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# Dynamical modelling of a remarkable four-armed barred spiral galaxy ESO 566-24

## 1 Introduction

Barred galaxies constitute the majority of all spiral galaxies. According to recent near-infrared (NIR) studies, about 70% of disk galaxies have a bar (Eskridge et al., 2000; Knapen et al., 2000). Barred galaxies often have rings or pseudorings in their disks with very distinctive characteristics (Buta & Combes, 1996). Depending on its relative size with respect to the bar, a ring can be classified as an outer ring (semi-major axis about twice the bar radius), an inner ring (semi-major axis $``$ bar radius) or a nuclear ring (semi-major axis about 10 % of the bar radius, though the scatter is large) (Buta & Crocker, 1993). Although all three types of barred galaxy rings can show enhanced star formation (see, for example, Buta & Purcell 1998), nuclear rings are most prone to starbursts (Maoz et al., 1996; Buta & Combes, 2000). In addition to rings, barred spiral galaxies often show offset dust lanes on the leading sides of the bar (assuming trailing spiral arms).

The dynamical behaviour of barred galaxies has been modelled in different ways. Some studies are general, in the sense that no specific barred galaxy is modelled, but they concentrate instead on issues such as the formation and evolution of the bar. In most of these studies, the large-scale bars are suggested to be fast rotators, i.e. their corotation resonance (CR) radius should be near the end of the bar (Sellwood, 1981). This is in accordance with gas dynamical simulations of the shapes of the leading offset dust lanes inside the bars (Athanassoula, 1992b). Exceptions to fast rotating bars are the studies by Combes & Elmegreen (1993) and Miwa & Noguchi (1998); in the former study a short and slow rotating bar forms in a simulation where the disk was strongly truncated radially, while in the latter, a slow bar forms as a result of an interaction. The contribution of a dark halo inside the radius of the optical disk can have a strong effect on disk dynamics. According to Ostriker & Peebles (1973) a massive halo can inhibit the bar formation, and Debattista & Sellwood (1998, 2000) have shown simulations where the interaction between a bar and a halo decelerates strongly the bar rotation. However, conflicting results have also been published: Athanassoula & Misiriotis (2002) and Athanassoula (2002) show examples where the halo actually promotes bar formation, and Valenzuela & Klypin (2002) found a rather low angular momentum transfer rate from the bar to the dark halo.

In principle, the pattern speed of a bar can be determined from observations for a disk with a well-defined pattern speed (Tremaine & Weinberg, 1984). The Tremaine-Weinberg method further assumes that the used tracer component follows the continuity equation, i.e. its intensity is proportional to total density. When these conditions are fulfilled, the pattern speed can be determined from the observed intensity and the line-of-sight velocity along a strip parallel to galaxy major axis. In most of the cases, where this method has been applied, the corotation resonance seems to be near the end of the bar (Kent, 1987; Merrifield & Kuijken, 1995; Aguerri et al., 2003). Note, however, that due to its limitations, this method has been successfully applied mostly to SB0-galaxies.

Another kinematical method to determine the pattern speed was presented by Canzian (1993) and is based on observed residuals in the velocity field after subtracting the axisymmetric velocity component. In the case of a two-armed spiral, the velocity residuals exhibit an $`m=1`$ spiral shape inside corotation, whereas outside corotation, an $`m=3`$ spiral should appear. This method was used to determine the pattern speed in NGC 4321 by Sempere et al. (1995) and Canzian & Allen (1997), who found a rather low value, setting the corotation radius about 1.6 – 1.8 times the bar radius. However, the method is very sensitive to noise, and the construction of the axisymmetric velocity component is not trivial. Purcell (1998), who studied a larger galaxy sample, found that only in 7 of 27 Sbc galaxies could the expected pattern be seen in velocity field residuals.

There are several suggested resonance indicators related to morphological details of spiral structure (Elmegreen et al., 1989). Even if these are valid, their application to barred galaxies is not necessarily straightforward: there can be more than one mode in the system. For example the outer spiral arms can have a lower pattern speed than the bar (Sellwood & Sparke, 1988). In such cases the pattern speed derived e.g. from the dust lane morphology of the outer arms would not correspond to that of the bar.

The formation of rings in barred galaxies has been explained by the response of the dissipative gas component to the gravitational torque of the bar (Schwarz, 1981; Combes & Gerin, 1985; Byrd et al., 1994; Buta & Combes, 1996; Rautiainen & Salo, 2000). The shapes of the rings resemble the shapes of certain closed periodic orbits in barred potentials (Contopoulos & Grosbøl, 1989). When the non-axisymmetric perturbation is weak, these rings form very close to resonance radii. The usual resonance identifications are such that the outer rings are located near the outer Lindblad resonance (OLR), the inner rings near the inner 4/1-resonance and the nuclear rings near the inner Lindblad resonance (ILR). Thus if the rotation curve of the galaxy is known, the sizes of the rings can be used to estimate the bar pattern speed. However, these pattern speed estimates can be misleading when the bar perturbation is strong, and the resonance distances based on the linear approximation fail. This is especially the case with nuclear rings, which are located in a region where the relative non-axisymmetric forcing is strong. Furthermore, both nuclear and outer rings can often be affected by another mode in addition to the main bar; nuclear rings by a secondary bar, and outer rings by an outer spiral mode (Rautiainen & Salo, 2000; Rautiainen et al., 2002).

The effect of the strength of the bar is taken into account when detailed models for individual galaxies are being constructed. The adopted approach has varied from fitting an analytical mass model to observations (Duval & Athanassoula, 1983) to determining the mass model from near-infrared observations (Lindblad et al., 1996; Lindblad & Kristen, 1996). In some models, the non-axisymmetric forcing of the bar was not enough to reproduce the spiral structure with the observed extent, and so an unseen oval-shaped component was added (England, 1989; Ball, 1992). A spiral potential corresponding to the NIR-morphology solved this problem more elegantly (Lindblad et al., 1996). The number of successfully modelled barred galaxies is still quite small, and it is not clear how well the ranges of parameters such as the bar pattern speed and the relative strength of the non-axisymmetric perturbation are known.

We started our modelling project of ringed galaxies with the normal, but rather weakly barred galaxy IC 4214. From the observations (Buta et al., 1999), we constructed a mass model with a few free parameters (Salo et al., 1999). In our best-fitting models both the morphology and kinematics were well reproduced. Following the successful modelling of IC 4214, we extend our studies here by constructing a dynamical model for an extraordinary barred spiral: the four-armed galaxy ESO 566-24.

## 2 A Remarkable Four-Armed Barred Spiral

ESO 566-24 is a barred spiral galaxy of de Vaucouleurs revised Hubble type SB(r)b. It was first recognized as being an exceptional example of a four-armed ringed barred spiral galaxy during early stages in the production of the Catalog of Southern Ringed Galaxies (CSRG, Buta, 1995). High quality optical CCD images in the $`U`$, $`B`$, and $`I`$ passbands, obtained in follow-up work by Buta & Crocker (1991), reveal an extremely regular four-armed pattern of normal spiral arms, as well as star formation in the inner ring and in a very small previously unknown nuclear ring. These images also revealed a faint, partial outer ring-like pattern that envelopes the four-armed spiral pattern (Buta et al., 1998). Although rings are not rare in barred galaxies, regular four-armed outer spirals are very rare and, if seen at all, appear in a partial manner, as the secondary spiral arcs and two main outer arms seen in NGC 1433 (Buta, 1986; Buta et al., 2001).

Buta et al. (1998) showed that the four-armed structure of ESO 566-24 is clearly seen in a NIR $`H`$-band image. Thus, the pattern is also present in the old stellar population. A recent study of about 200 galaxies in different wavebands by Eskridge et al. (2002) demonstrated that the NIR morphology of galaxies is usually not as dramatically different from the optical morphology as is sometimes stated (Block & Puerari, 1999), with multiple-arm and flocculent morphology also being seen in the $`H`$-band. However, in most of the cases, two arms dominate, and the extra arms are weaker and usually form as a bifurcation of the main arms. This is not the case with ESO 566-24: the four arms are of about same strength and length.

In this paper, we use numerical models to find the parameter range (pattern speed, mass-to-light ratio) which can reproduce the regular four-armed morphology of ESO 566-24. We study how resonances are located with respect to the observed structures such as rings, and we also identify orbits supporting these structures. Finally, we compare the spectacular morphology of ESO 566-24 with more partial patterns seen in other barred galaxies.

## 3 Methods

The method used by Salo et al. (1999) in modelling the early-type, weakly-barred spiral galaxy IC 4214 is used here for modelling ESO 566$``$24. The gas morphology is modelled by inelastically colliding test particles, which move in a rigidly-rotating gravitational potential. We estimate the mass distribution from NIR $`H`$-band photometry, assuming a constant mass-to-light ratio throughout the disk. Before deprojecting the galaxy image, a bulge–disk decomposition is done, and the resulting bulge component is subtracted from the image. Then the disk surface brightness (and surface density) distribution is approximated using a Fourier decomposition

$`\mathrm{\Sigma }(r,\theta )`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(r)\left\{1+{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}A_\mathrm{m}(r)\mathrm{cos}\left[m\left(\theta \theta _\mathrm{m}\right)\right]\right\}`$ (1)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0(r)+{\displaystyle \underset{m=1}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}\mathrm{\Sigma }_m(r,\theta ),`$
where $`r`$ and $`\theta `$ are the polar coordinates, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(r,\theta )`$ the disk surface density, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_0`$ the axisymmetric surface density, and $`A_\mathrm{m}(r)`$ and $`\theta _\mathrm{m}(r)`$ are the Fourier amplitude and phase angles. For our analysis, we used even components $`m=0`$$`8`$. This introduces smoothing of small scale structure such as star forming regions but has little or no impact on the basic background stellar potential. A similar procedure was adopted by Kranz et al. (2001). From the density components $`\mathrm{\Sigma }_m`$, we then calculate the potential components $`\mathrm{\Phi }_m`$

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_m(r,\theta ,z=0)=G_0^{\mathrm{}}r^{}𝑑r^{}_0^{2\pi }\mathrm{\Sigma }_m(r^{},\theta ^{})g(\mathrm{\Delta }r)𝑑\theta ^{},$$
(2)
where $`(\mathrm{\Delta }r)^2=r_{}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}+r^22rr^{}cos(\theta ^{}\theta )`$ and the convolution function

$$g(\mathrm{\Delta }r)=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\varrho _z(z)((\mathrm{\Delta }r)^2+z^2)^{1/2}𝑑z$$
(3)
is used for calculating the effect of the vertical density profile $`\varrho (z)`$ (normalized to unity when integrated over the vertical direction). In Salo et al. (1999) the gravity softening was used as a measure of finite disk thickness. In this study we use an exponential vertical distribution,

$$\varrho (z)=\frac{1}{2h_z}exp(|z|/h_z)$$
(4)
which has a similar effect. A more detailed description of the potential calculation can be found in Laurikainen & Salo (2002). We have tried scale heights in the range $`1/12`$$`1/2`$ times the radial exponential scale length $`h_r`$ of the disk, corresponding to the change from a very thin disk to an unrealistically thick one; for the morphological type of ESO 566-24, $`h_z/h_r1/6`$ is expected (de Grijs et al., 1997; de Grijs, 1998). Some tests were made with variable scale height, making the disk thicker in the bar region.

