, 20% below the model predictions. The origin of this discrepancy is unclear. It is clear from Fig. 7 a that the electron temperature of the ionized gas is in between 5000 and 7500 K, and that both the points from the tail of G29.96 ($`>0`$″) and those from the arc ($`<0`$″) are distributed equally.

Figure 7 b shows the relation between the He i line ratios 2.1649-71,3G–41,3F/2.1128-43S–33P and 2.1649-71,3G–41,3F/2.1137-41S–31P. The data show a significant spread in these line ratios, largely exceeding the quoted uncertainties. We conclude that the 2.1649/2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line ratio is sensitive to the optical depth and that the 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line is enhanced with respect to the pure recombination case (solid line). A comparison with the model calculations (Benjamin et al., 2002) indicates optical depths, $`\tau _{3890}`$, in between 0 and 100, as expected (see above).

A detailed electron temperature profile along the axis of G29.96 can be obtained by using the ratio of any two of the He i recombination lines. Figure 7 a shows that the 2.1649/2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ and 2.1615/2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line ratios are reasonably well reproduced by the Case B approximation and can be used to probe variations in $`T_\mathrm{e}`$. Hence, by comparing the observed line ratios at any position with the Case B predictions we can measure the variation of $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ along the slit.

Figure 8 a shows the $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ profile along the symmetry axis of G29.96 as derived from the 2.1649/2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line ratio. We see that the electron temperature is, within the uncertainties, constant along the slit with a mean value of 6400 $`\pm `$ 150 K. When we use the 2.1615/2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line ratio, we also obtain a similarly constant $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ structure along the slit, but with a higher average value of 7550 $`\pm `$ 150 K. The difference between these two determinations comes from the discrepancy between data and theory shown in Fig. 7 a.

Our measurement of $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ is in good agreement with previous determinations. The non-LTE analysis of radio recombination line observations by Afflerbach et al. (1994) resulted in electron temperatures in between 6200 and 8600 K. They estimate an average $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ of $`6500`$ K. The electron temperatures derived by Wood & Churchwell (1991) from H76$`\alpha `$ recombination line observations towards G29.96 are low, ranging from $`2500`$ K in the tail to 4200 K in the arc. However, for this line, deviations from LTE can lead to temperature estimates lower than the true nebular temperature. Their best estimate of the electron temperature using non-LTE models is $`5000`$ K throughout the nebula. Finally, Watson et al. (1997) obtained temperatures in between 5000 and 7000 K over the nebula using 2, 6 and 21 cm continuum data.

Our estimate of $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ is also consistent with the Galactocentric distance of G29.96. The electron temperature in H ii regions has been shown to increase with the distance to the Galactic Center as a consequence of the decrease in metal content. This $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ gradient is approximately given by $`T_\mathrm{e}`$=5000+5000$`\times `$$`R_{\mathrm{Gal}}`$/15 (Shaver et al., 1983; Afflerbach et al., 1996; Deharveng et al., 2000). At the Galactocentric distance of G29.96 (4.6 kpc), the expected $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ is 6500 K, consistent with our value. This electron temperature corresponds to an enhancement of the metal content by a factor of $`2`$ with respect to that in the solar neighbourhood. This metallicity is in agreement with the analysis based on the infrared fine-structure lines observed towards G29.96 (see Martín-Hernández et al., 2002a).

### 4.2 He+/H+

The He+/H+ structure along the symmetry axis of G29.96 can be determined from the ratio of a singlet He i line to Br$`\gamma `$ once a specific model for the $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ structure of the H ii region has been assumed (such a ratio is insensitive to the electron density). The only singlet line we were able to measure along the slit is the transition of 41S–31P at 2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$.

Figure 9 shows the relation between this ratio and the $`T_\mathrm{e}`$-indicator He i 2.1649/2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$. There is an (anti)correlation between these two line ratios because of the different $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ dependence for the He i single/triplet and the H i lines. The observed data points are well matched by He+/H+ abundances in between 0.08 and 0.10 and electron temperatures in between 5000 and 7500 K. A preponderance of low He+/H+ abundances in the tail region is evident from this figure. This may reflect a He+ zone somewhat smaller than the H+ zone. Such a difference would be spatially more prominent in the low density tail.

The detailed He+/H+ structure along the symmetry axis of G29.96, calculated for $`T_\mathrm{e}`$ = 7000 K, is plotted in Fig. 8 b. We find that He+/H+ is practically constant across the slit. We obtain an average He+/H+ abundance of $`0.087\pm 0.001`$. Considering a total helium abundance by number of $`0.1`$, this implies that He is practically singly ionized throughout the nebula.

Kim & Koo (2001) estimated the value of He+/H+ at different positions in G29.96 from the ratio of the ratio of the radio recombination lines He76$`\alpha `$ and H76$`\alpha `$. They derived values in between 0.063 and 0.080, slightly lower than our estimate of 0.087. Their lower estimate could be due, however, to non-LTE effects on the radio recombination lines that may not have been taken into account, or to beam smearing.

We have already mentioned in Sect. 3 that the central ionizing star in G29.96 must be hot enough to produce ionized helium throughout the H ii region. In order to investigate the dependence of the relative extent of the He+ region compared to that of the H+ region, $`R_{\mathrm{He}^+}/R_{\mathrm{H}^+}`$, on the effective temperature of the star, we have calculated a set of nebular models with the photoionization code CLOUDY version 94.00 (Ferland 2000222see also http://thunder.pa.uky.edu/cloudy) using MICE, the IDL interface for CLOUDY created by H. Spoon333http://www.astro.rug.nl/$``$spoon/mice.html. We compute nebular models for a static, spherically symmetric, homogeneous gas distribution with one ionizing star in the center. An inner cavity with a radius equal to 1017 cm is set. Two different sets of stellar atmosphere models are taken to describe the spectral energy distribution (SED): the CoStar models by Schaerer & de Koter (1997) and the WM-Basic models by Pauldrach et al. (2001). We use stellar models for main sequence (dwarf) stars. The number of hydrogen ionizing photons emitted by the central source is fixed to that of the SED used, the metallicity of the nebula is set to twice solar and the density equal to 104 $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$, appropriate for G29.96 (Afflerbach et al., 1994; Wood & Churchwell, 1991).

Figure 10 shows $`R_{\mathrm{He}^+}/R_{\mathrm{H}^+}`$ as a function of the effective temperature of the star, $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$. It is seen that for $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{40\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K, the He+ and H+ zones are coincident, and that this result is independent of the SED used. Using the calibration by Vacca et al. (1996), this corresponds to a spectral type earlier than O7.5. This calibration is, however, based on plane-parallel models which do not incorporate stellar winds and line blocking/blanketing. A more recent calibration by Martins et al. (2002), based on non-LTE line blanketed atmosphere models with stellar winds computed with the cmfgen code of Hillier & Miller (1998), yields a spectral type equal to or earlier than O6. This spectral type determination is compared to estimates using other methods in Sect. 5.

