text:
# Kovacs effects in an aging molecular liquid

## Abstract

We study by means of molecular dynamics simulations the aging behavior of a molecular model of ortho-terphenyl. We find evidence of a a non-monotonic evolution of the volume during an isothermal-isobaric equilibration process, a phenomenon known in polymeric systems as cross-over (or Kovacs) effect. We characterize this phenomenology in terms of landscape properties, providing evidence that, far from equilibrium, the system explores region of the potential energy landscape distinct from the one explored in thermal equilibrium. We discuss the relevance of our findings for the present understanding of the thermodynamics of the glass state.

If two systems in thermodynamical equilibrium with identical chemical composition have the same temperature $`T`$ and volume $`V`$ we immediately know that they experience the same pressure $`P`$. We know that the two systems will respond in the same way to an external perturbation, and that they will be characterized by the same structural and dynamical properties. The ability to predict the pressure, and the equivalence of structural and dynamical properties, derive from thermodynamical principles.

In the case of glasses, systems in out-of-equilibrium conditions, the $`T`$ and $`V`$ values are not sufficient for predicting $`P`$, since the state of the system depends on its previous thermal and mechanical history. Different glasses, at the same $`T`$ and $`V`$, are characterized by different $`P`$ values. One can ask if the value of $`P`$ is sufficient to uniquely define the glass state, i.e., if two glasses with identical composition having not only the same $`T`$ and $`V`$ but also the same $`P`$ are the same glass. If this is the case, the two glasses should respond to an external perturbation in the same way and should age with a similar dynamics.

These basic questions are at the hearth of a thermodynamic understanding of the glassy state of matter, and of the possibility of providing a theoretical understanding of out-of-equilibrium systems. Indeed, if by specifying $`T`$, $`V`$ and also $`P`$, we uniquely define the glass state —its structural and dynamical properties— it means that it is possible to develop an out-of-equilibrium thermodynamic formalism davies53 ; speedy94 ; cugliandolo97 ; nieuwenhuizen98 ; franz00 ; mossa02b  where the previous history of the system is encoded in one additional parameter. In the interpretation of experimental data, such additional parameter is often chosen as a fictive temperature or pressure, in the attempt to associate the glass to a liquid, frozen from a specific thermodynamic state.

Back in the 60th, Kovacs and co-workers designed an experimental protocol kovacs63 ; mckenna89 ; angell00  (Fig. 1) to generate distinct glasses with different thermal and mechanical histories but with the same $`T`$, $`V`$ and $`P`$ values. Poly-vinyl acetate was equilibrated at high temperature $`T_h`$ and then quenched at low temperature $`T_l`$, where it was allowed to relax isothermally for a waiting time $`t_w`$ insufficient to reach equilibrium. The material was then re-heated to an intermediate temperature $`T`$, and allowed to relax. The entire experiment was performed at constant pressure $`P`$. The observed dynamics of the volume relaxation toward equilibrium—in the last step at constant $`T`$ and $`P`$— was striking; the volume crosses over the equilibrium value, passes trough a maximum, which depends upon the actual thermal history of the system, and then relaxes to the equilibrium value. The existence of a maximum clearly indicates that there are states with the same $`V`$ (at the left and at the right of the maximum) which, although $`T`$, $`V`$ and $`P`$ are the same, evolve differently. Thus, this experiment strongly support the idea that three variables are not always sufficient to uniquely predict the state of the glass nota3 .

Here we attempt to reproduce numerically the Kovacs experiment, performing molecular dynamics simulations for a simple molecular model, to develop an intuition on the differences between states with the same $`T`$,$`V`$ and $`P`$ and the conditions under which out-of-equilibrium thermodynamics may be used to describe glass states. We find that for sufficiently deep quenching temperatures, and long aging times, following the protocol proposed by Kovacs, it is indeed possible to identify two distinct states with the same $`T`$, $`V`$ and $`P`$. Thus, for the first time, Kovacs’ effects, also know in the literature as cross-over effects scherer86 , are also observed in a molecular liquid model. Exploiting the possibilities offered by the information encoded in the numerical trajectories, we examine the differences between this pair of states, and contrast them with corresponding equilibrium liquid configurations. We discover that when the system is forced to age following significant $`T`$-jumps, i.e., low $`T_l`$, it starts to explore regions of the landscape which are never explored in equilibrium. Under these conditions, it is not possible any longer to associate a glass to a ”frozen” liquid configuration via the introduction of a fictive temperature or pressure. This finding limits the range of validity of recent theories for out-of-equilibrium systems, based on the possibility of developing a thermodynamic formalism for glasses introducing only one additional effective parameter in the free energy nieuwenhuizen98 ; cugliandolo97 ; franz00 ; st01 ; mossa02b .

We consider a system of $`343`$ molecules, interacting via the Lewis and Wahnström potential lewis94  (LW), a model for the fragile glass former ortho-terphenyl (OTP). The molecule is rigid, composed by three sites located at the vertexes of an isosceles triangle. Sites pertaining to different molecules interact by the Lennard-Jones potential. Simulation details are given in Refs. mossa02a ; lanave02 . The system has been studied in isobaric-isothermal conditions; the time constants of both the thermostat and the barostat have been fixed to $`20`$ $`ps`$. In order to accumulate an accurate statistics for the analysis below, averages over up to $`200`$ different starting configurations have been performed. The total simulation time is more than $`6`$ $`\mu s`$.