The non-axisymmetric perturbation of the potential is turned on gradually during four bar rotation periods. This procedure was adopted to smoothly “guide” particles to realistic orbits, thus trying to minimize the effect of transient phenomena related to abrupt changes in the potential, e.g. such as a large number of gas particles ending up on crossing orbits.

The gas component is modelled as a two-dimensional disk consisting of 20,000 inelastically colliding test particles. In each collision, the relative velocity component parallel with the line joining the particle centres is reversed and multiplied by the coefficient of restitution. In each time step, only one collision per particle is allowed. The particle motion is integrated using leap-frog integration. The time-step is chosen so that at the radius of the smallest morphological detail, the nuclear ring, one circular rotation period is about 50 steps. In addition to gas particles, we have also made simulations with 200,000 non-colliding “stellar” particles with different initial velocity dispersions. For more details on the simulation code, see Salo et al. (1999).

We use a modified version of the bulge model presented in Buta et al. (1998). We take the average radial profile of the bulge, assume the bulge to be axisymmetric and calculate its gravitational potential using the algorithm described in Kent (1986). As a possible halo component we use an isothermal sphere with a constant core radius, which has a rotation curve

$$v_h(r)=v_{\mathrm{}}\sqrt{\frac{r^2}{r^2+r_c^2}},$$
(5)
where $`v_{\mathrm{}}`$ is the asymptotic velocity at infinity and $`r_c`$ is the core radius.

## 4 Observed characteristics of ESO 566-24

Because the observations and data reduction are described in Buta et al. (1998), we here just give the main morphological and kinematical characteristics of ESO 566-24, concentrating on details which are useful for comparing simulations with observations.

ESO 566-24 has a clear bar component in both visual and NIR-images. The bar is considerably stronger than in IC 4214. It is difficult to judge what would be the best method to determine the bar length. Applying several methods to $`H`$-band images: e.g., axis ratios of isophotes and local amplitude minima of $`m=2`$ and $`m=4`$ Fourier components of disk surface brightness, we estimate the bar radius to be $`r_{bar}=18\mathrm{}\pm 2\mathrm{}`$, or about 1.6 times the exponential scale length of the disk, $`h_r11\stackrel{}{.}3`$. This is in reasonable agreement with the value adopted in Buta et al. (1998), $`r_{bar}=16\stackrel{}{.}7`$. Athanassoula & Misiriotis (2002) use seven different methods to determine the bar length in N-body simulations. However, we found that the complicated morphology of ESO 566-24 made many of these unsuitable (e.g. their $`m=2`$ phase angle criterion would give the bar radius in the middle of the spiral pattern). Colour index maps, e.g. $`BI`$, show that there are dust lanes on the leading sides of the bar (Buta & Crocker, 1991).

The bar is surrounded by an inner ring, which appears circular in the plane of the sky but deprojects to an ellipse parallel with the bar major axis for the adopted orientation parameters: position angle $`PA=73\mathrm{°}`$ and inclination $`i=43\mathrm{°}`$ (Buta et al., 1998). Parallel alignment is a normal characteristic of barred galaxy inner rings (Buta, 1995). The deprojected semimajor axis radius of the inner ring is about $`19\mathrm{}`$. There is also a nuclear ring with a semimajor axis radius of about $`4\mathrm{}`$. The four bright spiral arms extend between $`20\mathrm{}`$ and $`40\mathrm{}`$. The arms start from the inner ring, two from its major axis and the other two from the minor axis. Both the inner ring and the four spiral arms can be seen also in the NIR $`H`$-band image. There is also a single outer spiral arm or a partial outer ring, that is not connected to the four-armed spiral (Buta et al., 1998). Fig. 1 shows $`B`$\- and $`H`$-band images (as observed in the sky and deprojected) of ESO 566-24.

The rotation curve inferred from the velocity field (see Fig. 2) shows signs of probable non-circular motions: in the inner parts it rises steeply, then it has a short flat part at about 120 $`\text{km s}^1`$. Outside this area, it rises steeply again to the peak value, after which it quickly drops to the constant level of about 190 $`\text{km s}^1`$. It is probable that the peculiar inner rotation curve is at least partly caused by non-circular motions induced by the bar, since axisymmetric rotation curves constructed from any realistic combinations of bulge, disk and halo cannot produce such a structure. Also the zero velocity curve of the velocity field implies the presence of non-circular motion. However, the effect is not as strong as in IC 4214 because in ESO 566$``$24, the orientation of the bar is almost perpendicular to the line of nodes, and hence little of the radial component of the velocity vector projects to the line of sight (see also Buta, 1988).

## 5 Modelling

We have constructed three major sets of models: series D without a halo component, series M with a moderate halo and series H with a dominating halo (see Table 1). In all of these model series, we have varied several parameters such as the bar pattern speed and the disk thickness.

The left side frames of Fig. 2 compare the rotation curves of models of series D (no halo), M (moderate halo) and H (dominating halo) with a similar disk thickness ($`h_z/h_r=1/6`$). Also shown are the circular velocity points determined from the observed velocity field using the method presented by Warner et al. (1973). If we adopt the definition of a maximal disk (or disk+bulge) by Sackett (1997): a disk is maximal if its rotation speed at radius $`r_{2.2}=2.2h_r`$ (usually close to the peak of the disk rotation curve) is 75–95% of the total circular speed at this radius, then our moderate halo series M resides near the lower limit of maximal disks. Perhaps a better name would be a minimum halo model: only such an amount of halo was included that is needed to make the outer curve as flat as the observed rotation curve.

The right side frames of Fig. 2 show the corresponding “frequency diagrams”, i.e. curves showing $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }\pm \kappa /2`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }\pm \kappa /4`$, where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the circular frequency and $`\kappa `$ is the epicyclic frequency. The inner parts of the models have very similar rotation curves, and thus with the same pattern speed, the inner resonance distances (ILRs and inner 4/1) would be about the same. On the other hand, the outer resonance radii are different. For example, the distance between the inner and outer 4/1-resonances is larger in models with a halo than in models without it. Throughout this article we use $`\text{km s}^1\text{arcsec}^1`$ as a unit of pattern speed. We denote models of each mass model series with the pattern speed: for example model D6.7 is a series D model with pattern speed $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=6.7\text{km s}^1\text{arcsec}^1`$. At the adopted distance of 45 Mpc, $`1\text{km s}^1\text{arcsec}^1`$ corresponds to about $`4.6\text{km s}^1\text{kpc}^1`$ and the length of a simulation is about 2.7 Gyr (about 14 bar rotation periods in our best-fitting case).

### 5.1 The effect of model parameters

#### 5.1.1 The effect of disk thickness

One of the main model parameters is the disk thickness. We have made simulations with a range of the disk scale height from 1/12 to 1/2 of the disk scale length, which should cover the plausible range of values for the disk thickness. In Fig. 3 we show the Fourier components of the tangential force relative to the axisymmetric radial force (total of bulge, disk and halo) as a function of radius for different mass models.

As can be seen in Fig. 3, the $`m=2`$ component has one maximum, at about $`12\mathrm{}`$, well inside the bar. The $`m=4`$ component has two clear maxima, one coinciding with the $`m=2`$ maximum, and the other broader one in about the middle of the four-armed spiral structure. The $`m=6`$ and $`m=8`$ components have also two maxima, the inner coinciding with the $`m=2`$ maximum, and the outer ones being inside the outer $`m=4`$ maximum.

As a measure of bar strength, we use the relative tangential force $`Q_T`$ (Combes & Sanders, 1981):

$$Q_T(r)=F_T^{max}(r)/<F_R(r)>,$$
(6)
where $`F_T^{max}(r)`$ is the maximum of tangential force at a given radius $`r`$, and $`<F_R(r)>`$ is the azimuthally averaged radial force at the same radius. The maximum of $`Q_T(r)`$ over radius, or $`Q_b`$, has been used as a single measure of bar strength by Buta & Block (2001) and Laurikainen et al. (2002). From Fig. 3 we can see that in our basic mass models, the extreme values of the $`Q_b`$-parameter vary from 0.1 to 0.47 when going from the thickest disk models of series H to the thinnest disk models of series D. In each mass model series, the models with the thinnest disks have about twice as strong bars as models with thickest disks if measured by $`Q_b`$. One can also see from Fig. 3 that the effect of disk thickness on $`Q_T`$ is much weaker in the region of the spiral arms.

In Fig. 4 we show the effect of disk thickness on the simulated gas morphology. When comparing with the observed four-armed spiral of ESO 566-24, we see that in the D-series the fit is best when the disk is very thick ($`h_z/h_r=1/2`$). In series M, the best fit is obtained with a thinner disk (both $`h_z/h_r=1/12`$ and $`h_z/h_r=1/6`$ give a fairly good fit). In series H, the spiral response to the potential is always too weak. This can be explained by the weakness of the non-axisymmetric perturbation at the spiral region: it is less than half of that in series’ M and D. We can also see that the size of the nuclear ring depends on the disk thickness: a thicker disk leads to a larger ring due to the reduced non-axisymmetric perturbation at its location, shifting the ring closer to linear ILR. The axial ratio of the inner ring is not very sensitive to $`Q_b`$, which is not surprising, because the location where the maximum of $`Q_T`$ is reached is well inside the ring. At the ring region, $`Q_T`$ varies less than its maximum value $`Q_b`$ when compared in models with different disk scale heights.

#### 5.1.2 The effect of pattern speed

For each basic mass model, we ran a series of simulations with five different pattern speeds. The middle pattern speed of each series was chosen so that the semimajor axis radius of the inner ring coincides with the inner 4/1-resonance, and the highest pattern speed so that its corotation radius is 1.1 times the bar radius. The other values of the pattern speed were chosen around the middle one with a step size $`1.2\text{km s}^1\text{arcsec}^1`$.