## 5 The ionizing star of G29.96

The opening up of the infrared window has favoured in recent years the use of infrared spectra to infer the spectral type of the ionizing stars in heavily extincted regions. The first spectral classification in the K-band of a star ionizing an UCHii region was that of G29.96 (Watson & Hanson, 1997). The K-band classification (Hanson et al., 1996) is based on the presence and strength of photospheric lines of He i (2.058 and 2.1126 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$), C iv (2.078 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$), N iii (2.1155 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$), H i (2.1661 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$) and He ii (2.1885 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$). The H i and He i lines, however, are heavily contaminated by nebular emission. Based on the other features, the spectral types that can be determined from the direct observation of the K-band spectrum are: O3–O4 (N iii emission and He ii absorption, but no C iv emission), O5–O6.5 (both N iii and C iv emission and He ii absorption), O7–O8 (N iii emission and He ii absorption, and weak C iv emission), and O9 or later (none of these). Using this classification scheme, Watson & Hanson (1997) restricted the ionizing star in G29.96 to spectral type O5–O6.5.

Figure 11 shows the spectrum of the ionizing star of G29.96 extracted from the slit (Kaper et al. 2002444We note that Kaper et al. wrongly identify the He i 2.1649 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ line as He ii 2.1652 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$, and use this identification to argue that the ionizing star is of even earlier spectral type than O5.; Bik et al. in prep.). The emission features of C iv and N iii are clearly present. The spectral coverage of our observations was not large enough to include the He ii line at 2.1885 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$. The presence and strength of the C iv and N iii features is consistent with the estimate by Watson & Hanson (1997), i.e. with an O5–O6.5 star. Watson & Hanson (1997) note that spectral types as late as O7–O8 could also be consistent with the data if the C iv and N iii features were enhanced as a consequence of G29.96 being a region with a metallicity twice that of the Sun. However, these late spectral types are ruled out because they are not hot enough to produce a He+ zone coincident with that of H+ (see Sect. 4.2). Thus, the K-band spectrum of the ionizing star, together with the condition imposed by the extent of the He+ zone (equal to or earlier than O6), limits the spectral type to O5–O6.

Various other estimates of the spectral type of the dominant ionizing star of G29.96 have been obtained from very different observations and methods. We briefly discuss these estimates using up-to-date stellar models and homogeneous assumptions. In particular, all observational constraints are scaled to a distance of 6 kpc and we use the latest temperature scale of O stars by Martins et al. (2002). We assume that the ionizing star is an unevolved zero age main sequence (ZAMS) star, although we note that some authors (Watson et al., 1997; Morisset et al., 2002) suggest that it may be a more evolved star. These estimates are (see also Table 2):

* Bolometric luminosity The total bolometric luminosity obtained from the IRAS fluxes (Peeters et al., 2002) and the overall SED (Watson et al., 1997) in an arcminute-sized region is log$`(L/L_{\mathrm{}})=5.9`$. Since this luminosity is integrated over a large region, it is likely to include contributions from other sources, for instance, the hot core. Hence, it must be considered as an upper limit to the bolometric luminosity of the ionizing star. This upper limit to the luminosity corresponds to a star with an effective temperature lower than 49 000 K (Vacca et al., 1996). Adopting the $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$-spectral type calibration by Martins et al. (2002) for dwarf stars, this corresponds to a star later than O3.
* Number of Lyman continuum photons The number of Lyman continuum photons derived for G29.96 from radio continuum observations is in the range log$`(N_{\mathrm{Lyc}})=48.4348.93`$ s-1 (Wood & Churchwell, 1989; Cesaroni et al., 1994; Becker et al., 1994; Fey et al., 1995; Kim & Koo, 2001), which corresponds to an effective temperature in between 35 000 and 40 000 K (Vacca et al., 1996). This $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$ range corresponds to a star with a spectral type of O8–O6 (Martins et al., 2002).
* Near-infrared photometry Constraints on the K magnitude and the bolometric luminosity allowed Watson et al. (1997) to place limits on the location of the ionizing star in the H-R diagram. They found a 3$`\sigma `$ upper limit on the effective temperature of 42 500 K. Adopting the $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$-spectral type calibration by Martins et al. (2002), this corresponds to a star equal to or later than O5.
* Nebular infrared lines The ratios of nebular fine-structure lines (\[Ar iii\]/\[Ar ii\] 9.0/7.0, \[S iv\]/\[S iii\] 10.5/18.7, \[Ne iii\]/\[Ne ii\]15.5/12.8 and \[N iii\]/\[N ii\] 57/128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$) observed by ISO (Peeters et al., 2002) have been used by Morisset et al. (2002) to constraint the properties of the ionizing star in G29.96. They use the most recent non-LTE line blanketed atmospheres with stellar winds and obtain effective temperatures in the range 32 000–38 000 K. Adopting the $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}`$-spectral type calibration by Martins et al. (2002), this corresponds to a star with a spectral type O6.5–O9.

Practically all the indirect methods to derive the spectral type which have been listed above agree well with the spectral type derived from the K-band spectrum. The exception is the method based on the nebular infrared lines, which predicts a slightly later type. In Martín-Hernández et al. (2002b) it was indicated that the infrared fine-structure line ratios such as \[Ne iii\]/\[Ne ii\] 15.5/12.8 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ are influenced by the stellar and nebular metallicity. Hence, their diagnostic use as indicator of the degree of ionization of the nebula is conditioned to an adequate treatment of the effect of metallicity on the stellar UV spectrum, i.e, on the line blocking/blanketing and stellar wind.

## 6 The dynamics of G29.96

Any model for the formation and evolution of the UCHii region G29.96 should be able to explain the following characteristics:

1. The general morphology of the nebula is described by a bright arc with the ionizing star in its focus and a lower surface brightness tail (see the 2 cm radio continuum image of Wood & Churchwell 1991, as well as the K-band image of Lumsden & Hoare 1996).
2. The molecular gas traced by H2 shows a similar bright arc (see Fig. 1), but with the peak displaced ‘deeper’ into the molecular cloud (by 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$93) than the ionized gas.
3. The ionized gas shows a steep gradient (see Fig. 4) which goes from $`31`$  km s-1 (just in front of the bright arc) to $`+7`$  km s-1 (just behind the position of the star) relative to the molecular cloud velocity (which is about 98  km s-1). The velocity then drops again to $`4`$  km s-1 in the tail.
4. In contrast with the large variations in velocity observed for Br$`\gamma `$ across the symmetry axis of G29.96, the H2 emission shows no significant velocity gradients. Indeed, it seems to be at the velocity of the molecular cloud.
5. The FWHM of the Br$`\gamma `$ and H2 lines are significantly higher in front of the respective bright arcs than in the tail. Specifically, the linewidths observed for Br$`\gamma `$ range from $`4246`$  km s-1 behind the star to values as high as 62  km s-1 just in front of the arc. In the case of the H2 line, the linewidth increases from 33  km s-1 in the tail to $`50`$  km s-1 in front of the H2 arc.

Two different models aimed at explaining the formation and evolution of cometary H ii regions and applied to G29.9 appear in the literature: the bow shock model and the champagne flow model. Neither of these two models can account for all the characteristics observed for G29.96. We critically discuss both models.

### 6.1 The stellar bow shock model

The morphology of cometary H ii regions, in particular their near-parabolic shape, has been interpreted in terms of a bow shock (Wood & Churchwell, 1989). In such a model, an OB star moves with supersonic velocity (of a few  km s-1) inside a molecular cloud. The interaction of the stellar wind with the ambient medium results in the formation of a bow shock with a cometary morphology. Detailed analytical and numerical models have been developed and applied to the UCHii region G29.96 (van Buren et al., 1990; Mac Low et al., 1991; van Buren & Mac Low, 1992).