To reproduce the Kovacs experiment, equilibrium configurations at $`T_h=400K`$, volume per molecule $`V=0.378`$ nm3 and $`P=16`$ MPa are isobarically quenched at several low temperatures $`T_l`$, and left to age for different $`t_w`$ values ($`t_w`$ is never sufficient to reach equilibrium at $`T_l`$). Each resulting configuration is then isobarically heated to $`T=280`$ K (see Fig. 1). At $`T`$ the characteristic structural relaxation time is of the order of a few $`ns`$, allowing us to follow, with the present computational resources, the dynamics up to equilibrium. The $`V`$-evolution is recorded along the entire path. We also perform an analysis of the properties of the explored potential energy landscape (PEL) as a function of time, focusing in particular on the energy $`e_{IS}`$ and pressure $`P_{IS}`$ of the closest local minima configurations (the inherent structures, $`IS`$), as well as the average curvatures of the PEL around the $`IS`$ configurations. The $`IS`$ configuration, which is numerically evaluated performing a steepest descent path along the potential energy surface, can be though of as the low-$`T`$ glass generated by instantaneously freezing the liquid.

Fig. 2(a) shows the time evolution of $`V`$ at constant $`T=280`$ K and $`P=16`$ MPa for samples which have previously aged at different $`T_l`$ for $`t_w=50`$ ns. The time evolution of $`V`$ for the case $`T_l=T`$ (i.e. for a $`T`$-jump from $`T_h`$ to $`T`$) is also reported. We note that for large $`T_l`$ (i.e., $`T_l=220`$ K), $`V`$ relaxes to the equilibrium value from below monotonically. Similarly, for $`T_l=T`$, $`V`$ relaxes to the equilibrium value from above, again monotonically. At variance, for deep $`T_l`$ values, $`V`$ does not relax monotonically to the equilibrium value. In analogy with Kovacs findings, it goes through a maximum, whose value is higher the lower $`T_l`$, before starting to relax toward the equilibrium value. After the maximum, the time evolution of $`V`$ practically coincides with case $`T_l=T`$.

The waiting time dependence of $`V`$ during the final relaxation at $`T`$ is shown in Fig. 2(b) for the case $`T_l=150`$ K. For all studied $`t_w`$ values, a maximum is observed, and the value of the maximum is larger the shorter the waiting time $`t_w`$. All together, Figs. 2(a) and (b) confirm that the features observed by Kovacs in experiments with polymers are also observable in the case of molecular glass forming liquids under deep-quench conditions (small $`T_l`$ values).

Next we study the properties of the region of the PEL explored by the system during the the aging process. In Fig. 3 we show — for the case $`T_l=150`$ K for which a clear non-monotonic $`V`$-relaxation is observed — the out-of-equilibrium evolution of (a) the $`V`$, (b) the average inherent structures energy $`e_{IS}`$, (c) the average inherent structure pressure $`P_{IS}`$, and (d) the shape factor $`𝒮_{k=1}^{6N3}\mathrm{log}(\omega _k/\omega _o)/N`$ (here the $`\omega _k`$ are the eigenvalues of the Hessian calculated at the inherent structures and $`\omega _o`$ is the frequency unit); the quantity $`𝒮`$ provides a measure of the volume of the basin of attractions) sciortino99 . The maximum in the time evolution of $`V`$ allows us to define two arbitrary points $`P_<`$ and $`P_>`$ (marked in Fig. 3), characterized, by construction, by the same $`T`$, $`P`$, and $`V`$ values. Although $`P_<`$ and $`P_>`$ are indistinguishable from a thermodynamical point of view, the subsequent dynamics is completely different in the two cases: after $`P_<`$ the system expands, while after $`P_>`$ it contracts. From a landscape point of view, $`P_<`$ and $`P_>`$ differ both in the depth and the shape of the sampled basin. The picture that emerges is that, at $`P_<`$, the system populates local minima which are systematically characterized by energy higher and basins of attraction steeper than the ones explored at $`P_>`$.

It is particularly important to note that, after about $`2030`$ $`ps`$, corresponding to the time requested to bring $`T`$ and $`P`$ to equilibrium, the $`P_{IS}`$ value stabilizes, while both depth and shape of the explored basins continues to change with time. This suggests that the vibrational component to the pressure (defined as $`P_{vib}=PP_{IS}`$ mossa02b ; lanave03 ) is rather insensitive to the basin properties, in agreement with similar findings from equilibrium studies lanave02 . The fact that $`P_{IS}`$ is constant offers an unique possibility to estimate how and if the aging dynamics proceeds via a path which is usually explored in equilibrium, by comparing properties in equilibrium along a constant $`P_{IS}`$ path and the aging dynamics at the same constant $`P_{IS}`$ value. Indeed, in equilibrium, all landscape properties (i.e., $`e_{IS}`$, $`P_{IS}`$, $`𝒮`$) are function only of $`T`$ and $`V`$. By eliminating $`T`$ in favor of $`P_{IS}`$, $`e_{IS}`$ can be expressed as a function of $`V`$ and $`P_{IS}`$. Therefore, for a fixed value of $`P_{IS}`$, $`e_{IS}`$ becomes, in equilibrium, an unique function of $`V`$. This equilibrium relation can be compared with the same relation along the aging path to estimate which part of the aging dynamics follows the equilibrium properties and which part is instead different from it. A similar comparison can be performed between basin shape $`𝒮`$ and $`V`$ at constant $`P_{IS}`$.