Fig. 5 shows the effect of the pattern speed on gas morphology in series D. When the pattern speed rises, the nuclear ring becomes smaller. With the highest pattern speed, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=9.5`$, the inner ring disappears and the nuclear ring becomes very elongated and parallel with respect to the bar. Four-armed spiral structure can be seen clearly in models D5.5 and D6.7. Both at higher and lower pattern speeds, the spiral tends to become two-armed. Several models in this and other mass model series have weak overdensities of gas particles in the bar area resembling leading offset dust lanes. These features are stronger in the early phases of simulations and more or less disappear during the simulations. These features move closer to the bar when the pattern speed is increased, but in general they are too vague to be reliably compared with the observed dust lanes.

Fig. 6 shows the effect of the pattern speed on the gas morphology in series M, which has a moderate halo component. The basic trend is quite similar as in the models without a halo, but the four-armed spiral appears in a larger pattern speed range (models M5.5 – M7.9), and is also more pronounced, the arms being longer and sharper.

Fig. 7 shows the effect of the pattern speed on gas morphology in series H, with a dominating halo. The non-axisymmetric force is too weak to produce sharp spiral arms, and thus only weak spiral features appear, exhibiting a four-armed structure in models H5.5 – H7.9.

#### 5.1.3 Miscellaneous parametric dependencies

We have also checked the effects of various other model parameters: the number of Fourier components that were used to calculate the gravitational potential, the initial gas distribution, the bar turn-on speed, the collision frequency, and the coefficient of restitution. All these have only a minor effect when compared to disk thickness and the pattern speed of the bar.

The inclusion of Fourier component $`m=4`$ and the higher ones makes the four-armed spiral more pronounced. When only $`m=0`$ and $`m=2`$ components are included, the response is not a clear $`m=4`$ spiral, but resembles model M6.7 with a thick disk. The other mass models follow similar trends. We have also made simulations where we include the odd components of the Fourier decomposition. This causes some asymmetry to the models, especially in the region where spiral arms emerge from the inner ring, but the effect is small.

We found that the bar turn-on speed can affect the innermost morphology: when the bar was turned on too abruptly (obtaining full strength in one or less bar rotation periods), some of the nuclear rings collapsed toward the centre or became very elongated and parallel to the bar. This is probably due to the high amount of intersecting orbits. When the bar reached its full strength more gently (in 2–4 bar rotation periods), these gas particles were slowly “guided” to orbits perpendicular with respect to the bar. However, when the pattern speed was high enough, even the gradual bar turn-on time could not save the nuclear rings, and the short-lived rings were destroyed before the bar reached its full strength. The reason for such behaviour is that the number of intersecting orbits increases when $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ is increased. This was confirmed by simulations using non-colliding test particles.

We studied the effect of collision frequency by making selected simulations with different gas particle sizes. If extreme values are ignored, the collision frequency affects mainly the sharpness of features and their formation timescale. However, the main morphological features are not strongly dependent on the collision frequency. We also studied the effect of the coefficient of restitution $`\alpha `$. Changing $`\alpha `$ between our standard value, 0.0, and 0.5 has only a minor effect on the morphology. The greatest difference is in nuclear ring: adopting higher values of $`\alpha `$ produces a smaller and thicker ring.

### 5.2 A search for the best fit

We use here the results of the previously presented simulation series to deduce the probable range of the essential model parameters.

#### 5.2.1 Morphology

The top row of Fig. 8 shows the time evolution of morphologically-selected best-fitting models from the D- and M-series (in series H the spiral response is always very weak). The models without a halo, including the one shown, tend to have a problem with the positions of the four spiral arms: the arms are not equally spaced in azimuth. Instead of a clear $`m=4`$ spiral, the structure more resembles two pairs of arms, or doubled arms. Another fault is the lack of “morphological longevity” in the models of series D: the spiral structure disperses in just a few bar rotation periods. The models with a moderate halo have more equally spaced and longer lasting spiral structure. A common trend in their long-term evolution is that when the spiral arms weaken owing to gas flow, the minor axis arms become relatively stronger than the major axis arms. This causes some models to become essentially two-armed in their later phases. Both model series produce slightly too pointed and elongated inner rings. Because the overall fit of the spiral morphology is better and due to its longevity, we prefer model M6.7 over model D6.7.

We have tried to improve the pattern speed estimate by making several simulations around model M6.7. Judging by the spiral morphology and the size of the inner ring, we derived $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b=6.9\pm 0.5\text{km s}^1\text{arcsec}^1`$, or about $`33.7\pm 2.3\text{km s}^1\text{kpc}^1`$. Fig. 9 compares this morphological best-fitting model M6.9 with the $`B`$-band morphology of ESO 566-24. The resonance radii corresponding the epicycle approximation are indicated as circles. The nuclear ring is between two inner Lindblad resonances ($`1.3\mathrm{}`$ and $`9.4\mathrm{}`$) and the inner ring is close to the inner 4/1-resonance ($`17.9\mathrm{}`$). The four-armed spiral structure is between the inner and outer 4/1-resonances ($`38.7\mathrm{}`$). The OLR radius ($`46.5\mathrm{}`$) is outside the spiral structure. When compared with the deprojected image of ESO 566-24, we can see that the bar ends well before the corotation resonance radius ($`28.5\mathrm{}`$), near the inner 4/1-resonance. Using the bar radius $`18\mathrm{}\pm 2\mathrm{}`$, this gives $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}=1.58`$. Combining the uncertainties in the determination of $`r_{bar}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$, we finally get $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}=1.6\pm 0.3`$.

The morphology of two “stellar” populations consisting of non-colliding test particles is also shown in Fig. 9. Both the low and medium velocity dispersion components (neither of these components should be expected to represent the self-gravitating stellar populations but more as a tracer of dynamics) have a strong contribution of orbits resembling the closed $`x_2`$-orbits (aligned perpendicular with respect to the bar) of analytical bar potentials (Contopoulos & Grosbøl, 1989). Here, we call these orbits $`x_2`$-like orbits instead of $`x_2`$-orbits for two reasons. First, they are orbits of individual particles in our simulations, not exactly closed orbits found by iteration. Second, our potential differs from analytical bar potentials, because it is calculated from NIR-photometry. Thus, our bar is not straight (this causes the orientation of the inner orbits to be tilted with respect to the outer parts of the bar) and the contribution of the spiral arms is also included. Of course, the situation is somewhat similar in real galaxies, which do not accommodate idealistic bars. In addition to $`x_2`$-like orbits, the presence of $`x_1`$-like orbits (aligned parallel with respect to the bar) can be seen in both populations. It is evident that there is no support for a strong bar structure outside the inner 4/1-resonance. In the medium dispersion case, there is a low density feature with a minor-to-major axis ratio of about 0.5, that is aligned with the bar and reaches almost to corotation. However, it is more like an oval or a lens than a bar.

In Fig. 10 we compare the nuclear morphology of low dispersion collisionless populations in two different bar pattern speeds with the corresponding gas morphology and we also show some selected orbits of individual stellar particles. In model M6.9, there is a “stellar” nuclear ring, which almost reaches the outer ILR radius of the epicycle approximation. The gaseous nuclear ring is considerably smaller. A possible reason for this difference is the crossing orbits, where colliding particles cannot stay. The outer $`x_2`$-like orbits are crossing both a considerable population of $`x_1`$-like orbits and other $`x_2`$-like orbits. Furthermore, the outermost orbits do not form (almost) closing loops, although they retain a perpendicular orientation with respect to the bar. The region suitable for non-crossing $`x_2`$-like orbits corresponds quite well with the size of the gaseous nuclear ring. In model M9.8 with higher pattern speed, the $`x_2`$-like orbits do not reach as close to the linear outer ILR radius. Their domain is also much narrower, which could explain why the gaseous nuclear ring has the orientation of $`x_1`$-like orbits.

We followed particle orbits in the region of the four-armed spiral and found a large number of particles librating around Lagrangian points $`L_4`$ and $`L_5`$ (Binney & Tremaine, 1987), which are close to the bar minor axis. However, the spiral structure cannot be explained by any single orbit type.

Fig. 11 shows the azimuthal variations of relative surface density at different radii both in observations and in our best-fitting model. We can see that although the $`m=2`$ component is dominating near the bar end, there are soon signs of an $`m=4`$ pattern. In the midst of the spiral structure, at about $`35\mathrm{}`$, all four arms are of about equal strength in the $`H`$-band image, and the arm-interarm density contrast can be locally almost as high as 2.0 (about 0.7 magnitudes). Such high values in NIR-images have been found in only a few galaxies, such as M 51 (Rix & Rieke, 1993). Comparison between the gas component of model M6.9 and the $`B`$-band morphology of ESO 566-24 shows that the locations of intensity maxima are quite well fitted in the spiral arms. In the stellar component, the match is worse, which is not surprising since the model is not self-consistent.

#### 5.2.2 Kinematics

In our previous modelling object, IC 4214, the fine details of the zero velocity contour of the velocity field were valuable in determining the bar strength and other model parameters. Even though the non-axisymmetric perturbation in ESO 566-24 is considerably stronger than in IC 4214, the zero velocity contour is rather featureless. This is due to the unfavourable orientation of the bar with respect to the line of nodes.

On the other hand, the “rotation curves” constructed using the method introduced by Warner et al. (1973) shows the effect of non-circular velocities. The clearest features affected by the non-axisymmetric perturbation are located inside $`10\mathrm{}`$, just inside the peak of $`Q_T`$, the relative non-axisymmetric force. Furthermore, the flatness of the outer rotation curve clearly indicates that at least some amount of halo is needed (supposing constant M/L-ratio).

Fig. 12 shows comparison of selected rotation curves constructed from the modelled velocity field (data from 10 time steps are summed) with the observed one. The observed velocity field does not have velocity information from the whole disk area, for example, the four-armed spiral structure is incompletely covered. On the other hand, many of our models include gas particles practically in the whole disk area. This is potentially dangerous when it comes to comparing the observed and modelled kinematics. To diminish this problem we adopted a density threshold to the modelled velocity field. In some cases, this can have a notable effect on the inner part of the modelled rotation curve.