The structure proposed by van Buren et al. (1990) of an UCHii region trapped in a bow shock is the following. The fast stellar wind (with a terminal velocity in excess of 2000  km s-1) rams into the molecular cloud material, which is moving at supersonic velocity with respect to the star, resulting in the formation of a shock wave. The shock occurs at a radius where the momentum flux in the wind equals the ram pressure of the ambient medium. The immediate post-shock gas temperature is $`10^8`$ K. At this temperature, radiative cooling is not very efficient, but cooling via thermal conduction can lower the temperature very rapidly and consequently, this layer of shocked wind gas is rather thin (Comerón & Kaper, 1998). As the star moves through the ambient molecular medium, the hot bubble of shocked wind gas sweeps up material into a thin parabolic shell. Because of the rapid cooling, the wind only transfers its momentum to the swept-up shell in what is called a “momentum-driven” bow-shock. This shell traps all or part of the ionizing flux of the star, forming a thin layer of dense ionized gas surrounded by shocked molecular gas. The layer of ionized gas has the properties of a typical radiatively excited H ii region at a temperature of $`10^4`$ K.

In terms of the dynamics, the bow shock models essentially predict a redshift or blueshift of the ionized gas relative to the ambient cloud material depending on whether the star is moving away from the observer and into the molecular cloud, or towards the observer. The material in the bow shock is transported (due to a pressure gradient) from the head to the tail with a velocity that will not exceed the space velocity of the star by much. Note, however, that the material inside the bow shock flows in a direction away from the head to the tail, i.e. at some point it moves in a direction opposite from the stellar motion. The maximum velocity difference is then of the order of $`v_{}\mathrm{cos}(i)`$, where $`v_{}`$ is the relative velocity of the star through the ISM and $`i`$ is the inclination angle. As emphasized by Lumsden & Hoare (1996), the velocity structure observed for the Br$`\gamma `$ line can only be explained by the bow shock model if the molecular cloud velocity is 67  km s-1, rather than the 98  km s-1 obtained from rotational lines (e.g. Churchwell et al., 1990, 1992; Cesaroni et al., 1992; Bronfman et al., 1996; Olmi & Cesaroni, 1999). Moreover, if we attribute the difference of $`32`$  km s-1 observed in between positions $`7`$″and 0″ (see Fig. 4 a) to the star-cloud interaction, then, with the inclination angle estimated from the morphology of $`45`$ degrees (van Buren & Mac Low, 1992), this translates into a stellar velocity of $`45`$  km s-1. This is a very high velocity for a star in a cluster. Now, the difficulty with the stellar velocity might be mitigated if the velocity shoulder from 67 to 87  km s-1 observed in Fig. 4 a between positions $`7`$″ and $`3`$″ traces motions in the hot core located just 2″ west of the bright arc. This hot core is known to have an embedded protostellar object with a prominent outflow (A. Gibb, private communication). In that case, the required molecular cloud velocity is 87  km s-1 and the stellar velocity needed to explain the velocity difference between positions $`3`$″and 0″ is only 17  km s-1. However, still this velocity of 87  km s-1 is much less than the observed molecular cloud velocity of 98  km s-1.

The bow shock model provides a natural explanation for the general morphology of cometary H ii regions if the inclination angle is larger than $`\pm 30`$ degrees (Mac Low et al., 1991; van Buren & Mac Low, 1992). As an aside, we can test whether the morphology observed for G29.96 is consistent with that of an O5–O6 main sequence star (see Sect. 5) developing a bow shock. Van Buren et al. (1990) propose a simple analytical model for bow shocks in molecular clouds. The standoff distance $`l_{\mathrm{sd}}`$, i.e. the distance from the star where the momentum flux in the wind equals the ram pressure of the ambient medium, is given by:

$`l_{\mathrm{sd}}(\mathrm{pc})=0.015\left({\displaystyle \frac{\dot{m}_{}}{10^6\mathrm{M}_{\mathrm{}}/\mathrm{yr}}}\right)^{1/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{v_\mathrm{w}}{10^8\mathrm{cm}/\mathrm{s}}}\right)^{1/2}`$
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_\mathrm{H}}{10^5\mathrm{cm}^3}}\right)^{1/2}\left({\displaystyle \frac{v_{}}{10^6\mathrm{cm}/\mathrm{s}}}\right)^1`$
where $`\dot{m}_{}`$ is the stellar wind mass-loss rate, $`v_\mathrm{w}`$ is the terminal velocity of the wind, $`n_\mathrm{H}`$ is the number density of hydrogen nuclei in all forms in the ambient gas and $`v_{}`$ is the relative velocity of the star through the ISM. We have adopted a mean mass per particle, $`\mu _\mathrm{H}`$, of 1.4 for the molecular gas. We take an O6 star with a metallicity twice solar (see Sect. 4.2) and stellar parameters adopted from Vacca et al. (1996). Following Vink et al. (2001), the corresponding stellar wind parameters are $`\dot{m}_{}=2.81\times 10^6`$ M yr-1 and $`v_\mathrm{w}=2951`$  km s-1. A star of these characteristics moving supersonically trough the molecular cloud at a velocity of 17  km s-1 will develop a bow shock with a standoff distance of 0.025 pc for a typical ambient gas density of $`10^5`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$. At a distance of 6 kpc and for an inclination angle of $`45`$ degrees, this distance corresponds to a projected separation of 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$6. From the observations (see Sect. 3), the projected standoff distance would be the offset between the star and the peak of the Br$`\gamma `$ arc, i.e. 2$`\stackrel{}{.}`$27. The observations imply either a much lower stellar velocity (of the order of 5  km s-1) or a molecular gas density at the stagnation point below $`10^4`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$.

### 6.2 The champagne flow model

G29.96 has also been interpreted in terms of a champagne flow. Champagne flow (blister) models assume that the medium in which a massive star is born is not uniform but has strong density gradients, which can give rise to an H ii region that expands supersonically away from the high-density region in a so-called champagne flow (e.g. Tenorio-Tagle, 1979; Bodenheimer et al., 1979). Theoretical simulations of the expansion of an H ii region in the champagne phase, i.e. when the ionization front of the nebula crosses a region of strong density gradients, such as the edge of the molecular cloud, and expands into the lower density intercloud medium, have been presented by Yorke et al. (1983). During this champagne flow phase, the H ii region is ionization bounded on the high-density side (i.e. towards the molecular cloud) and density bounded on the side of the outward champagne flow.

The morphology of the ionized gas as predicted by these models is characterized by a bright compact component and an extended low brightness component roughly shaped like an opened fan. This compact component is inconsistent with the morphology observed for G29.96. At the same time, the opening of the morphology predicted for the tail region is not evident in G29.96.

In terms of the velocity structure, the numerical calculations (Yorke et al., 1983) show that the ionized gas is accelerated in the direction away from the molecular cloud to a relatively high velocity, which can attain values in excess of 30  km s-1. On the contrary, very little variations should be observed near the core of the H ii region, where the ionization front should be essentially at the molecular cloud velocity (98  km s-1 in the case of G29.96). However, we see it at 67  km s-1 (or 87  km s-1 if we attribute the velocity shoulder between position $`7`$″ and $`3`$″ to velocity flows within the hot core, see Sect. 6.1).

### 6.3 Final remarks

Neither of the two competing models can explain the observed velocity structure for G29.96. Partly, this may reflect the complex structure of this region, where the presence of a hot core with an embedded young stellar object and an associated outflow may obfuscate the dynamics.