This comparison is shown in Fig. 4 for the two cases where a monotonic $`V`$-relaxation is observed (large $`T_l`$ values, $`T_l=220`$ K and $`T_l=280`$ K), and for the case $`T_l=150K`$ where a maximum in the time evolution of $`V`$ is clearly detected. The important information standing out from the comparison is that, while equilibration with large $`T_l`$ values follows equilibrium paths, in the other case only the final part of the dynamics follows a path which goes via a sequence of states which are explored in equilibrium. This confirms that only one $`(P_>)`$ of the two states with the same $`T`$, $`P`$, and $`V`$ can be related, for example via a fictive temperature expl , to an equilibrium state, while the other one $`(P_<)`$ has a structure which is never explored in equilibrium. Therefore the two states, although having the same $`T`$, $`P`$, and $`V`$, are quantitatively different. In other words, while at $`P_>`$ the system samples landscape properties which are sampled by the liquid at equilibrium at a higher temperature (which can be used as additional parameter to quantify the glass properties), at $`P_<`$ the system explores a region of the landscape which is never explored in equilibrium, since the relation between the landscape properties characterizing $`P_<`$ are never encountered in equilibrium. Under these conditions, it is not possible to exactly relate the glass structure to an equilibrium structure and hence define a fictive temperature for the system.

The present numerical study shows that, only when the change of external parameters is small, or when the system is close to equilibrium, the evolution of the equilibrating system proceeds along a sequence of states which are explored in equilibrium. Under these circumstances, the location of the aging system can be traced back to an equivalent equilibrium state, and a fictive temperature can be defined. In this approximation, a thermodynamic description of the aging system based on one additional parameter can be provided. When the external perturbation is significant, like in hyper-quenching experiments angell03 , then the aging dynamics propagates the system along a path which is never explored in equilibrium. In this case it becomes impossible to associate the aging system to a corresponding liquid configuration. It is a challenge for future studies to find out if a thermodynamic description can be recovered decomposing the aging system in a collection of sub-states, each of them associated to a different fictive temperature—a picture somehow encoded in the phenomenological approaches of Tool and co-workers tool46  and Kovacs and co-workers kovacs79 — or if the glass, produced under extreme perturbations, freezes in some highly stressed configuration which can never be associated to a liquid state.

We acknowledge several important discussions with W. Kob, E. La Nave and G. Tarjus and support from MIUR PRIN and FIRB. We thank G. Mc Kenna for calling our attention to the Kovacs experiments.


format: text

text:
# The Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope Gamma-Ray Burst Alert System, and Observations of GRB 020813

## 1 INTRODUCTION

Although the study of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) has been revolutionized in the past few years because of the successful operation of several space GRB detection experiments \[such as the Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE) on board the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO), Meegan et al. 1992; the BeppoSAX satellite, Boella et al. 1997; and the High Energy Transient Explorer-2 (HETE-2), Ricker et al. 2001\], the origin and nature of GRBs remain enigmatic. Much of the difficulty in studying GRBs results from their short duration ($``$ 1–100 s), the generally poor precision of their reported positions, and the rapidly fading brightness of their counterparts in the lower-energy passbands (X-ray, optical, and radio). Since the detection and observation in these lower-energy passbands during and shortly after a GRB potentially holds the key to significant progress in understanding the central engine of GRBs and could provide valuable clues to their progenitors (Mészáros 2001), it is critical to have nearly real-time position determination and prompt follow-up observations in all passbands shortly after the trigger of a GRB.

HETE-2 is currently the only GRB detector capable of localizing and disseminating GRB positions in nearly real-time, and the GRB Coordinates Network (GCN; Barthelmy et al. 1994) provides a link between GRB triggers and observers/telescopes, including real-time distribution of GRB alerts to a handful of sites with robotic equipment. The successful observation of the GRB 990123 optical afterglow (OA) by the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment (ROTSE; Akerlof & McKay 1999; Akerlof et al. 1999) only 22 s after the GRB trigger, and observations by the Livermore Optical Transient Imaging System (LOTIS) and Super-LOTIS (Park et al. 2001), demonstrate that it is useful to have robotic telescopes that can respond to GRB alerts automatically.