Our morphologically fitted “standard” model, M6.9 (frame a), gives a rather good fit with the position of the velocity jump near $`10\mathrm{}`$. The inner parts show also a similar trend as the observed kinematics. However, the rotation amplitudes do not fit as well. Whereas the outer rotation amplitude is well fitted, the modelled velocity is too high inside $`25\mathrm{}`$. A model with a thicker disk (frame b) gives a better fit, but the rotation amplitude inside $`6\mathrm{}`$ is still too high, by about 40 $`\text{km  s}^1`$. This problem cannot be solved by changing the disk thickness or the pattern speed. A considerable increase of pattern speed destroys the two-stage structure of the rising part of the rotation curve, as is highlighted by the kinematics of the model M9.8 (frame c).

To get better kinematical fit, we tried changing the relative masses of bulge, disk and halo (the radial profiles were not modified). In model B6.3 (frame d), where $`(M/L)_\mathrm{B}=0.86`$, $`(M/L)_\mathrm{D}=1.02`$ and $`v_{\mathrm{}}=219\text{km s}^1`$ we could get the difference between the inner velocities as low as $`1020\text{km s}^1`$. With the pattern speed $`6.3\text{km s}^1\text{arcsec}^1`$, which sets the inner 4/1-resonance to approximately same distance as in model M6.9, the inner and nuclear rings have about the same size as in model M6.9. However, the four-armed spiral is not well fitted: instead of long spiral arms, we get several threaded arms. This is due to the increased halo contribution. If we further decrease the relative contribution of the bulge in order to reach the observed rotation amplitude, the nuclear ring changes its shape and orientation, by becoming dominated by $`x_1`$-like orbits. Its morphology is then rather similar to the nuclear ring in model M9.8, and the central kinematics shows a peak instead of a drop. Thus, combining the morphological and kinematical comparison, model M6.9 is our best-fitting solution for ESO 566-24.

The behaviour of the determined rotation curve inside $`10\mathrm{}`$ is related to two factors: the orientation of the bar, i.e. its major axis is close to the kinematical minor axis, and to the orientation of $`x_1`$\- and $`x_2`$-like orbits with respect to the bar. In the case of pure elliptical orbits with major or minor axis parallel with the kinematical major axis, the resulting rotation curve is either below (orbit’s major axis parallel with the kinematical major axis) or above (orbit’s minor axis parallel with the kinematical major axis) the local circular velocity (Teuben, 2002). In barred galaxies, the shapes of orbits deviate from pure ellipses, but this approximation is still helpful to understand the general trends in the kinematics of ESO 566-24. Now, the low velocities in the region inside $`6\mathrm{}`$ are caused by $`x_2`$-like orbits, whose major axis is perpendicular with respect to the bar major axis. The velocity of these orbits near the bar minor axis (the major axis of the orbits), is much lower than the local circular velocity of the azimuthally averaged rotation curve. This is also close to the kinematical major axis, and thus the determined rotation curve in this region is below the axisymmetric rotation curve calculated from the mass distribution.

Similarly, the velocity peak near $`10\mathrm{}`$ is caused by $`x_1`$-like orbits, which are parallel to the bar. In this distance, they are near their minor axis, and the velocity is higher than the local circular velocity. The location of this feature depends on the extent of $`x_2`$-like gas particle orbits. This is in part dependent on the pattern speed and the amplitude of the nonaxisymmetric perturbation. Also evolutionary effects are present: the jump can move inwards when the size of the nuclear ring decreases. In some simulations the jump disappears when this region is depopulated of gas particles. The importance of $`x_2`$-like orbits is further demonstrated by the kinematics of models which lack them: the plateau is replaced by a strong peak (M9.8 for example).

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 Spiral morphology in barred galaxies

The original form of the Hubble classification of galaxies (Hubble, 1926) divided spiral galaxies into subclasses a, b and c, depending not only the relative size of the bulge, but also on the pitch angle of the spiral arms and the degree of resolution in the arms. Subsequent modifications or extensions (de Vaucouleurs, 1959; Sandage, 1961; Sandage & Bedke, 1994; Buta, 1995), have partially removed the limitations of the original classification, e.g. by providing description of ring and pseudoring morphologies. A different kind of spiral classification scheme was developed by Elmegreen & Elmegreen (1982, 1987). Simplifying their classification, most spiral galaxies can be divided into grand design, multiple-armed, and flocculent spiral galaxies. Grand design spirals have a global, usually two-armed spiral structure. In multiple-armed galaxies, the spiral structure starts as two-armed, but the arms bifurcate later to several outer arms. Flocculent spirals have fragmented or chaotic spiral structure.

A classic case of a barred spiral galaxy is NGC 1300, where a two-armed spiral structure starts from the ends of the bar. Quite often, the spiral arms emerge from an inner ring that surrounds the bar. There are also cases where the spiral arms start offset with respect to the ends of the bar. This can happen both in the leading and trailing quadrants of the bar (supposing that the spiral structure is trailing). Two-armed grand design structure is not the only possibility in barred galaxies. Different kinds of arm multiplicities also exist: arm bifurcation at large radius, doubled arms (one or both), and even genuine multiple-arm structure. Flocculent barred galaxies are rare but known (Buta, 1995). According to Elmegreen & Elmegreen (1995), the length of the two-armed phase correlates with bar length: it reaches about twice the bar radius.

Most work on galaxy morphology has been done using $`B`$-band plates. A major weakness of this is that the blue wavelength region is affected by dust extinction and the young stellar population, which usually constitutes only a minor part of the mass distribution. On the other hand, in the NIR most of the light comes from the old stellar population. It has been shown that bars are more often detected in the NIR (Eskridge et al., 2000), and there are cases where the multiple-arm or flocculent spiral morphology of visual images disappears and a two-armed grand design spiral emerges in the NIR (Block & Wainscoat, 1991; Block et al., 1996; Block et al., 1999). It has sometimes been claimed that this kind of dualistic morphology is universal (Block & Puerari, 1999). However, Eskridge et al. (2002), who used a large galaxy sample, demonstrated that dramatical differences between visual and NIR morphology are exceptions, and that in general galaxy morphology is quite similar in these two wavelength regions.

The study by Eskridge et al. (2002), based on the Ohio State University Bright Galaxy Survey (hereafter OSU-survey), includes several barred galaxies where the multiple-arm structure is seen also in NIR images. The examples include all variations of arm multiplicities from arm bifurcations to arm doublings and genuine multiple-armed spirals. For example, there are three-armed spiral galaxies, e.g. NGC 5054 (OSU-survey, another example is NGC 7137 Grosbøl & Patsis 1999). Although there are several four-armed galaxies in the OSU sample, none of them is similar to ESO 566-24. Most cases are arm bifurcations at large radius or doubled arms, which are close to each o her. Even in cases where the extra arms do not form as bifurcations or doublings of an $`m=2`$ spiral, they are usually weaker than the dominating two arms.

ESO 566-24 with its very regular four-armed spiral structure is really exceptional. The four arms have roughly the same length, so they do not appear to have formed as a bifurcation of a usual two-armed structure. Furthermore, they are so far from each other (at $`35\mathrm{}`$, the phase difference between the arms is about $`90\mathrm{°}`$), that arm doubling is clearly not the case. To crown the status of ESO 566-24 as a genuine $`m=4`$ spiral, the arms have comparable strength also in the NIR. Thus, one cannot choose any pair of arms, say those starting near the bar ends, as two major arms. In the OSU-survey, the galaxy with the closest resemblance to ESO 566-24 is NGC 613. It has altogether five spiral arms, but the “extra” arms are not as strong and regular as in ESO 566-24.

Some barred galaxies have features called plumes, i.e. short arcs besides the main spiral arms in the leading side with respect to the bar (Buta, 1984). The best-known case is NGC 1433 (Buta, 1986; Ryder et al., 1996). It is possible that plumes could be related to four-armed spiral structure, for example, they could be remnants of additional spiral arms. However, such features can form in gasdynamical simulations as result of doubled spiral arms (Byrd et al., 1994). It would be interesting to thoroughly compare ESO 566-24 with NGC 1433.

Although our best-fitting models can reproduce the four-armed spiral rather well, and give constraints to essential model parameters, they do not directly unveil the origin of such structure. Instead, even in the best case, our models are snapshots of the current stage of the evolution of ESO 566-24. It is possible that the location of resonances can give a clue of the origin of the four-armed spiral. Based on our models, it seems that four-armed structure is approximately confined between inner and outer 4/1-resonances. Thus the situation could be analogous to two-armed spirals, which are sometimes suggested to end near OLR (e.g. Elmegreen et al., 1989). Note however, that at least for non-barred galaxies, other solutions, which put the end of the spiral structure inside corotation or even the inner 4/1-resonance, have also been suggested (Patsis et al., 1994; Patsis et al., 1997).

### 6.2 Rings

A connection between rings and resonances was perhaps first suggested by Schommer & Sullivan (1976), who identified two rings in NGC 4736 with inner and outer Lindblad resonances. Later, sticky particle simulations by Schwarz (1981, 1984b, 1984a) showed that gas can accumulate near the resonance radii. These and other studies (Combes & Gerin, 1985; Byrd et al., 1994; Rautiainen & Salo, 2000) have identified nuclear rings with orbits near the ILR, inner rings near the inner 4/1-resonance and outer rings near the OLR. Two different observed populations of outer rings and pseudorings (Buta, 1995) are nicely explained by orbits inside and outside OLR: inside OLR the major axes of the orbits belonging to the dominating orbit family are oriented perpendicular to the bar, whereas outside OLR they are oriented parallel to the bar.

In many studies, the nuclear rings in single bar potentials have been identified with $`x_2`$-orbits, which are perpendicular to the bar. When the non-axisymmetric perturbation is weak, and the deviations from circular motion are small, the outermost stable $`x_2`$-orbits reach the ILR (or the outer ILR when there are two inner Lindblad resonances) (Contopoulos & Grosbøl, 1989). However, when the strength of the perturbation is increased, the linear approximation is not valid, and the outermost extent of $`x_2`$-orbits moves inwards. In fact, some authors have redefined the ILR-radius so that it means the radius with the outermost stable $`x_2`$-orbits (van Albada & Sanders, 1982; Athanassoula, 1992a; Miwa & Noguchi, 1998).

Recently, Regan & Teuben (2003) have studied the formation and evolution of nuclear rings using a hydrodynamics code with an analytic bar potential. Their conclusion is that the nuclear rings are not related to inner Lindblad resonances, but instead they form as an interaction between gas streaming along $`x_2`$\- and $`x_1`$-like streamlines. Furthermore, the nuclear rings in their simulations did not have a steady size but shrank throughout the simulation. Such behaviour can be seen also in our simulations, but the change in the size of the nuclear ring becomes very slow in the later phases of the simulations. This can be due to lack of interaction with particles on $`x_1`$-like orbits, which have become depopulated.