Further progress will require the direct determination of the stellar velocity from photospheric absorption lines, for instance, from near-IR spectroscopy at high spectral resolution. We tried to obtain information on the stellar velocity from the C iv and N iii emission lines observed in our K-band spectrum, but it was not possible due to the complexity of these lines together with the limited spectral resolution ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{v}33`$  km s-1). Also, a complete mapping of the dynamics of the ionized and molecular gas at both high spectral and spatial resolution will be essential.

A comparison of the observations with alternative models will also be important. Several authors, for instance, have investigated the interaction of a stellar wind and a clumpy molecular cloud material (e.g. Dyson et al., 1995; Redman et al., 1996; Williams et al., 1996). In this mass-loaded model, material from dense neutral clumps of gas is added to the ionized region around a newly formed massive stars; this neutral material soaks up ionizing photons, slowing down the expansion of the UCHii region. This mass-load model can explain cometary regions if the star is located in a density gradient of mass-loading clumps (Redman et al., 1998). G29.96 provides an excellent laboratory to test this model.

## 7 Summary

We presented a high quality, medium resolution K-band spectrum of the ultracompact region G29.96$``$0.02 obtained with the VLT. The slit was positioned along the symmetry axis of the nebula. Besides the spectrum of the embedded ionizing star, the observations included the emission-line spectrum produced by the ionized gas with sub-arcsec spatial resolution. The nebular spectrum includes Br$`\gamma `$, several helium emission lines, and a molecular hydrogen line.

The study of the relative strength of the Br$`\gamma `$ and He i lines as a function of position along the slit allowed us different lines of investigations. First, the observed helium lines in the nebula have been confronted with the He i recombination model. We have shown that the deviations of the transition of 43S–33P at 2.1128 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ from the Case B approximation are well described by the current understanding of the collisional and radiative transfer effects on the He i recombination spectrum of nebulae. The Case B approximation reproduces the ratios of He i lines originating from higher quantum states reasonably well. These He i line ratios indicate a constant electron temperature, between 6400 and 7500 K. Second, the relative strength of the Br$`\gamma `$ and the singlet transition of 41S–31P at 2.1137 $`\mu \mathrm{m}`$ indicates that He+/H+ is practically constant along the slit, with an average abundance of $`0.087\pm 0.001`$; we argue that He is singly ionized throughout the nebula. This conditions sets a lower limit to the effective temperature of the star.

The K-band spectrum of the ionizing star, together with the constraint imposed by the coincidence of the He+ and H+ zones, limit its spectral type to O5–O6. The various observational constraints on the effective temperature of the ionizing star are reviewed, and they are shown to be in rather good agreement with the above spectral type.

Finally, the variations in peak velocity and width of the Br$`\gamma `$ and H2 lines allowed us to study the kinematical structure of the ionized and molecular gas at higher spatial resolution than in previous studies. We find that neither the wind bow shock model nor the champagne flow model are supported by the observations. A firm constraint on the velocity of the star and a complete mapping of the dynamics of the ionized and molecular gas at both high spectral and spatial resolution will be essential to understand the formation and evolution of G29.96.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank the referee, Dr. P. Conti. MICE is supported at MPE by DLR (DARA) under grants 50 QI 86108 and 50 QI 94023.


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# 1 Diagram showing the definition of a hierarchical metric as a function of the distance. In Eq. we defined a metric which realizes the above properties for nearby points. The arc segment with a power of 𝑎 shown here represents the distance between any element from one side of the arc and any element from the other side.

A model displaying extremely inhomogeneous matter distribution in General Relativity

Elcio Abdalla and Cecilia B. M. H. Chirenti

Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo

C.P.66.318, CEP 05315-970, São Paulo, Brazil.

## Abstract

We consider a toy metric in four dimensional space-time defined in terms of a recursive hierarchical prescription. The matter distribution turns out to be extremely inhomogeneous. Surprisingly, for very large samples the average mass density tends (very slowly) to a constant. There is no trace of fractal dimension left.

Although most authors tend to believe that the large scale distribution of matter should be constant as predicted by Einstein’s cosmological principle  there is also a belief that such an idea should be further checked against observation . Some authors argued quite convincingly that the large scale distribution of matter should be fractal, quite the oposite to that expected by the cosmological principle. Inhomogeneous cosmological models have been searched by many authors      . The fact that detailed maps show quite strong inhomogeneities has been a motivation for long controversies  .

Here, we construct a metric defined in terms of a hierarchy, building an expectation that the matter distribution obtained from the corresponding Einstein’s Equations are extremely inhomogeneous, contradicting the cosmological principle, and probably presenting fractality properties, with a non trivial effective dimension. As it turns out, some of these conclusions are false, as we shall see.

Our starting point is the diagonal metric defined in terms of a distribution of points. A point in space-time is only defined at the integers. Indeed, we expect that a metric describing a fractal distribution cannot be continuous at any point, therefore it can only be defined on a discrete set. With this motivation in mind, we define, in a given direction $`i`$ (either 1, 2 or 3) the distance between two points as pictorically represented in Fig. 1, with the metric

$$g_{\mu \nu }=\left(\begin{array}{cccc}1& 0& 0& 0\\ 0& g_{11}& 0& 0\\ 0& 0& g_{22}& 0\\ 0& 0& 0& g_{33}\end{array}\right),$$
(1)
where the metric is defined on all integers, depending on their decomposition in terms of powers of 2, as below,

$`g_{11}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`a^{2k},\mathrm{with}x=2^{k+1}+2^k1`$
$`g_{22}(y)`$ $`=`$ $`a^{2l},\mathrm{with}y=2^{l+1}+2^l1`$ (2)
$`g_{33}(x)`$ $`=`$ $`a^{2m},\mathrm{with}z=2^{m+1}+2^m1.`$
Above, $`k`$, $`l`$ and $`m`$ are nonnegative integers and the metric is defined as unit when the entry is an even number. This defines the metric (see Fig. 1).

Computing the Christoffel symbols and subsequently the curvature tensor requires some care, since we are not dealing with derivatives of functions, but differences of functions defined on a discrete space. The result for the Christoffel symbols is

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}^0={\displaystyle \frac{k}{a}}g_{11}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{01}^1=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{10}^1={\displaystyle \frac{k}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{11}^1={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^x}{2}}(1g^{11}),`$
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{22}^0={\displaystyle \frac{l}{a}}g_{22}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{02}^2=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{20}^2={\displaystyle \frac{l}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{22}^2={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^y}{2}}(1g^{22}),`$ (3)
$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{33}^0={\displaystyle \frac{m}{a}}g_{33}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{30}^3=\mathrm{\Gamma }_{03}^3={\displaystyle \frac{m}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}},\mathrm{\Gamma }_{33}^3={\displaystyle \frac{(1)^z}{2}}(1g^{33}).`$
A naive construction of the Riemann tensor may lead to a result incompatible with the general symmetry properties required for that tensor . We thus define it as

$$R_{\lambda \mu \nu \kappa }=\frac{1}{2}[\frac{^2g_{\lambda \nu }}{x^\kappa x^\mu }\frac{^2g_{\mu \nu }}{x^\kappa x^\lambda }\frac{^2g_{\kappa \lambda }}{x^\mu x^\nu }+\frac{^2g_{\mu \kappa }}{x^\lambda x^\nu }]+g_{\eta \sigma }[\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\lambda \nu }^\eta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \kappa }^\sigma \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\lambda \kappa }^\eta \mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu }^\sigma ]$$
(4)
which in the continuous version corresponds exactly to the usual definition, and here has the correct symmetry properties with respect to the interchange of indices. The Ricci tensor is readily obtained, with the result (the non diagonal components vanish)