In this paper we describe the GRB alert system with the 0.76 m (30 inch) Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope (KAIT), currently the world’s largest robotic telescope capable of responding to GRB alerts and doing real-time GRB optical follow-ups. KAIT can reach a limiting magnitude of $``$19 in a 20 s unfiltered exposure, and can slew at a relatively fast speed (5 s-1). The main goal of the KAIT GRB alert system is not to search widely for OAs of GRBs, as KAIT’s ability to detect a particular GRB OA is limited by its small field of view ($`6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7\times 6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7`$), but rather to obtain a high-quality early-time light curve of a GRB OA once it is detected in the KAIT field. With these early-time data we will be able to constrain properties of GRBs such as (1) the temporal behavior of the OA emission, (2) breaks and undulations in the light curves, and (3) other derived parameters such as the initial Lorentz factor of the blast wave, the jet opening angle, and the ambient medium density. The relatively deep, rapid observations made by KAIT will also provide useful constraints on some of the well-localized “dark GRBs,” in which no optical afterglow is seen. The best example to date of KAIT’s abilities was provided by KAIT observations of GRB 021211 (Li et al. 2003), which showed evidence of reverse shock emission at early times.

The paper is organized as follows. Section 2 contains a description of KAIT, the GRB alert system, and the performance of the system in its first year of operation. Section 3 reports the successful observations of the GRB 020813 OA with this system, and the transformation of the observed unfiltered photometry to a standard system. Conclusions are drawn in Section 4.

## 2 THE KAIT GRB ALERT SYSTEM

### 2.1 KAIT

KAIT is the third robotic telescope in the Berkeley Automatic Imaging Telescope (BAIT) program. The technical details, the operation concept, and the scientific objectives of the earlier BAIT systems can be found in Filippenko (1992), Richmond, Treffers, & Filippenko (1993), and Treffers et al. (1995), while those of KAIT specifically are in Li et al. (2000), Filippenko et al. (2001), and Filippenko et al. (2003, in preparation). Here we briefly summarize the operation concept of KAIT and the results from the ongoing supernova (SN) search.

KAIT consists of a 0.76 m diameter primary with a Ritchey-Chretién mirror set. The telescope has a focal ratio of $`f/8.2`$ and a plate scale of $`33\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}2`$ mm-1 at the focal plane. An off-axis autoguider enables long exposure times. The thermoelectrically cooled CCD camera is an Apogee AP7b with a SITe $`512\times 512`$ pixel back-illuminated chip (pixel size 24 $`\mu `$m), which has a pixel scale of 0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$8. We use only the central $`500\times 500`$ pixels in observations due to some chip defects near the edges, yielding a total field of view (FOV) of $`6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7\times 6\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7`$. KAIT has a filter wheel with 20 slots, including a set of standard Johnson $`UBV`$ and Cousins $`RI`$ filters. A weather station monitors the outside and telescope temperatures, humidity, wind speed, rain, and cloud cover, and it sends signals to close the dome slit whenever conditions are hazardous to the telescope system.

All of the hardware is controlled by computers. The whole system starts automatically each day in the afternoon. The hardware status is checked and initialized, and the observations for the night are scheduled according to all the active request files. The bias, dark current, and twilight flatfield images are automatically taken, and observations of the arranged targets begin when the Sun is $`8^{}`$ below the horizon. A focusing routine is run every 90 min to ensure good focus. During bad weather, such as high winds, high humidity, fog, rain, or completely overcast skies, the slit is closed automatically, and the system takes a “nap” for 10 min. It tries to do observations again after the nap, and keeps trying every 10 min thereafter. At the end of the night the system is shut down automatically; it then goes to “sleep” until waking up again in the afternoon.

The primary science project carried out with KAIT is the Lick Observatory Supernova Search (LOSS; e.g., Treffers et al. 1997; Filippenko et al. 2001), which recently became part of the Lick Observatory and Tenagra Observatory Supernova Searches (LOTOSS; e.g., Schwartz et al. 2000). Depending on the season, about 5,000–10,000 nearby galaxies are monitored every 2 to 15 days by LOSS; over the course of the year, the sample size is about 14,000 galaxies. Images are automatically processed and candidate supernovae (SNe) are flagged; these are subsequently examined by a group of research assistants (most of whom are undergraduate students). Promising SN candidates are then reobserved, and the confirmed SNe are reported to the Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams, where the International Astronomical Union Circulars are issued.

LOSS is the world’s most successful search engine for nearby SNe, discovering 20 in 1998, 40 in 1999, 36 in 2000, 68 in 2001, and 82 in 2002. Moreover, most of the LOSS SNe were discovered while young and thus were especially suitable for detailed photometric and spectroscopic studies. The large number of SN discoveries is also ideal for statistical studies such as the SN rate in galaxies of different Hubble types; see van den Bergh, Li, & Filippenko (2002) for the first step of this process, morphological classification of the host galaxies. For more details on the publications utilizing LOSS data, see the web site http://astron.berkeley.edu/$``$bait/kait.html and Filippenko et al. (2003, in preparation).

### 2.2 The GRB OA Observation Program

Because KAIT does all observations robotically, many years ago we considered incorporating a GRB OA observation program into the system, but the idea was not implemented until the launch of HETE-2. Before HETE-2, the only prompt localizations available were from BATSE; with large positional uncertainties ($`1^{}10^{}`$; Briggs et al. 1999), however, it was impractical to implement a real-time strategy with KAIT (FOV only $`6\mathrm{}.7\times 6\mathrm{}.7`$). With the launch of HETE-2, which is capable of providing nearly real-time GRB localization through GCN alerts and significantly improved GRB position uncertainty (about 20$`\mathrm{}`$–40$`\mathrm{}`$, sometimes better than 10$`\mathrm{}`$), the chance of detecting GRB OAs in the small FOV of KAIT has dramatically improved. We thus designed a GRB OA observation program in late 2001, and the system has been operating since the beginning of the year 2002.