We have tested the hypothesis by Regan and Teuben that the nuclear rings form as interaction of two different gas streamlines by making simulations where all the particles initially resided in the domain of $`x_2`$-like orbits. A clear nuclear ring formed without interaction of two streamlines. In fact, a nuclear ring may form even without any gas: the redistribution of non-colliding test particles by a rotating bar also forms a “concentration” of particles near the outermost $`x_2`$-like orbits. Rings can form also in self-gravitating stellar particles of N-body simulations (Rautiainen & Salo, 2000; Athanassoula & Misiriotis, 2002). In ESO 566-24, the inner ring is clearly present in the $`H`$-band, and corresponding examples exist also for outer and nuclear rings. Byrd et al. (1994) speculated that stellar rings could be remnants of star formation in gaseous rings, but it is also possible that a ring forms as a response of the old stellar population to a non-axisymmetric potential.

If the rings are connected to orbits in the presence of a non-axisymmetric bar potential, then the shapes of the rings should correlate with the bar strength. Buta (2002) compared the shapes of the inner rings in a few galaxies with the $`Q_b`$-parameter, and did not find a clear correlation. Galaxies with roughly similar $`Q_b`$ values can have inner rings of different shapes, ranging from virtually circular to highly elongated. This can be explained in several ways. First, $`Q_b`$ measures the peak strength of the bar, which often takes place well inside the inner ring, i.e. $`Q_b`$ may not be representative of tangential force in the ring region. This effect can be seen in action in Figs. 5 – 7: in the higher pattern speed models, the inner ring is located closer to centre, in a region with higher $`Q_T`$, which explains the more elongated shape ($`Q_b`$ is constant in each pattern speed series). Second, the $`Q_b`$ values were calculated from NIR photometry, and thus the possible contribution of dark matter was omitted.

### 6.3 Pattern speed dilemma

Our best-fitting models have pattern speeds which place the corotation resonance at about 1.6 times the bar radius. This is considerably larger than the often cited value $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}=1.2\pm 0.2`$. For IC 4214 we found a value of $`1.4\pm 0.2`$ (Salo et al., 1999), thus just barely fitting within the fast bar regime although it has an early-type morphology. This raises a question if our modelling method is biased so that it gives too high values. Our preliminary results with NGC 4314 suggest otherwise; for this galaxy we get $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}`$ close to one.

We extended a previous study by Elmegreen (1996) by a brief search of the literature. We found pattern speed determinations of individual barred galaxies giving values ranging from below 1 to over 2, the average value being about 1.35 (median value was 1.3). The values based on the Tremaine-Weinberg method tend to be close to 1, although Aguerri et al. (2003) found considerably higher values for galaxies NGC 1440 ($`1.6_{0.3}^{+0.5}`$) and NGC 3412 ($`1.5_{0.3}^{+0.6}`$). Furthermore, the Tremaine-Weinberg method has been used almost exclusively with SB0-galaxies. ESO 566-24 is of Hubble type SB(r)b, later than most galaxies whose pattern speed has been determined with the Tremaine-Weinberg method. Elmegreen & Elmegreen (1985) have suggested that early-type galaxies have longer bars than late-type galaxies in both the physical size and with respect to resonance locations. Thus, it seems possible that the high value found in our study could somehow be related to Hubble type.

A point in favour of higher pattern speeds is the existence of dust lanes inside the bar. According to Athanassoula (1992b) the offset dust lanes form when the galaxy has an ILR and their shape corresponds to the observations when the corotation radius is $`1.2\pm 0.2`$ times the bar radius. However, the dust lane argument for fast bars may not be as strong as it seems: Lindblad & Kristen (1996) found two possible pattern speeds for NGC 1300, giving $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}=1.3`$ and $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}=2.4`$, both producing good dust lane morphology.

N-body studies have shown that pattern speeds of the bar and spiral arms can be different, structures being either separate or in a non-linear mode coupling (Sellwood & Sparke, 1988; Masset & Tagger, 1997; Rautiainen & Salo, 1999). Rautiainen & Salo (2000) demonstrated that rings can form also in self-gravitating simulations with two or more modes with different pattern speeds. Sometimes, the presence of two strong modes caused cyclic evolution in the shape and orientation of the ring. At least in the case of nuclear rings, this can be attributed to orbit loops (Maciejewski & Sparke, 2000) in a potential with two rotating components (Rautiainen et al., 2002). So, in principle it is it possible that ESO 566-24 could be modelled with two modes: the inner region having a higher pattern speed and the four-armed spiral a pattern speed in the range of our single pattern models. However, in this case the low value for the pattern speed is based not only on the modelling of the four-armed spiral structure, but also the central morphology is better modelled with low pattern speed: the inner and nuclear rings have approximately the right size. When the pattern speed is higher, both become too elongated or disappear altogether.

### 6.4 Halo contribution

Early N-body simulations of barred galaxies (Sellwood, 1981) exhibited deceleration of the bar rotation due to interaction with the outer disk. This made the corotation radius to move outwards, but it was compensated by the growth of the bar, i.e. the bar always ended close to corotation. However, interaction between bar and dark halo can introduce bar slowdown that cannot be compensated by bar growth. Weinberg (1985) studied the dynamical friction between a bar and halo analytically and also by a “semi-resticted” N-body simulation (particles are not self-gravitating), and found that it causes the bar to lose most of its angular momentum in just a few bar rotations. Little & Carlberg (1991) studied bar slowdown by self-gravitating N-body models, where both the disk and halo were two-dimensional. The bar deceleration in their model was considerably lower, only by a factor of two during 10 Gyr, half of which was due to interaction with the outer disk. On the other hand, Hernquist & Weinberg (1992) who used an analytical bar with a self-gravitating halo, found a slowdown rate corresponding to that found by Weinberg.

At least seemingly confusing results have been obtained also with fully self-consistent N-body models of bar–halo interaction. Debattista & Sellwood (1998, 2000) find that in models with centrally concentrated haloes, the bar slows down dramatically ($`r_{CR}/r_{bar}>1.4`$), unless the halo has unrealistically high angular momentum in the same direction as the disk. Valenzuela & Klypin (2002) made simulations using adaptive grid refinement (the potential grid was subdivided in high density regions), which increased the gravity resolution. They found that the bar pattern speed was almost constant and that the stellar disk lost only 5 – 10% of its angular momentum to the halo. Furthermore, they could reproduce the dramatic bar slowdown when the grid resolution was decreased. Recently, Athanassoula (2003) found that when the halo velocity dispersion is increased, the bar slowdown rate also decreases.

The preceding discussion indicates that it is questionable whether bar pattern speed can be used as an argument for high or low halo-to-disk mass ratios. If we compare our best-fitting mass model with the simulations of Debattista & Sellwood (1998) with a non-rotating halo, and adopt their parameter $`\eta =(v_{disk}/v_{halo})^2`$ at the maximum of disk rotation curve, we find $`\eta =3.65`$. In their Fig. 2, this would correspond to $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}=1.31.4`$ at the final equilibrium state. On the other hand, if we include bulge to $`v_{halo}`$, we get $`\eta =1.39`$, corresponding $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}>2`$ in Debattista & Sellwood (1998). Debattista & Sellwood (2000) found that a halo which rotates in the same sense as the bar can induce lower bar slowdown rate than non-rotating or retrograde halos. When taking into account that bulges rotate, our result $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}1.6`$ is not in disagreement with results of Debattista & Sellwood (1998, 2000). However, the situation is the same if we compare with simulations by Valenzuela & Klypin (2002): in their models the corotation resonance radius is 1.2 to 1.7 times the bar radius, and our value is near the upper limit of their range.

In our best fitting model (M6.9), the dark halo contributes less than 20% of the mass inside $`r_{2.2}`$. The rotation curve is dominated by luminous matter even inside the whole disk region. Thus, our results with ESO 566-24 are in accordance with estimates of disk mass contribution by dynamical modelling (e.g. Weiner et al., 2001), but disagree with cold dark matter (CDM) cosmological N-body simulations, which produce cuspy halos (e.g. Navarro et al., 1996)

## 7 Conclusions

We have constructed dynamical models for the four-armed barred spiral galaxy ESO 566-24. The mass distribution of the different components is based on near-IR photometry with the exception of a possible dark halo, whose amount was chosen to fit the rotation curve at large radii. We have been able to construct a model which reproduces the observed four-armed morphology. Also the main kinematic characteristics are seen in our models. The main conclusions are as follows.

1. Two major factors affecting the simulated morphology and kinematics are the strength of the non-axisymmetric perturbation and the pattern speed of the bar. The former depends on the mass and the thickness of the disk.

2. Both the kinematical and morphological fits are better when a moderate halo component is included. On the other hand, a dominating halo can be ruled out, because then the gas response to the disk gravitational potential is too weak. Thus, the contribution of the luminous matter dominates the rotation curve in the whole optical disk.

3. The four-armed spiral could be produced between the inner and outer 4/1-resonances. The inner ring is close to the inner 4/1-resonance and the nuclear ring is between two inner Lindblad resonances. The size of the nuclear ring seems to correlate with the size of the region suitable for non-crossing $`x_2`$-like orbits.

4. If the bar has the same pattern speed as the four-armed spiral, then it rotates rather slowly; the corotation radius is about $`1.6\pm 0.3`$ times the bar radius (including uncertainties both in the bar radius and pattern speed), which is higher than the often cited value of $`1.2\pm 0.2`$. The existence of several other determined high values for this ratio suggests that there is more scatter in the $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}`$ ratio than is sometimes stated. It should also be noted that most bar pattern speed determinations have been made for galaxies of earlier Hubble type than ESO 566-24.

5. The rather high value of $`r_{CR}/r_{bar}`$ is difficult to be disputed by pattern speed multiplicity. In addition to the spiral structure, the nuclear and inner rings can be reproduced in the right scale with a single pattern speed. Adopting considerably higher pattern speeds, which would be consistent with the bar ending near corotation, produce significantly worse-fitting ring morphology. Also, the kinematics of the central parts deviate more from the observed velocities.

6. The relatively slow bar rotation rate can be due to interaction between the bar and the spheroidal component (halo and bulge). The exceptional $`m=4`$ spiral morphology can be related to the low bar rotation rate and the importance of the spheroidal component.

7. The curious shape of the inner rotation curve can be explained by combined effects of $`x_1`$\- and $`x_2`$-like orbits.