$`R_{00}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}(k+l+m){\displaystyle \frac{d^2a}{dt^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}}\right)^2[k(k1)+l(l1)+m(m1)],`$
$`R_{11}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{11}\{{\displaystyle \frac{k}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}}\right)^2[k(k1)+kl+km]\},`$
$`R_{22}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{22}\{{\displaystyle \frac{l}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}}\right)^2[kl+l(l1)+lm]\},`$
$`R_{33}`$ $`=`$ $`g_{33}\{{\displaystyle \frac{m}{a}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{a^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}}\right)^2[mk+ml+m(m1)]\}.`$
The matter density can be now readily calculated by means of the Einstein Equations, and we obtain

$`T_{00}\rho ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{8\pi G}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{a}}{\displaystyle \frac{da}{dt}}\right)^2(kl+lm+mk)\rho _0(kl+lm+mk).`$ (5)
The result shows severe inhomogeneities. A graph showing $`\rho (x,y,0)`$ exemplifies the situation in Fig. 2.

We further questioned about the fact of whether such an inhomogeneous distribution could be described by a fractal. We numerically computed the limit

$$\underset{r\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{N(r)}{r^d},$$
(6)
where $`N(r)=_{0x,y,zr}\rho (x,y,z)`$ finding the value of $`d`$ where the limit exists. This is the usual definition of a fractal dimension . Some results are sumarized in Figure 3.

It turned out, with some surprise, that the effective dimension of the distribution is $`d=3`$, that is, the hierarchical metric was not enough to lead to a hierarchical distribution of matter. Nonetheless, the matter distribution is very inhomogeneous, and does not seem to homogenize very soon. Whether such a simplified model can have any relation to the real matter distribution of the universe is not questioned, but the stability of the dimensionality of the effective distribution of matter is quite remarkable. This may give support to models displaying highly inhomogeneous behaviour either in the nonrelativistic domain, such as , or up to a certain cosmological distance, but smooth out their behaviour at large enough scales, as predicted by the cosmological principle, very slowly approaching the canonical value $`d=3`$ for the effective dimension.

Acknowledgements: This work has been supported by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Brazil.


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# Long Range Hops and the Pair Annihilation Reaction 𝐴+𝐴→∅: Renormalization Group and Simulation

(December 22, 2003)

## Abstract

A simple example of a non-equilibrium system for which fluctuations are important is a system of particles which diffuse and may annihilate in pairs on contact. The renormalization group can be used to calculate the time dependence of the density of particles, and provides both an exact value for the exponent governing the decay of particles and an $`ϵ`$-expansion for the amplitude of this power law. When the diffusion is anomalous, as when the particles perform Lévy flights, the critical dimension depends continuously on the control parameter for the Lévy distribution. The $`ϵ`$-expansion can then become an expansion in a small parameter. We present a renormalization group calculation and compare these results with those of a simulation.

Many different approaches have been used to study the dynamics of systems far from equilibrium privman97 ; hinrichsen00 ; tauber02 . These include exact solutions derived by mapping the problem to a quantum spin system schutz00  or by studying various particle distribution functions masser01 ; privman97 , renormalization group methods cardy96 , and simulations. Many of these systems can be assigned to a small number of universality classes, based on the time dependence of a few measurable quantities. Renormalization group methods are particularly useful in characterizing this universal behavior, as they make it possible to examine the action describing the behavior of the system and determine which scaling variables are relevant. Systems of particles which can diffuse and undergo reactions are straightforward examples, which can be studied far from equilibrium. One of the simplest examples of a reaction-diffusion system is the pair-annihilation reaction, in which members of a single species of particle, denoted by $`A`$, react at some rate $`\lambda `$ to form an inert product. This reaction is written $`A+A\mathrm{}`$. This reaction, and some related ones, have been studied for some time. For some examples, see the work of Smoluchowski smoluchowski17 , who studied the coagulation of colloidal particles unsing a mean-field approach, and Ovchinnikov and Zeldovich ovchinnikov78 , who examined the effects of fluctuations on the reaction $`A+B\mathrm{}`$. The solution to the (mean-field) rate equation

$$\frac{n}{t}=D^2n\lambda n^2$$
(1)
for the density of particles is the correct result for spatial dimension $`d>2`$, but for lower dimensions, fluctuations become important. If the number density of particles scales as $`nAt^\alpha `$ for large $`t`$, then $`\alpha =1`$ for $`d>2`$. A renormalization group study by Lee lee94  produced the exact result $`\alpha =d/2`$ for $`d<2`$, and also yielded the amplitude $`A`$ as an expansion in $`ϵ=2d`$. The agreement between this amplitude and the exact result lushnikov87  for a specific model in $`d=1`$ was poor, as might be expected as the expansion parameter $`ϵ=1`$ is large here. However, the $`ϵ`$-expansion does provide a systematic picture of the scaling behaviour of this process.

This paper extends the renormalization group calculation of lee94  to the case of anomalous diffusion, which is modelled by a long-range hopping process in which the distance a particle travels in each time step is chosen from a Lévy distribution. These distributions form a family that share with the gaussian the property that they are “stable,” in the sense that the probability distribution of the sum of two numbers chosen from a Lévy distribution is the same distribution, up to a trivial rescaling. The probability distribution for each of these distributions has a Fourier transform

$$P(k)=e^{D_Ak^\sigma },(0<\sigma 2),$$
(2)
where $`\sigma `$ is a parameter that controls the shape of the distribution and $`D_A`$ scales the distribution. For $`\sigma <2`$, the real-space distributions have power-law tails, $`P(r)r^{(d+\sigma )}`$ for large $`r`$. These distributions appear in a number of physical contexts klafter96 , including diffusion in disordered media bouchaud90  and motion of particles in turbulent flow, in both experiments solomon93 ; weeks98 , and theoretical calculations chen01 . Hinrichsen and Howard hinrichsen99  previously simulated the process studied here, and determined the exponent $`\alpha `$, but did not perform a renormalization group calculation and did not measure the amplitude.

The calculation of the density of particles uses reasonably standard renormalization group techniques, and will only be summarized here. The density of particles can be found by solving the Langevin equation

$$\frac{\varphi (𝐱,t)}{t}=(D_N^2+D_A^\sigma )\varphi (𝐱,t)\lambda \varphi ^2(𝐱,t)+\varphi (𝐱,t)\zeta (𝐱,t)$$
(3)
with an initial condition set by the initial density of particles $`n_0`$. The anomalous diffusion term, $`D_A^\sigma `$, is defined by its action in Fourier space,

$$D_A^\sigma e^{i𝐤𝐱}=D_A|𝐤|^\sigma e^{i𝐤𝐱},$$
(4)
and the noise term $`\zeta `$ has correlations of the form

$$\zeta (𝐱,t)\zeta (𝐱^{},t^{})=2\lambda \delta ^d(𝐱𝐱^{})\delta (tt^{}).$$
(5)
The average density is then given by an average of solutions to Eq. (3) over noise histories, $`n=\varphi `$. The normal diffusion term $`D_N^2`$ appears if the distribution of hops has any component proportional to $`k^2`$ in its Fourier transform. This term will be dropped, as it is less relevant than the anomalous term and flows to zero under renormalization.