The GRB OA observation program connects to the GCN through socket communications, the fastest way (nearly real-time) to receive GRB alerts. Upon receiving a GRB alert, the program responds differently depending on the contents of the alert. If there is no information on the GRB position, or the alert indicates that the trigger was not due to a GRB, only an email message is sent to several team members. When there are GRB coordinates in the alert, and there is no indication that the trigger was not due to a GRB, the program checks the possibility of observing the GRB field, including the following:

1. The position uncertainty. If the uncertainty exceeds $`1^{}`$, the field will not be observed.
2. The angular distance from the Moon. Depending on the phase of the Moon, GRB fields within different distances (e.g., 45 during full moon and 25 during quarter moon) from the Moon are not observed.
3. The time of the trigger. If the altitude of the Sun is $`<8^{}`$ below the horizon, it is considered twilight or daytime and the field will not be observed.
4. The telescope limit. Fields that have declination south of $`29^{}`$ or north of $`+70^{}`$, or absolute hour angle exceeding 4.5 hr, are not observed due to the mechanical limits of KAIT. As HETE-2 GRBs are preferentially anti-solar, those that are triggered during nighttime hours in California are likely to be within (or close to) the KAIT mechanical limits, except during the summer months.

If the field is determined to be not observable for any reason, an email message is sent to the team members, and the telescope resumes its normal program (usually the SN search), of course continuing to be alert for the next GRB trigger. If, on the other hand, the field can be observed right away, the program immediately terminates the on-going observation by KAIT, and interrupts the previous robotically scheduled observing process.111Currently, KAIT cannot stop an exposure in progress, so the shutter remains open during the move to the GRB position. This may even result in a double exposure, of two different parts of the sky, as was the case for GRB 021211 (Li et al. 2003). The program then takes a sequence of images of the GRB field, after which the normal automatic observing process resumes.

Thus far, we have chosen to conduct the GRB observations without filters (i.e., in the unfiltered mode). The advantage of this is that deeper limiting magnitudes can be achieved in relatively shorter exposures: the limiting magnitude of a 20 s unfiltered exposure is 19.0 (3$`\sigma `$) under favorable observing conditions, while that of a 300 s exposure is 21.5. However, there are two disadvantages to this choice. First, it is difficult to compare unfiltered magnitudes from different telescopes — but as we show in §3, unfiltered photometry can be transferred to the standard Cousins $`R`$ band with a relatively large color term, and the resulting $`R`$ magnitudes have uncertainties of about 5%. Second, the unfiltered observation lacks the critical color information to place physical constraints on GRB models — but observations of GRB afterglows are still at a stage where only a few very early (within ten minutes of the burst) light curves have been obtained, and our current goal is to expand the sample with more high-quality early unfiltered light curves. We plan to switch to observing with standard filters in the future.

Our original sequence of observations (before 2002 Nov. 22; UT dates are used throughout this paper) for each GRB field was arranged as follows. First, five $`3\times 20`$ s grid images (discussed below) were taken, then two 60 s exposures, one 120 s guided exposure, one 300 s guided exposure, and finally, four 120 s guided exposures that combine to make a $`2\times 2`$ mosaic image centered on the GRB position, covering a region about $`12\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7\times 12\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}7`$. The whole sequence took about half an hour to observe. The sequence was arranged so that relatively short exposures were observed at the beginning when the GRB OA is expected to be bright, and longer exposures were observed at the end when the OA is expected to become more faint. The $`2\times 2`$ mosaic observations increased the coverage of the GRB field, but no attempt was made to cover the whole error box of each GRB.

The ROTSE observations of GRB 990123 (Akerlof et al. 1999) have the earliest detection of a GRB OA, and indicate that the early-time light curve of an OA can vary on short timescales: the OA of GRB 990123 brightened by 3 mag in 25 s, then declined by 1 mag in another 25 s. It is important to have good temporal coverage to study these short timescale variations. For this reason, we have developed a procedure to obtain grid images of a GRB field without reading out the CCD. When the first 20 s exposure is finished, the telescope is offset to the east by $`0\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}6`$ (45 pixels), and the CCD shutter is closed but the CCD is not read out. This repeats twice to produce a $`3\times 20`$ s grid, and the whole image is finally read out. Although the readout time for the KAIT CCD camera is relatively short (10 s), by saving two readouts the observation efficiency is increased by about 20%, which is significant for the time-critical early OA observations.

The grid procedure adds difficulties to the identification and photometry of individual stars in the final image. However, the offset between the individual 20 s exposures (45 pixels) is big enough to not complicate the photometric reductions too much, and the normal images obtained after the grid procedures offer references to identify individual stars in the grid. There is also the probability that the GRB OA will be superimposed on another star in one or more of the dithering positions, but since the grid images are intended to target bright GRB OAs, the point-spread-function (PSF) fitting procedure in the photometry packages helps determine the individual brightness of the star and the OA. Figure 1 shows a grid image of the GRB 020813 field taken by the KAIT GRB observation program. The GRB OA is marginally detected in each 20 s exposure (see §3 for more details on the observations of GRB 020813). For comparison, Figure 2 shows a non-grid image of the GRB 020813 field.