## Acknowledgments

This work has been supported by Väisälä Foundation and by the Academy of Finland. RB acknowledges the support of NSF grant AST-0205143 to the University of Alabama. This work made use of data from the Ohio State University Bright Spiral Galaxy Survey, which was funded by grants AST-9217716 and AST-9617006 from the United States National Science Foundation, with additional support from the Ohio State University.


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# Field–induced structural aging in glasses at ultra low temperatures

## Abstract

In non–equilibrium experiments on the glasses Mylar and BK7, we measured the excess dielectric response after the temporary application of a strong electric bias field at mK–temperatures. A model recently developed describes the observed long time decays qualitatively for Mylar Lud03b , but fails for BK7. In contrast, our results on both samples can be described by including an additional mechanism to the mentioned model with temperature independent decay times of the excess dielectric response. As the origin of this novel process beyond the ”tunneling model” we suggest bias field induced structural rearrangements of ”tunneling states” that decay by quantum mechanical tunneling.

Most low temperature properties of glasses are well described by the phenomenological ”tunneling model” Zel71 ; And72 ; Phi72 ; Phi87 . It starts from the assumption that the potential minima of groups of atoms are not ”well defined”, but can be described as particles moving in ”double well” potentials. At low enough temperatures, only the ground states of the two wells are occupied, and the ”tunneling states” (TSs) move by quantum mechanical tunneling between them. The energy splitting of these two levels is given by $`E=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2+\mathrm{\Delta }^2}`$, where the asymmetry, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$, is the energy difference between the two local minima. The tunneling splitting can be estimated using the WKB–approximation as $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0\mathrm{}\mathrm{\Omega }\mathrm{exp}(\lambda )`$, with the attempt frequency, $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. The tunnel parameter $`\lambda =d\sqrt{2mV}/2\mathrm{}`$ contains the effective mass, $`m`$, the potential barrier height, $`V`$, and the distance between the two wells, $`d`$. Recent experiments revealed deviations from the tunneling model and show that interactions between TSs gain importance with decreasing temperature Ens02 ; OshDip ; Lud03b . Our new results will be discussed within a picture that goes beyond ”double well” potentials.

Long time non–equilibrium dynamics of TSs in the polyester glass Mylar after the temporary application of a large electric bias field were previously presented Lud03b . These data were analyzed using the ”dipole gap” theory Bur95JLTP  by extending its predictions to the case of a temporary applied bias field. A central assumption of the ”dipole gap” theory is that mutually strongly coupled TSs do not contribute to the dielectric response in thermal equilibrium. However, out of equilibrium these TSs contribute to the dielectric constant as if isolated Bur95JLTP . The findings in Lud03b  were explained in terms of strongly coupled pairs of TSs that are driven out of equilibrium during a field sweep, not only by relaxation, but also by non–adiabatic driving of one member of two strongly coupled TS–pair by the applied field. Our new results indicate the existence of an additional process leading to non–equilibrium pairs of TSs, while the sum of all processes remains constant. This novel process yields an excess dielectric response with a decay time independent of the bias field history and temperature. For the polyester glass Mylar, the new process becomes significant only at a sufficiently high electric bias field. In our experiments, we measured the dielectric constant of a $`15\mu `$m thick Mylar film and a $`300\mu `$m thick BK7 wafer, both contained in a 3He immersion cell. All measurements were performed in the linear response region and at the frequency $`f=10`$ kHz.

Figs. 1 and 2 show the excess dielectric response of Mylar after the temporary

application of an electric bias field for the waiting time $`t_\mathrm{w}=30`$ s and at temperatures of $`T=10`$ mK and $`T=20`$ mK. The sketch in Fig. 1 illustrates the evolution of the bias field sweep. Note that the zero point of time is defined to be at the completion of the sweep and, here, the time axes are logarithmic. In Fig. 1 the sweep times $`t_\mathrm{s}`$ vary between $`0.3\mathrm{s}t_\mathrm{s}300`$ s at electric bias fields of maximal strength $`F=6.7`$ MV/m, while in Fig. 2 $`t_\mathrm{s}=10`$ s for all curves at different maximum bias fields $`0.3\mathrm{MV}/\mathrm{m}F8.7`$ MV/m.

A temporary applied bias field causes relaxational processes that bring TSs out of equilibrium. In Lud03b , strong deviations from the expectations due to relaxation were observed in the dependence of the waiting time (Fig. 1 in Lud03b ). These results were qualitatively explained by considering the evolution of energy splittings $`E(𝐭)=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2+(\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{𝐩𝐅}(t))^2}`$ while sweeping TSs through zero asymmetry $`\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{𝐩𝐅}(t)=0`$ (assembling an avoided level crossing situation). If the combination of electric ac– and bias–field changes fast, systems tunneling slowly cannot adjust to their momentary equilibrium while being symmetric, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Delta }+\mathrm{𝐩𝐅}(t)\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$. Such TSs are driven non–adiabatically out of equilibrium and, if part of a strongly coupled pair, suddenly contribute to the dielectric response. Due to the range of relaxation times, the excess response decays in time as $`\mathrm{log}(\tau _0/t)`$, as long as the ac–field dominates the driving effect, i.e. for small sweep rates $`F/t_\mathrm{s}`$. At faster sweep rates the bias–field drives TSs non–adiabatically. This situation causes deviations from logarithmic decays Lud03b ; Lud03c . In Figs. 1 and 2, the transition between both non–adiabatic limits can be seen Lud03c . Here, relaxational processes can be omitted, as comparison to the waiting time dependence reported in Lud03b  shows. The slopes of the solid lines in both figures, representing logarithmic decays as expected for non–adiabatic ac–field driving, are calculated from the results in Lud03b . They depend on temperature and maximal bias field but not on sweep rate and waiting time Lud03b .

The decay times $`\tau _0`$, defined as the times when the model curves extrapolate to $`\delta \epsilon /\epsilon =0`$, depend on the many parameters of the model, but we take them here as fit parameters.

Fig. 3 shows double logarithmic plots of decay times as a function of the sweep rate $`F/t_\mathrm{s}`$. Solid points represent the decay times extracted from measurements with a maximal bias field of $`F=6.7`$ MV/m and different sweep times, for $`T=10`$ mK (Fig. 1) and $`T=20`$ mK in the upper and lower plot, respectively. Non–adiabatic driving causes $`\tau _0`$ to be a function of the sweep rate $`F/t_\mathrm{s}`$ Lud03b ; Lud03c . If bias field driving is dominant (fast sweeps) the model introduced in Lud03b  proposes a linear dependence $`\tau _0=\xi (T)t_\mathrm{s}/F`$. For dominant ac–field driving (slow sweeps) the exact form of the functional dependence is unknown. All data sets presented in Fig. 3 contain the transition between these two limits (fast and slow sweeps). The decay times extracted from our sweep time dependent data (solid points) show the same power law behavior over 4 orders of magnitude in $`F/t_\mathrm{s}`$, clearly indicating equal functional behavior in both limits. However, we observe the relation $`\tau _0(t_\mathrm{s}/F)^{0.4}`$, in striking contrast to the expected linear dependence.

The open circles in Fig. 3 present the decay times obtained from the bias field dependent measurements shown in Fig. 2. For bias fields greater than a crossover field $`F_\mathrm{c}1.5`$ MV/m we observe identical behavior as for the sweep time dependent measurements, that were taken at $`F=6.7`$ MV/m, much greater than $`F_\mathrm{c}`$. Strikingly, for $`F<F_\mathrm{c}`$ the behavior suddenly changes to the expected linear relation $`\tau _0t_\mathrm{s}/F`$ (solid lines in Fig. 3). The temperature dependence mirrors this situation: For $`F<F_\mathrm{c}`$ we find $`\tau _0(T=20\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})/\tau _0(T=10\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})1.8`$ (solid lines), in agreement with the observed temperature dependence of the decay times in the limit of dominant relaxational processes Lud03b . For $`F>F_\mathrm{c}`$ we observe $`\tau _0(T=20\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})/\tau _0(T=10\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})1.8^{0.4}`$ (dashed lines), with the identical exponent as for the sweep rate dependence in this limit. Both the non–linear relation $`\tau _0(t_\mathrm{s}/F)^{0.4}`$ for $`F>F_\mathrm{c}`$ as well as the temperature dependence cannot be explained by our model so far.

Our BK7–sample is twenty times thicker than the Mylar film resulting in an accordingly weaker maximal bias field of $`F=0.4`$ MV/m for our maximum applied voltage. However, the electric coupling between TSs is about 6 times stronger than in Mylar Rog97  yielding similar excess responses in both samples for otherwise similar parameters. The sweep time dependence for BK7 is displayed in the inset of Fig. 4 for $`t_\mathrm{s}10`$ s and in the main figure for $`t_\mathrm{s}10`$ s.

Due to the stronger coupling between TSs in BK7, for $`t_\mathrm{s}>t_\mathrm{w}`$ a sizable decay of the excess dielectric response already happens while the bias field is still decreased back to zero. In a simplifying approximation we assume an effective increase of the waiting time proportional to the sweep time. For the data shown in Fig. 4, the linear time transformation $`tt+0.4t_\mathrm{s}`$ produces a set of almost identical curves. This ability to compensate for the unwanted effect described above, is gratifying but not essential for our analysis of the decay times, which are almost unaffected by the above time transformation (due to the logarithmic time scale). The absence of any sweep time dependence in BK7 – in striking contrast to the observations in Mylar – can be understood in terms of very different lower cutoffs of the density of states for TSs, $`E_{\mathrm{min}}`$, in the two samples. Only TSs with slow tunneling frequencies are driven non–adiabatically. Hence, we expect to observe sweep rate independent decays, if $`E_{\mathrm{min}}`$ is larger than a crossover splitting, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{0\mathrm{c}}`$, below which non–adiabatic driving of TSs is present. Taking into account all of our measurements Lud03c , we estimate $`E_{\mathrm{min}}/\mathrm{}1.6`$ mK for BK7 and $`E_{\mathrm{min}}/\mathrm{}40\mu `$K for Mylar, in agreement with conclusions drawn from a saturation of the dielectric constant at low temperatures Rog97 . For relaxational processes bringing pairs out of equilibrium, an upper limit for the decay time can be estimated. By taking only one phonon processes of TSs with $`Ek_\mathrm{B}T`$ at zero field and $`E\mathrm{𝐩𝐅}k_\mathrm{B}T`$ at applied field into account and assuming a typical dipole moment of $`p1`$ D we find $`\tau _0t_\mathrm{w}\mathrm{𝐩𝐅}/k_\mathrm{B}T100`$ s. In contrast, we observe decay times scattered around $`\tau _0=7100\pm 500`$ s in our experiments (Fig. 4). The excess dielectric response of BK7 is therefore primarily caused by a novel process, for which the decay time exhibits at most a very weak dependence on temperature Lud03c .