The form of the noise term and the noise-noise correlation function given by Eq. (5) are not determined by equilibrium physics, but can be derived from the master equation describing the microscopic behavior of the system, using the procedure developed by Doi doi76  and Peliti peliti85 . Their procedure produces an effective field theory describing the behavior of the system, with an action given by

$$S=d^dx\left[_0^t𝑑t\left\{\widehat{\varphi }(_tD_A^\sigma )\varphi +2\lambda \widehat{\varphi }\varphi ^2+\lambda \widehat{\varphi }^2\varphi ^2\right\}n_0\widehat{\varphi }(0)\right].$$
(6)
The field $`\widehat{\varphi }`$ is a response field, which plays the same rôle as that in the Martin-Siggia-Rose approach cardybook96 . This field theory can then be used to derive a Langevin equation by integrating out the response field, applying the Martin-Siggia-Rose approach cardybook96  in reverse. For examples of this derivation applied to similar problems, see cardy96  and vernon01 . Either the field theory or the Langevin equation can be used to develop a renormalized perturbation expansion for the density of particles.

The sum of tree diagrams is equivalent to the solution of Eq. (3) without the noise term. Divergences appear as diagrams with loops are included, and these can be handled by renormalizing the annihilation rate $`\lambda `$. Power counting shows that the critical dimension is $`d_c=\sigma `$, so that the expansion will be in $`ϵ=\sigma d`$. The diagrams in Fig. 1 give the full renormalization of the annihilation rate, and represent the sum

$$\lambda _R(𝐤,t)=\lambda 2\lambda ^2\frac{dk_1}{(2\pi )^d}\frac{dk_2}{(2\pi )^d}(2\pi )^d\delta (kk_1k_2)e^{k_1^\sigma t}e^{k_2^\sigma t}+\mathrm{}$$
(7)
This sum can be done to all orders after a Laplace transformation $`\lambda _R(𝐤,s)=_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑te^{st}\lambda _R(𝐤,t)`$, to give

$$\lambda _R(𝐤=\mathrm{𝟎},s)=\frac{\lambda }{1+C\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{ϵ}{\sigma }\right)s^{ϵ/\sigma }},$$
(8)
with

$$C=\frac{1}{\sigma }\frac{2^{2d/\sigma }}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{d}{\sigma })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{d}{2})},$$
(9)
and so, after a renormalization point $`s=\kappa ^\sigma `$ is chosen, the exact flow function for the renormalized annihilation rate $`g_R=\kappa ^ϵ\lambda _R(\mathrm{𝟎},\kappa )`$ is

$$\beta =\kappa \frac{g_R}{\kappa }=ϵg_R+ϵC\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{ϵ}{\sigma }\right)g_R^2.$$
(10)
This has a non-trivial fixed point, which is stable for $`d<\sigma `$, at $`g_R^{}=(C\mathrm{\Gamma }(\frac{ϵ}{\sigma }))^1`$.

Imposing the condition that the density be independent of the (arbitrary) normalization point $`\kappa `$, and using dimensional analysis, a renormalization group equation can be written as

$$\left[\sigma D_At\frac{}{(D_At)}+\beta (g_R)\frac{}{g_R}n_0\frac{}{n_0}+d\right]n_R=0.$$
(11)
The solution to this, by the method of characteristics, is

$$n_R(D_At,n_0,g_R,\kappa )=(\kappa ^\sigma D_At)^{d/\sigma }n_R(\kappa ^\sigma ,(\kappa ^\sigma D_At)^{d/\sigma },\stackrel{~}{g}_R,\kappa )$$
(12)
where $`\stackrel{~}{g}_R`$ is the running coupling, which goes to $`g_R^{}`$ as $`t\mathrm{}`$. In a diagrammatic expansion, each loop brings in a higher power of the renormalized coupling, so an expansion in the number of loops is an expansion in $`g_R^{}`$, which is small near the critical dimension $`d_c=\sigma `$. The first approximation to the right hand side can be found by summing all tree diagrams generated by expanding either the action (Eq. (6)) or the Langevin equation (Eq. (3)). The next term, including all diagrams with loops, is calculated by writing an integral equation for the density, as done in lee94 . The leading contribution to the density at long times is then given by

$$n(t)=A(D_At)^{\frac{d}{\sigma }}.$$
(13)
The exponent is exact, and, to order $`ϵ^0`$, the amplitude is

$$A=\frac{1}{(4\pi )^{d/2}}\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{\sigma }\right)}{\mathrm{\Gamma }\left(\frac{d}{2}\right)}\frac{2^{1d/\sigma }}{\sigma }\left[\frac{\sigma }{ϵ}\frac{5}{2}\right].$$
(14)
This expression is obtained by expanding factors which are singular as $`ϵ0`$ in $`ϵ`$, and leaving the remainder as an expression in $`d`$.

Simulations of a microscopic model in one dimension have been performed and the results compared to the prediction of the renormalization group calculation. The convergence of the densities to the predicted power law is clearly shown in Fig. 2.

The simulations are of a one-dimensional lattice, where only one particle may occupy each site. This differs from the renormalization group calculation, in which multiple occupancy is allowed, but the annihilation rate flows to a fixed point and thus the bare annihilation rate does not appear in the final answer, so the results should be similar. At the beginning of the simulation, the lattice contains $`L=10^7`$ sites, with every site occupied. Whenever the number of particles fell below 1000, the system was doubled by appending an exact copy of the current configuration of particles. While this does make the system momentarily periodic, the two halves subsequently evolve differently. This allowed the simulation to continue to large times without large statistical fluctuations in the density. For $`\sigma =1.05`$, the final system size was $`L=2^9\times 10^7`$. The distribution of jumps was chosen to follow a Lévy stable law, using the method given in bratley87 . Since this method is for a continuous distribution, which is then made into a discrete distribution by rounding, the values generated were multiplied by a numerically determined factor to produce the correct low-$`k`$ value of the distribution. Earlier simulations vernon01 ; hinrichsen99  used a pure power-law form for the distribution of jumps, which does flow to the desired distribution in the long-time limit. The distribution used here matches the Lévy distribution much more closely after a single step, and makes it easier to determine the anomalous diffusion constant $`D_A`$.

For some values of $`\sigma `$, the anomalous diffusion constant $`D_A`$ in the distribution of hop lengths, Eq. (2), was varied. In the field theory or the Langevin equation, this change to the kinetics results in a change in the coefficients of powers of $`k`$, which come from an expansion of the hop length distribution. These terms, many of which are irrelevant in the renormalization group sense and are not written in the Langevin equation, can be seen to have a significant impact on the crossover behavior, and it may be useful to vary these parameters in future simulations, to examine the crossover.

As can be seen in Fig. 2, the time taken to reach the asymptotic form of the density depends strongly on $`D_A`$. For $`\sigma `$ close to $`1`$ and $`D_A=1`$, the crossover is very long, but the amplitude can be extracted from a fit to the form

$$\frac{n(t)}{(D_At)^{1/\sigma }}=A(1Bt^\varphi ).$$
(15)
To obtain the long-time value of the amplitude, the fit was done over many ranges with differing starting times, and extrapolated to $`t\mathrm{}`$. For larger values of $`D_A`$, this fit is not necessary, as the density reaches its asymptotic value quickly, and several decades of scaling can be seen in the data.