After the sequence of images of a GRB field is observed, an email message is sent to the team members.222Recently, we modified the system so that a team member is woken up, when there is a particularly promising GRB alert. Those who are aware of the observations will then check the data, identify possible OAs and alert the GRB community, and arrange further observations. If no real-time analysis is done, the images are checked the next day by one or more of the team members.

The requested sequence of images has recently been modified, as we learn from our previous attempts to observe GRB OAs. The observations of GRB 020813 showed that the grid images at the beginning of the sequence were not deep enough to detect the GRB OA, and since most GCN alerts with initial positions of GRBs are later than one hour after the bursts, we changed the sequence to start with a relatively shallow (10 s) and a relatively deep (40 s) exposure, followed by a set of grid images. This latter sequence was followed for GRB 021211, our most successful set of observations of a GRB OA (see next section for details), which demonstrates that grid images are, in fact, effective when GRB positions are determined in real time by HETE-2. Our current (April 2003) sequence thus starts with the grid images (first $`3\times 5`$ s, then $`3\times 10`$ s and $`3\times 20`$ s), and continues with longer unguided (60 s) and guided (120 s and 300 s) exposures. We expect the sequence to continue to evolve, reflecting our strategy for observing GRB OAs.

The GRB alert program has also been modified so that incoming GCN notices are studied to determine whether they are first-time alerts, or follow-up alerts of a previous GRB. In the latter case, a different sequence starting with long exposures commences, since the GRB OA is likely to have already faded considerably.

### 2.3 The System Performance

The KAIT GRB alert program has been in operation since late-December 2001. Our statistics show that during the year 2002, a successful connection was made between KAIT and GCN only 70% of the time. The cause of the connection failures is unknown, but is probably related to network problems. The connectivity has improved to over 90% of the time since November 2002.

Table 1 shows some HETE-2 alerts that KAIT received, but failed to conduct real-time observations for various reasons in 2002. Apparently, most of the failures were caused by bursts occurring during the daytime at KAIT. The only solution to this problem is to have a network of robotic telescopes at different longitudes. Other reasons for failures were bad weather, the connection problem mentioned above, and bursts occurring near or beyond the mechanical or software limits of KAIT. In particular, the HETE-2 on-board localization was derived for GRB 021004 almost immediately, and the GCN alert arrived at KAIT when the GRB was at a western hour angle of 4.4 hr, which is within the mechanical limit of KAIT (4.6 hr), but the software had limited the observations to hour angles within $`\pm `$4 hr. We subsequently changed the software limit to $`\pm `$4.5 hr, in order to maximize the area of sky potentially accessible to KAIT.

Table 2 shows the HETE-2 alerts that KAIT received and responded to in real time. For the discussions in this paper, $`t`$ = 0 is defined as the GRB on-board trigger time. The position of GRB 020813 was released in a GCN notice at $`t`$ = 4.2 min when it was still daytime at KAIT. We commenced remote manual observations of the GRB field when it was dark ($`t=103.7`$ min), but this was interrupted by the KAIT GRB alert program when it received an updated notice at $`t`$ = 112.7 min. KAIT finished a sequence of images of the GRB 020813 field, and then resumed its regular observing schedule. A third GCN notice was received at $`t`$ = 184.3 min, and KAIT responded with the same sequence of images. Using robotic images from the Palomar 48-inch telescope, Fox, Blake, & Price (2002) discovered the OA of GRB 020813. Our manual and automatic observations had successfully imaged this OA position, but not all images are deep enough to detect the OA. We also remotely (but manually) obtained images of the GRB 020813 field the next night. Preliminary results from these observations were reported by Li, Filippenko, & Chornock (2002) and by Li, Chornock, & Filippenko (2002); a detailed analysis is presented in §3.

The GCN alerts with positions for GRB 021104, GRB 021112, and GRB 021113 were received when KAIT was conducting its regular SN search, and the GRB alert program successfully responded with sequences of images. Unfortunately, no OA was discovered for these GRBs from our images, or from images obtained elsewhere.

GRB 021211 is KAIT’s most successfully observed GRB OA. The position of GRB 021211 was relayed by HETE-2 at $`t`$ = 22 s. KAIT responded to the GCN notice at $`t`$ = 32 s, and began to slew across much of the sky to the GRB position. It finished pointing at $`t`$ = 108 s (but the dome slit began to clear the telescope at $`t`$ = 105 s), with 48 s left in a 600 s follow-up exposure of SN 2002he. Because currently we cannot stop an exposure in progress, the image ended up with the GRB 021211 field superimposed on the SN 2002he field (but nevertheless a useful image which provided the earliest KAIT measurement of GRB 021211). KAIT then took a sequence of images, starting with a 10 s exposure and continuing with exposures of 40 s, 3$`\times `$20 s grid, 60 s, 120 s (guided), and 300 s (guided). Three additional GCN alerts with updated positions for GRB 021211 were received during the night, and KAIT responded with the same sequence of images. The position of the OA of GRB 021211 (Fox & Price 2002) was successfully observed on most images. Preliminary results from these observations were reported by Li et al. (2002) and Chornock et al. (2002), and a detailed analysis is presented elsewhere (Li et al. 2003). Our observations of GRB 021211 not only provide one of the fastest detections of a GRB OA, but also show evidence for a reverse-shock component in the early optical emission and a break at $`t10`$ min. Our photometry of GRB 021211, which has high temporal resolution, also suggests that either the object underwent a dramatic color change at early times, or that there are small-scale variations superimposed on the power-law decay of the reverse-shock emission (Li et al. 2003).