We will now show that the decay time dependence on the sweep rate $`\tau _0(F/t_\mathrm{s})`$ in our Mylar sample (Fig. 3) can as well be described by including such an additional process with constant decay time. We assume that TSs contributing to the novel process do not contribute to non–adiabatic driving and therefore $`\delta \epsilon /\epsilon [1\alpha (F)]\mathrm{ln}[\xi (T)t_\mathrm{s}/(Ft)]+\alpha (F)\mathrm{ln}[\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0/t]`$. Here $`\xi (T)t_\mathrm{s}/F`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0`$ are the decay times due to non–adiabatic driving, containing the temperature dependent pre–factor $`\xi (T)`$, and the novel process, respectively, and $`\alpha (F)`$ is the amplitude of the novel process. The decay times obtained from the logarithmic theory curves are then given by

$$\mathrm{log}\left(\tau _0\right)=\left[1\alpha (F)\right]\mathrm{log}\left[\xi (T)t_\mathrm{s}/F\right]+\alpha (F)\mathrm{log}\left[\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0\right].$$
(1)
All lines in Fig. 3 are obtained from (1), where we assumed $`\alpha (F>F_\mathrm{c})=\alpha _0`$ and $`\alpha (F<F_\mathrm{c})=0`$, i.e. that the novel process disappears for $`F<F_\mathrm{c}`$, in accordance with experiments. The fit parameters are $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }_04.710^3`$ s, $`\alpha _00.6`$ for both temperatures, $`\xi (10\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})620`$ MV/m and $`\xi (20\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})/\xi (10\mathrm{m}\mathrm{K})1.8`$. By including the novel process we can now recalculate the model curves for Figs. 1 and 2 as well as for the data in a previous publication Lud03b . Hereby, the slopes of all model curves only depend on two commen fit parameters, the dipole moment of $`p=1.2\pm 0.1`$ D and the interaction constant, $`P_0U_06.310^4`$, where $`P_0`$ is the density of states of TSs and $`U_0`$ the mean interaction energy times volume. Note, that due to the influence of the novel process, our value of $`P_0U_0`$, is slightly higher than previously reported Lud03b . Using logarithmic decay curves for the novel process we find good agreement with our data by assuming the same dependence of the slopes of the decay curves on temperature and maximal bias field as already proposed in the ”dipole gap” theory Bur95JLTP  and observed in our previous experiments for relaxational pair breaking and non–adiabatic driving processes Lud03b . Thus, the slope of the decay curves (in their logarithmic region) is governed by the general dependence on temperature of the dielectric response as well as how far the bias field drives the TSs out of equilibrium. In order to reach good agreement with all our measurements on Mylar Lud03c , we necessarily must make the assumption in (1) that the novel process excludes additional contributions to the excess dielectric response due to other processes, i.e. non–adiabatic driving. Undoubtedly, if the dynamics of strongly coupled pairs of TSs governs the other contributions, the novel process influences clusters as well.

The temperature independence of $`\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0`$ points to a process involving quantum mechanical tunneling, wherein thermal transitions are unimportant. The general assumption of a flat distribution of tunneling parameters $`\rho (\lambda )=\rho _0`$ in a disordered solid yields the distribution of tunneling times $`\rho (\tau _\lambda )=\rho _0/\tau _\lambda `$, with $`\tau _\lambda \mathrm{exp}(\lambda )`$. Assuming that strongly coupled pairs stop contributing to the dielectric response once they are in thermal equilibrium, as in the ”dipole gap” theory, we find a logarithmic decay $`\delta \epsilon /\epsilon _{\tau _{\lambda ,\mathrm{min}}}^{\tau _{\lambda ,\mathrm{max}}}d\tau \rho (\tau )\mathrm{\Theta }(t\tau )=\rho _0\mathrm{ln}(\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0/t)`$, with $`\tau _{\lambda ,\mathrm{max}}\stackrel{~}{\tau }_0`$ and the Heavyside step function $`\mathrm{\Theta }(t\tau )`$. A strong electric bias field couples to dipole moments, generally present in amorphous solids due to displacements of atoms, and leads to structural rearrangements of the atoms changing the potential energy distribution. This situation yields a different set of low energy states than the TSs provided at zero field. Nevertheless, in thermal equilibrium, experimental observations are identical because of the glassy distribution of parameters. Primarily, we are interested in the effect of a bias field sweep on TSs contributing at zero field to the dielectric constant.

Simulations suggest that the additional low energy internal degrees of freedom observed in glasses include coherent movements of the order of 20–100 atoms Schober . The interaction of that many atoms yields a multiple level scheme, wherein a TS can contribute to the excess dielectric response, if the two lowest levels are close enough in energy, e.g. $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0k_\mathrm{B}T`$ and $`Ek_\mathrm{B}T`$. A strong bias field $`\mathrm{𝐩𝐅}k_\mathrm{B}T`$ couples to dipole moments and reorganizes the energy eigenstates present in the glass. It thereby brings TSs, including strongly coupled pairs, out of thermal equilibrium. Moreover, energy states that are thermally not accessible at zero bias field will be occupied during the field sweep by quantum mechanical tunneling. It is conceivable that successive tunneling processes while the bias field is swept tend to bring TSs into metastable states that are lower in energy than their neighbor potential wells (in configuration space) during the entire field sweep, i.e. tunneling processes tend to be unidirectional in a non–equilibrium situation. Once back at zero bias field, these TSs are generally still trapped in their metastable states and separated from the lowest energy states (at zero bias field) by a large potential barrier. Intermediate states temporarily occupied during the field sweep are now statistically higher in energy and thermally not accessible ($`\delta Ek_\mathrm{B}T`$). While metastable states in single wells are occupied that cannot be counted as TSs, additional metastable two level states exist. Because of the flat distribution of asymmetry energies, the overall number of TSs contributing is the same at any time. However, TSs out of equilibrium that belong to strongly coupled clusters contribute to the excess dielectric constant as being isolated. Our interpretation in terms of structural rearrangements should be considered as a rough outline of a possible scenario. It calls for a detailed examination, including the influence of metastable conditions on the dielectric response dependent on the broadly distributed time constants of the different involved processes.

We observe the novel process in BK7 at relatively small bias fields. However, a minimum bias field is required in the polyester glass Mylar possibly due to a potential barrier necessary to rearrange hydrocarbon chains.

In conclusion, after the temporary application of a sufficiently large electric bias field to a glass sample at ultra low temperatures, we find a long–lasting contribution to the excess dielectric response that decays logarithmically in time with a decay time independent of temperature and bias field history. We assign this novel process to field–induced structural rearrangements in the glass that decay slowly by quantum mechanical tunneling through large potential barriers. Strongly coupled pairs involved cause an excess dielectric response as long as they are not in thermal equilibrium.

We thank P. Nalbach, J. Baumgardner, J. R. Jameson, W. Harrison and S. Hunklinger for valuable discussions. This work was supported by U.S. Dept. of Energy grant DE-FG03-90ER45435-M012 and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.


text:
# Extrema bounds for the soft Pomeron intercept

## I Introduction

Analytic models for hadron-hadron scattering are characterized by simple parametrizations for the forward amplitude $`F`$ and the use of dispersion relation techniques to study the total cross section $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and the $`\rho `$ parameter (the ratio of the real to the imaginary part of the amplitude),

$`\sigma _{tot}(s)={\displaystyle \frac{\text{Im}F(s,t=0)}{s}},\rho ={\displaystyle \frac{\text{Re}F(s,t=0)}{\text{Im}F(s,t=0)}},`$ (1)
where $`t`$ is the four-momentum transfer squared and $`s`$ the center-of-mass energy squared.

In a recent work several aspects concerning the application of the analytic models to $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ elastic scattering have been studied alm03 . In particular, in the case of the Donnachie-Landshoff parametrization, investigation of discrepant estimations for the total cross sections from cosmic-ray experiments allowed to infer an upper bound for the soft Pomeron intercept, namely, $`1+ϵ=1.094`$. In addition, the effects of global vs individual fits to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$, and the effects of the subtraction constant in the dispersion relations have also been analyzed and discussed.

In this report we extend the previous analysis in several ways, with focus on new upper/lower bounds for the soft Pomeron intercept: (1) we investigate the effect of discrepant values for $`\sigma _{tot}`$ from accelerator experiments at $`1.8`$ TeV, by selecting different ensembles of data that include either the highest (CDF) or the lowest (E710/E811) results; (2) these ensembles are then combined with discrepant estimations for $`\sigma _{tot}`$ from cosmic-ray experiments, now using as the lowest estimations the results by Block, Halzen, and Stanev; (3) we use here, as a framework, an extended parametrization with non-degenerate $`C=+1`$ and $`C=1`$ meson trajectories. As in the previous analysis we also present the effects of individual and global fits to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$, and the effect of the subtraction constant. Since the soft Pomeron exchange dominates the high energy behavior of the total cross sections and the $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ scattering correspond to the highest energy interval with available data (including information from cosmic-ray experiments), we shall limit our analysis to these processes.

The paper is organized as follows. In Sec. II the essential formula of the analytic approach with the extended Regge parametrization are presented. In Sec. III the discrepancies at both accelerator and cosmic-ray domains are reviewed, and it the fit results through four different ensembles of experimental information are presented. The conclusions and some final remarks are the contents of Sec. IV.

## II Extended Regge parametrization

The forward effective Regge amplitude introduced by Donnachie and Landshoff has two contributions, one from a single Pomeron and the other from secondary Reggeons exchangesdl92 . The model assumes degeneracies between the secondary reggeons, imposing a common intercept for the $`C=+1`$ ($`a_2,f_2`$) and the $`C=1`$ ($`\omega ,\rho `$) trajectories. This was the parametrization adopted in the previous paper alm03 .