The prediction for the amplitude is compared to simulation results in Fig. 3. The agreement between the $`ϵ`$-expansion for the amplitude and the simulation result becomes quite good for small $`ϵ`$, as expected for this asymptotic power series expansion. As well as being interesting as a model for physical processes with anomalous diffusion, the Lévy flights used here allow this regime, where the expansion parameter is small, to be explored in a simulation.

###### Acknowledgements.

Thanks to Michael Plischke for several useful suggestions, and to Martin Howard and Tibor Antal for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Financial support was provided by the NSERC of Canada.


text:
# CVcat: an interactive database on cataclysmic variables

## 1 Introduction

CVcat is an interactive database or “online catalogue” that offers a number of features so far unknown to scientific catalogues. It was developed as a tool for the research community working on cataclysmic variables (CVs), a class of close interacting binaries, and as a case study for some of the concepts to be used in the development of a general catalogue software, AstroCat. CVcat can be accessed online at http://www.cvcat.org. It was first presented to the public in August 2001 during a CV conference held in Göttingen (Kube et al. 2002). Since then, the number of users of CVcat has increased to more than one hundred, the daily average of requests is around fifty (total number of delivered pages).

## 2 The concept

CVcat has been developed in order to overcome major conceptual shortcomings of existing CV catalogues: Ritter & Kolb (1998) include only systems with known orbital period, which limits their catalogue to $`1/3`$ of all CVs and related objects. Downes et al. (1997) do list all known CVs, but their catalogue provides only very limited information on each individual system, i.e., the only binary parameter included is the orbital period. Our aim was to develop an online data base that combines the information of the existing catalogues *and* allows the users to actively contribute to the content of the data base, implementing a first version of an “open catalogue”.

CVcat differs from other CV catalogues and other astronomical databases in the concept of the data input. So far, the majority of astronomical catalogues have been compiled by *relatively small editorial teams* consisting of scientists knowledgeable in the fields covered by the catalogues (e.g. Downes et al. 1997; Ritter & Kolb 1998; McCook & Sion 1999; Liu et al. 2001). These catalogues typically contain more or less detailed information on a specific class of astronomical objects. Updates are published, if at all, only on a very irregular basis. The catalogues contain just *one value* for each listed property (e.g. distance, orbital period) of a given object. While this is helpful for non-specialist users to obtain a quick overview of the properties of an individual object, or of the statistical properties of a given group of objects, the more expert user will certainly benefit if different and possibly competing values for a given parameter are referenced in such catalogues. This is particularly useful if the information has been obtained by different methods.

Some of the aforementioned catalogues moved from “classical” printed publication to online web-based publication, which allows shorter update cycles \[e.g. the “living edition” of the Downes et al. (1997) CV catalogue, Downes et al. (2001)\], however, the overall concepts remained unchanged. In addition to these specialized catalogues for a specific object class there exists huge data bases like SIMBAD (Wenger et al. 2000), which provide very basic properties for an enormously large number of objects. However, due to the very global coverage of astronomical objects, data contained in SIMBAD are prone to be incomplete and/or inaccurate.

The concept of an “open catalogue” implemented in CVcat permits *every registered user* to add data to the catalogue, which is *instantly* visible to all other users. The quality control is performed by an editorial team (Sect. 2.1), which may alter or remove erroneous data. For every property of an object, an *arbitrary number of values* can be stored (e.g. several published values for the distance). CVcat returns one of these values as the “best available” value, selected as such by the editors. However, as such a selection process often involves some subtle subjective view of the editor, the more expert user may decide to inspect the original sources for the competing values, and, thereafter, decide based on his/her experience which value is best suited for a given purpose.

A sketch of the different concepts of data input and validation is given in Fig. 1 (a) for classical catalogues and (b) for the CVcat concept. (c) introduces the concept that will be implemented in the next release of CVcat, which is adressed in Sect. 4. In the future version, newly-added data will be instantly visible as it is now \[Fig. 1, (b)\], but will be tagged as “unapproved” until an editor cross-checks the data. In the current implementation (b), the user cannot see if a database entry has been approved by an editor.

### 2.1 Distributed editorial team

The editorial team of CVcat is recruited from the CV research community, and consists (ideally) of one expert per CV subclass. Since these editors are typically familiar with the publications on their “favourite” objects anyway, the amount of work to cross-check newly entered data is lowered. We estimate that for a typical subclass of CVs, say, polars, the time to be spent on editorial duties in CVcat is of the order of two hours per week or less. Each editor has the privilege to remove or change erroneous data for that person’s object class only. For data on all other object classes, the editor is a non-privileged user who may add new data and browse the catalogue. Note that every user may add data, in contrast to, e.g., SIMBAD, where only the editorial team can directly modify the catalogue content.

### 2.2 Database content

In contrast to the existing CV catalogues, CVcat is designed to contain a great variety of information for each object. Currently, the following object properties can be included, with the number in brackets being the number of entries on September 17, 2002 (note that because CVcat allows multiple entries for a given property of an object these numbers do not represent the number of unique objects for which a particular property is known):

High state magnitude (922), low state magnitude (794), optical spectrum exists (665), orbital period (509), distance (221), general magnitude (209), primary mass (156), inclination (153), secondary mass (142), superhump period (128), secondary spectral type (121), mass ratio (93), Doppler tomogram exists (80), primary temperature (76), optical light curve exists (61), hydrogen column density (58), orbital ephemeris (55), eclipsing (48), spin period (36), primary radius (33), secondary radius (29), uv data exists (22), general magnetic field strength of primary star (18), field strength of primary magnetic pole (17), x-ray data exists (14), eclipse map exists (11), secondary temperature (8), colatitude of primary magnetic pole (5), field strength of secondary magnetic pole (3), spin ephemeris (3), azimuth of primary magnetic pole (2), magnitude in eclipse (2), azimuth of secondary magnetic pole (1).

Every value stored in CVcat is linked to its original publication, either in the NASA ADS using the ADS bibcode of the paper (Kurtz et al. 2000), to the astro-ph/arXiv e-print archive, or to the VSNET messages (Nogami et al. 1997). Besides references to the publications from which the data entries contained in CVcat are taken, a list of articles with general information on a given object can be stored in CVcat.

We allow inclusion of data from astro-ph, which is not necessarily identical to the data published in the final refereed version (or which may in some cases never make it through the refereeing stage). Most of the astro-ph data, however, is promoted to refereed information at some point. It is a typical task of the editors to track such updates and to conduct the appropriate changes to the database, i.e. changing the source from an astro-ph to an ADS bibcode.

### 2.3 Searching the database

Data retrieval from CVcat works in two ways: (i) the user obtains all available data for a specific object, which can be found using its object type, its coordinates, or one of its names, (ii) the user creates a table containing selected properties for a list of objects. The latter method allows the user to create data tables suitable for easy graphics generation as well as ready-to-publish -tables.

Searching in CVcat is organized as a two-step process. In the first step, the user can enter the search pattern, which can be the name or a substring of the name, a set of object classes, and the coordinate range of the object (Fig. 2). The object class is selected using a grid of logical operators (“and”, “or”, and “not”). It is possible, e.g., to look for dwarf novae, which have also been observed as novae: choose “and DN” and “and Nova”. Another example is to look for nova-likes which do not show the SW Sex phenomenon: the corresponding selection would be “or NL” and “not SW”.