The experience we gained from the observations of the GRB 021211 OA prompted us to make improvements to the existing GRB alert program. For example, the response procedure was simplified to speed up the observations, the sequence of images was changed to start with short $`3\times 5`$ s grid images, and follow-up GCN alerts are observed with a sequence starting with relatively long exposures instead of short ones.

Table 2 also shows that KAIT can typically start the first observation at about 20–40 s after receiving the GCN alert. With our improved procedure, tests show that KAIT can start the first exposure as early as 8 s after receiving a position from the GCN notices. Table 2 also shows that with small-number statistics, KAIT is more successful with GRBs that have near real-time HETE-2 localizations (e.g., GRB 020813 and GRB 021211) than with GRBs that are localized more than 600 s after the bursts.

## 3 OBSERVATIONS OF GRB 020813

### 3.1 Data Reduction

GRB 020813 was detected by HETE-2 at 2:44 on 2002 August 13 (Villasenor et al. 2002). The gamma-ray light curve shows a series of pulses that last $`>`$ 125 s, typical of a bright, long-duration burst. The flight localization was reported in a GCN notice at $`t`$ = 4.2 min. The OA of GRB 020813 was discovered by Fox, Blake, & Price (2002) in images taken at $`t`$ 2 hr with the Palomar 1.2 m Oschin Schmidt telescope; independent analysis of our own images also revealed the OA (Li, Chornock, & Filippenko 2002), but we reported the results later than Fox, Blake, & Price (2002). Spectroscopy of the GRB 020813 OA with the Keck telescope (Price et al. 2002) identifies absorption systems with the highest redshift measured at $`z=1.254`$. Spectropolarimetric observations also done with Keck (Barth et al. 2002, 2003) yield a linear polarization of 1.8–2.4% at $`t`$ = 4.7–4.9 hr, the first spectropolarimetry ever obtained for a GRB OA. A temporal break in the light curve was first suggested by Bloom, Fox, & Hunt (2002), and confirmed by us (Li, Chornock, & Filippenko 2002), Malesani et al. (2002), and Gladders & Hall (2002b).

We obtained 25 images of the GRB 020813 field on 2002 August 13, among which 9 were manually and 16 were automatically observed. A total of 45 individual exposures of the GRB 020813 OA were taken due to our grid procedure. An additional 6 images were manually taken on 2002 August 14. Because of the faintness and the rapid decline of the OA, not all of our images are useful.

Since our observations were obtained without filters, it is important to transform the measured magnitudes to a standard photometric system, so that comparisons with observations taken elsewhere can be made. In reducing unfiltered data on Type Ia SNe, Riess et al. (1999) demonstrated a method that treats the unfiltered images as though they were observed through a very broad filter, and uses color terms to correct for the difference in the throughput curves, just as we correct the instrumental $`BVRI`$ magnitudes to the standard Johnson-Cousins system. The color terms can be empirically determined by obtaining $`BVRI`$ and unfiltered images of Landolt (1992) standard stars during photometric nights. Riess et al. found that for a SN Ia, whose spectrum has broad absorption and emission features and is far from stellar, a reliable transformation from unfiltered magnitudes to a standard passband can be achieved at a precision of $``$5%. Since most GRB OA spectra don’t have broad absorption and emission features, we expect the transformation to work even better for the unfiltered GRB OA observations.

We find that the combination of the KAIT optics and the quantum efficiency of the Apogee CCD camera makes the KAIT unfiltered observations mostly mimic the $`R`$ band, so we choose to transform the unfiltered magnitudes to $`R`$. The formula for the differential photometry that transforms the unfiltered magnitudes to $`R`$ is as follows:

$$R_{GRB}=(c_{GRB}c_{LS})+R_{LS}CT\times [(VR)_{GRB}(VR)_{LS}],$$
(1)
where $`R_{GRB}`$, $`c_{GRB}`$, and $`(VR)_{GRB}`$ are the $`R`$ magnitude, unfiltered magnitude, and $`(VR)`$ color of the GRB OA, respectively, while $`R_{LS}`$, $`c_{LS}`$, and $`(VR)_{LS}`$ are those of the local standard star. “$`CT`$” is the color term to transform the KAIT unfiltered magnitudes to $`R`$, and is found to be $`0.27\pm 0.05`$ from several photometric nights.

We have adopted the calibration of the GRB 020813 field by Henden (2002), and $`(VR)`$ = 0.39 mag for GRB 020813 from Gladders & Hall (2002a). The final transformed $`R`$ magnitudes from the unfiltered KAIT observations are listed in Table 3.