Although the original fits by Donnachie and Landshoff have been performed only to the $`\sigma _{tot}`$ data, more recent analysis, treating global fits to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$, have indicated that the best results are obtained with non-degenerate meson trajectories ckk ; cmg . In this case the forward scattering amplitude is decomposed into three reggeon exchanges, $`F(s)=F_{𝙸𝙿}(s)+F_{a_2/f_2}(s)+\tau F_{\omega /\rho }(s),`$ where the first term represents the exchange of a single Pomeron, the other two the secondary Reggeons and $`\tau =+1`$ ($`1`$) for $`pp`$ ($`\overline{p}p`$) amplitudes. Using the notation $`\alpha _{𝙸𝙿}(0)=1+ϵ`$, $`\alpha _+(0)=1\eta _+`$ and $`\alpha _{}(0)=1\eta _{}`$ for the intercepts of the Pomeron and the $`C=+1`$ and $`C=1`$ trajectories, respectively, the total cross sections, Eq. (1), for $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ interactions are written as

$`\sigma _{tot}(s)=Xs^ϵ+Y_+s^{\eta _+}+\tau Y_{}s^\eta _{}.`$ (2)
The connection with the $`\rho `$ parameter is obtained by means of dispersion relations and for the above parametrization convergence is ensured by using analyticity relations with one subtraction. Defining $`2F_\pm F_{pp}\pm F_{\overline{p}p}`$ these relations read alm03

$`\text{Re}F_+(s)=K+s\mathrm{tan}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\mathrm{ln}s}}\right]{\displaystyle \frac{\text{Im}F_+(s)}{s}},\text{Re}F_{}(s)=\mathrm{tan}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\pi }{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{d}{d\mathrm{ln}s}}\right]\text{Im}F_{}(s),`$
where $`K`$ is the subtraction constant. Within this formalism, Eqs. (1), (2) and (3) lead to the following connection between $`\rho (s)`$ and $`\sigma _{tot}(s)`$:

$`\rho (s)\sigma _{tot}(s)={\displaystyle \frac{K}{s}}+Xs^ϵ\mathrm{tan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi ϵ}{2}}\right)Y_+s^{\eta _+}\mathrm{tan}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi \eta _+}{2}}\right)+\tau Y_{}s^\eta _{}\mathrm{cot}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\pi \eta _{}}{2}}\right).`$
## III Discrepancies, strategies and fitting results

The experimental information on $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ total cross sections at the highest energies are characterized by discrepant results. As is well known, in the accelerator region, the conflit concerns the results for $`\sigma _{tot}^{\overline{p}p}`$ at $`\sqrt{s}=1.8`$ TeV reported by the CDF Collaboration CDF  and those reported by the E710 E710  and the E811 E811a ; E811  Collaborations (Fig. 1). In the cosmic-ray region, $`6\text{TeV}<\sqrt{s}40`$ TeV, the discrepancies are due to both experimental and theoretical uncertainties in the determination of $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ from p-air cross sections. The situation has been recently reviewed in detail in our previous paper alm03 , where a complete list of references, numerical results and discussions are presented. As showed there, the highest predictions for $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ concern the result by Gaisser, Sukhatme, and Yodh gsy  together with those by Nikolaev niko . In the other extreme, the lowest values come from the results by Block, Halzen, and Stanev bhs . These extrema estimations are displayed in Fig. 1 (numerical values may be found in ref. alm03 ).

Although, in principle, all available data in the accelerator region could be used, it should be stressed that the difference between the CDF and the E710/E811 results involves two standard deviations E811a . This strong disagreement certainly indicates the possibility of distinct scenarios for the rise of the total cross section and consequently for the value of the Pomeron intercept. Moreover, despite the large error bars in the extracted values of $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ from cosmic-ray experiments, the discrepancies also presented can corroborate the distinction between the different scenarios. It is expected that answers to these questions will be provided by the new values for $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$ coming from the BNL RHIC, the Fermilab Tevatron-run II and the CERN LHC.

Based on these facts, we consider important at the moment to investigate these experimental discrepancies and examine its consequences in terms of extrema bounds for the Pomeron intercept.

Since recent analysis showed that the parameters of Regge fits are stable for a cutoff $`\sqrt{s}9`$ GeV cudell , in what follows we consider experimental data on $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$ above $`\sqrt{s}=10`$ GeV. We use the data sets compiled and analyzed by the Particle Data Group pdg , to which we add the new E811 data on $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$ at $`1.8`$ TeV E811 . The statistic and systematic errors have been added in quadrature.

In order to investigate the effects of the discrepancies in a quantitative way, we select different ensembles of $`\sigma _{tot}`$ data that include all the $`\rho `$ results above $`10`$ GeV. First we only consider accelerator data in two ensembles with the following notation: Ensemble I: $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ and $`\sigma _{tot}^{\overline{p}p}`$ data ($`10\sqrt{s}900`$ GeV) + CDF datum ($`\sqrt{s}=1.8`$ TeV); ensemble II: $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ and $`\sigma _{tot}^{\overline{p}p}`$ data ($`10\sqrt{s}900`$ GeV) + E710/E811 data ($`\sqrt{s}=1.8`$ TeV). Ensemble I represents the faster increase scenario for the rise of $`\sigma _{tot}`$ from accelerator data and ensemble II the slowest one. These ensembles are then combined with the highest and lowest estimations for $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ from cosmic-ray experiments, namely, the Nikolaev and Gaisser, Sukhatme, and Yodh (NGSY) results and the Block, Halzen, and Stanev (BHS) results, respectively. These new ensembles are denoted by Ensemble I + NGSY and Ensemble II + BHS.

As in the previous paper, we consider both individual fits to $`\sigma _{tot}`$, and simultaneous fits to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$, either in the case where the subtraction constant is considered as a free fit parameter or assuming $`K=0`$ in Eq. (3). The fits have been performed with the program CERN-MINUIT and the errors in the fit parameters correspond to an increase of the $`\chi ^2`$ by one unit.

In the case of accelerator data only the fit results for $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$ with ensembles I and II are displayed in Table I and Figs. 2, 3 and 4. The results concerning the combination of these ensembles with the estimations from cosmic-ray experiments, namely, ensembles I + NGSY and II + BHS, are shown in Table II and Figs. 5, 6 and 7. In the last two cases we present the curves and experimental information in the region from $`500`$ GeV to $`50`$ TeV, since the results are the same at lower energies, as can be seen in the corresponding results for $`\rho (s)`$.

## IV Conclusions and final remarks

In this analysis we have used the experimental information presently available in the accelerator domain, including the recent E811 results on $`\sigma _{tot}^{\overline{p}p}`$ and $`\rho `$ at $`1.8`$ TeV, and also the highest and lowest estimations for $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ from cosmic-ray experiments.

From Table I (only accelerator data), we may infer the following upper and lower values for the Pomeron intercept: $`\alpha _{𝙸𝙿}^{upper}(0)=1.098\pm 0.004`$ (global fits to ensemble I, with $`K=0`$) and $`\alpha _{𝙸𝙿}^{lower}(0)=1.085\pm 0.004`$ (individual fit to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ from ensemble II), with bounds $`1.102`$ and $`1.081`$, respectively.

Adding the cosmic-ray information, Table II, we infer $`\alpha _{𝙸𝙿}^{upper}(0)=1.104\pm 0.005`$ (individual fit to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ from ensemble I + NGSY) and $`\alpha _{𝙸𝙿}^{lower}(0)=1.085\pm 0.003`$ (global fits to ensemble II + BHS, and $`K`$ as a free fit parameter or individual fit to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ from this ensemble), with bounds $`1.109`$ and $`1.082`$, respectively.

Our approach, and the above values and bounds, may be compared with some representative results obtained by other authors, which are displayed in Table III and are reviewed in what follows. The fits by Donnachie and Landshoff (DL) dl92  have been performed to only $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ total cross section data, above $`10`$ GeV and with the E710 result at $`1.8`$ TeV. The CDF Collaboration (CDF), based on their result for the $`\sigma _{tot}^{\overline{p}p}`$, obtained a higher value for the intercept CDF . Further analyses, through the extended Regge parametrization, included also the E811 result. In the work by Cudell, Kang, and Kim (CKK) ckk  only $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ data above $`10`$ GeV have been fitted. The analysis by Covolan, Montanha and Goulianos (CMG) cmg  (using both a Born level and Eikonal parametrizations) involved global fits to $`pp`$, $`\overline{p}p`$, $`\pi ^\pm p`$ and $`k^\pm p`$ at $`\sqrt{s}6`$ GeV. The COMPETE Collaboration (COMPETE) cudell  treated simultaneous fits to $`\sigma _{tot}`$ and $`\rho `$ in global fits to $`pp`$, $`\overline{p}p`$, meson-$`p`$, $`\gamma p`$ and $`\gamma \gamma `$ above $`9`$ GeV. All these results concerned only accelerator data. In Ref. alm03 , Ávila, Luna and Menon (ALM) included also some cosmic-ray estimations for the $`\sigma _{tot}^{pp}`$ and made use of the original DL parametrization. It is also shown in Table III a recent theoretical result by R. A. Janik (Janik) janik  through a nonperturbative approach and using the AdS/CFT correspondence.

In this work we have presented all the possible fits to $`pp`$ and $`\overline{p}p`$ data, above $`10`$ GeV, through the extended Regge parametrization, exploring the contrasting data and the faster and the slower increase scenarios for the rise of the total cross section, allowed by the experimental information presently available.

From Table III, our results exclude the values for the Pomeron intercept obtained by CMG (in the case of the eikonal parametrization), the lower bounds by ALM and Janik and the mean value by the CDF Collaboration. The DL result is barely compatible with our lower limit. It should be noted that, if the same ensemble is fitted, the introduction of nondegenerate trajectories results in a slightly increase of the Pomeron intercept. For example, fit to all the accelerator data above $`10`$ GeV (including the CDF and the E710/E811 values), leads to $`ϵ=0.086\pm 0.003`$ and $`ϵ=0.089\pm 0.004`$, in the cases of degenerate (DL) and nondegenerate parametrizations, respectively.

From figures (2) to (7), we see that in all the cases investigated the $`\rho `$ parameter is better described with ensembles I and I + BHS, a result that is also roughly supported by the $`\chi ^2`$/DOF (Tables I and II). We understand that this picture favors the E710/E811 results. This conclusion is contrary to that obtained by CMG cmg  and more recently by the COMPETE Collaboration compete .

As a next step it may be important to investigate the consequences of the above extrema bounds in fittings to $`p`$-mesons, $`p\gamma `$, and $`\gamma \gamma `$ scattering, with focus in the ratio of strengths of the Pomeron exchange (quark counting and factorization).

###### Acknowledgements.

We are thankful to FAPESP for financial support (Contracts No. 00/00991-7, and No. 00/04422-7) and to P. Valin, J. Montanha Neto, and A. F. Martini for discussions. We are also grateful to M. M. Block for sending us the total cross section results concerning the BHS analysis.