After submitting this search request a list with all objects matching the search criteria is returned (not shown). In this list, all object names are hyperlinks to the page showing all results for the specific object (Fig. 3). Alternatively, a set of objects can be chosen from this list to generate a user-configurable list with certain properties of the objects. This list may be adjusted in a way that objects without a published value for a certain property are not included. By iterative calls of the list generator it is possible to distill a table containing e.g. all objects with known masses and periods.

An example of the results of such a list creation process is given in the following section.

### 2.4 Example: Orbital periods and donor masses

Using the data contained in the CVcat database, we have plotted the secondary star masses as a function of the orbital period, Fig. 4, for all CVs. A linear trend with

$$\frac{M_2}{M_{\mathrm{}}}0.11P/\mathrm{h}0.06$$
(1)
is clearly visible. This is predicted by theoretical considerations, where the reasoning is roughly this (Frank et al. 1992): Using an approximation for the Roche geometry, valid for $`1.3q10`$, and Kepler’s law, one finds that the mean density of a Roche lobe filling star is a function of only the orbital period. With the knowledge of the lower main-sequence $`M/R`$ relation (Kippenhahn & Weigert 1990; Baraffe et al. 1998), one then finds

$$\frac{M_2}{M_{\mathrm{}}}0.11P/\mathrm{h}$$
(2)
A more detailed analysis of secondary star masses leads to slightly different period-mass-relations (Smith & Dhillon 1998):

$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_2}{M_{\mathrm{}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`(0.038\pm 0.003)(P/\mathrm{h})^{(1.58\pm 0.09)}\text{or}`$ (3)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{M_2}{M_{\mathrm{}}}}`$ $`=`$ $`(0.126\pm 0.011)P/\mathrm{h}(0.11\pm 0.04)`$ (4)
The data currently available in CVcat are consistent with the results from Smith & Dhillon (Fig. 4). Note that some of the published secondary star masses may be derived from the orbital period using some theoretical models, hence artificially stabilizing the fit close to the theoretical predictions.

## 3 Usage statistics

The log file analysis of CVcat usage over a one year period shows that CVcat has a stable user community which is still slowly increasing. The typical usage of CVcat is to request all available data on a specific object, which is normally queried by its name. List generation of objects selected by their class ranks second in the usage of the database. The current growth rate of the catalogue is around 50 entries per month, mostly from the CVcat editors.

The data flow into CVcat originating from outside the CVcat core team is not yet satisfying. It is unclear why most users refrain from adding data from their own publications. Users should bear in mind that the probability of having their papers cited increases if the information from their publications can be found in the database.

## 4 Prospects

The concept of CVcat has demonstrated the benefits of a public scientific catalogue with a globally-shared expertise of its users and editors. The general structure of CVcat is also applicable to other fields of astronomy. Hence, a more general software based on the experiences with CVcat which will allow the implemenation of catalogues for arbitrary object classes, called “AstroCat”, is currently being developed. This software will also include additional features to improve the knowledge management of astronomical results and data:

* Besides the “single number data” stored so far, the infrastructure for storing more complex data products, e.g., light curves, spectra, and finding charts will be added. This feature should help to overcome a major shortcoming in the present method of scientific publishing: most authors publish their reduced data only in the form of plots, making follow-up work on these results rather unattractive. While these data *may* be obtained directly from the authors, experience shows that in many cases the data have been lost due to faulty hardware or storage media, with the probability of loss increasing dramatically with time since the publication of the original work. In addition, the authors may have left astronomy, preventing access to their data. If the data is available in CVcat, the re-examination of observations would be much easier and independent of contact with the original author and the corresponding data archive. The storage of reduced and published data in a usable form at e.g. CDS, Strasbourg, is already promoted by journals like A&A.
* Information agents will allow users to be informed automatically if new data is entered into the database for their objects of interest. This is a service that keeps the user informed about new publications on a given object or class of objects without having to log in to CVcat frequently.
* An elaborated validation system will allow the users to add their comments to published data. This unique feature will add personal communication aspects to the database. Public discussion on details of the published data may arise from this.
* To allow exact quoting of a specific state of the ever-changing catalogue, a “versioning method using a global identification number (GID) will be used: the GID is incremented with each change of the content of AstroCat (e.g. adding new data, marking data as correct, marking data as the best available etc.). Every output resulting from the use of AstroCat will include the current GID number. An older state of the database can be exactly reproduced by issuing a given GID (lower than the current one), and using AstroCat with such a specific GID will return always precisely the same results, independent of the actual state of the data base. Any statistical analysis based on data from CVcat should therefore include the GID of the CVcat state at the time of analysis, permitting a quantitative comparison with future studies. It is not necessary to rely on a fixed or frozen state so far only available in printed catalogues.
* Data that have not yet been cross-checked by the editorial team will be tagged as such. This method combines both the unique speed of the CVcat concept and the expertise of the editorial team. As long as a new datum is visible but marked as unapproved, the user of the database can use the new entry under his own responsibility, while an approved value is authoritative.
* Hyperlinks to a large number of available web resources will be included for every object. This includes, e.g., links to other CV cataloges like SIMBAD, the ADS, arXiv.org, the different variable star observers archives, and many more.

The development of the new CVcat and the AstroCat software is done in close cooperation with the users of the current implementation. In summer 2003, the data from the current CVcat will be transferred to the new database. By the end of 2003, the AstroCat/CVcat framework will be completed. Ideas from the editors and users of other interactive catalogues, e.g. the high-$`z`$ database (de Mello et al. 2002), are highly appreciated. The AstroCat project is hosted at http://astrocat.uni-goettingen.de.

## 5 Technical realization

CVcat is implemented as a Perl script which runs on a Linux PC. This Perl script processes the user requests (HTTP GET/POST requests) and creates HTML pages that are delivered via the Apache web server. Hence, CVcat presents itself as an interactive web page.

The data is stored in a MySQL data base to which the Perl script communicates using the standard Perl DBI/DBD interface.

For the implementation of AstroCat, an XML layer will be included between the data base and the HTML layer. This XML layer can be used to automatically include larger data sets into the database. Another possible application will be to use the AstroCat framework as an archive for reduced data from robotic telescopes that use RTML (Hessman 2001) for their observation requests, accomplished observations, and some of the metadata. A technical advantage of the usage of XML is the easy availability of many very good tools specialized in the processing of XML data and the transformation of XML documents into HTML pages. This will improve the quality and the speed of the implementation. PHP might be used in addition to Perl as the scripting language for the AstroCat programs.

## 6 Summary

With CVcat we have implemented an online catalogue for cataclysmic variable stars, which – for the first time – allows its users to add data instantly visible to all other users. The quality control is realized by a team of experts who share the responsibility for the different object classes. From the experiences of one year of public usage of the catalogue we have compiled a number of new concepts which will be implemented in the next generation of CVcat in the context of a more general framework for astronomical databases, AstroCat.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank all the colleagues who volunteered to take the responsibility for one of the object classes included in CVcat: Domitilla de Martino, Don Hoard, Steve Howell, Tom Marsh, Klaus Reinsch, Matthias Schreiber, and John Thorstensen. The AstroCat/CVcat project is funded by the *Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)* project number LIS 4 – 554 95 (1) Göttingen. The development of the feasibility study has partially been supported by the DLR under grant 50 OR99 03 6. BTG also acknowledges support from a PPARC Advanced Fellowship. We appreciate the helpful comments from the referee, Dr. Ochsenbein, to both this paper and the CVcat database itself.