To cross-check the accuracy of the above transformation, we have independently measured the extensive $`R`$-band photometry of the GRB 020813 OA by the 6.5-m Magellan telescope, which were generously made available to the GRB community by Gladders & Hall (2002c). The same calibration of the GRB 020813 field (Henden 2002) was used. The measured $`R`$ magnitudes are listed in Table 4.

Figure 3 displays the $`R`$-band light curve of the GRB 020813 OA from the unfiltered KAIT observations, while Figure 4 shows that from KAIT, Magellan, the BAO 1.0-m telescope (Kawabata, Urata, & Yamaoka 2002), and the TUG 1.5-m (Kiziloglu et al. 2002) observations. In these figures we assume no host-galaxy reddening to GRB 020813 (Barth et al. 2003), and adopt a Galactic extinction of $`A_R=0.26`$ mag (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis 1998). It is apparent from both figures that there is a break in the light curve of the GRB 020813 OA at $`t`$ 0.2 d, which is further qualitatively demonstrated by the change of power-law decay indices before and after the break: $`0.47\pm 0.04`$ at $`t`$ = 0.0720–0.1363 d from the KAIT observations, and $`1.16\pm 0.04`$ at $`t`$ = 0.2336–1.1873 d from the KAIT observations ($`1.08\pm 0.03`$ from all the observations shown in Figure 4). The break appears to be smooth and gradual. For example, the power-law decay index measured at $`t`$ = 0.1334–0.2357 d is $`0.81\pm 0.06`$ from the KAIT observations ($`0.83\pm 0.05`$ from all the observations shown in Figure 4), which is in between the earlier and later power-law decay indices.

To better describe the temporal evolution of the GRB 020813 OA, we fit the data with a smoothly broken power-law model, which is modified from that of Beuermann et al. (1999):

$$F_\nu =\frac{2^{1/s}F_{\nu ,b}}{[(t/t_b)^{\alpha _1s}+(t/t_b)^{\alpha _2s}]^{1/s}},$$
(2)
where $`t_b`$ is the time of the break, $`F_{\nu ,b}`$ is the flux at $`t_b`$, and $`s`$ controls the sharpness of the break, with larger $`s`$ implying a sharper break. We obtained the following values for the parameters using a $`\chi ^2`$-minimizing procedure: (1) for the KAIT data only: $`t_b=0.14\pm 0.03`$ day, $`\alpha _1=0.13\pm 0.05`$, $`\alpha _2=1.21\pm 0.12`$, and $`s=2.2\pm 0.8`$. The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit is 1.12 for 13 degrees of freedom. (2) For all the data shown in Figure 4: $`t_b=0.13\pm 0.03`$ day, $`\alpha _1=0.21\pm 0.05`$, $`\alpha _2=1.09\pm 0.08`$, and $`s=3.3\pm 1.0`$. The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ of the fit is 0.63 for 29 degrees of freedom. The dashed lines in the upper panels of Figures 3 and 4 show the model fits, while the lower panels of the two figures show the residuals of the fits.

The reduced $`\chi ^2`$ values of both fits show that eq. (1) is an adequate model to fit the data. The derived parameters from both fits are consistent with each other within the uncertainties, indicating that the transformed KAIT $`R`$ data are consistent with the other $`R`$-band measurements. In particular, the superb Magellan data offer a good consistency check, and it can be seen from both the model fit (upper panel of Figure 4) and the residual of the fit (lower panel of Figure 4) that the KAIT data are consistent ($`\pm 0.05`$ mag) with those of Magellan, although with much bigger uncertainties.

Our reduction of the KAIT data thus confirms the results of Riess et al. (1999) that the unfiltered magnitudes can be reliably transformed to a standard passband with a precision of $``$5%, given that the color term is well determined and the color of the target is known. The high throughput of the unfiltered observations thus provides a unique way to go deep for small to moderate telescopes, while still providing reasonably accurate photometry in a passband close to the peak of the unfiltered response function.

However, we need to also emphasize the limitations of this transformation. An a priori requirement for the transformation is that the color of the OA is known at the time of the unfiltered observations, which is often not the case. For example, we assumed that the color of the GRB 020813 OA is constant at all of the epochs of the KAIT unfiltered observations, and is the same as reported by Gladders & Hall (2002a) at times that are only coincident with the second part of the KAIT observations. Early GRB OAs are expected to have a large blue to red evolution (Sari, Piran, & Narayan 1998), though this has not yet been confirmed with observations, probably because most of the filtered observations commenced too late. Clearly, the poor constraints on the color evolution of GRB OAs is the main impediment to transforming unfiltered magnitudes to a standard passband. Nevertheless, to expedite comparisons between unfiltered observations from different observatories, it is important to apply such a transformation and provide information such as the color term and the color used in the transformation, so that other observers can correct the reported photometry with different color estimates. For example, if the $`(VR)`$ color of the GRB 020813 OA is assumed to be $`VR`$, the photometry reported in Table 3 will need to be increased by $`0.27\times (0.39VR)`$ mag.

### 3.2 Late-Time Power-Law Decay Index and Spectral Index

Although the power-law decay index after the break ($`\alpha _2`$) for the GRB 020813 OA is measured to be $`1.09\pm 0.08`$ from the model fit to all the data shown in Figure 4 as discussed above, later observations in the optical (Malesani et al. 2002; Levan et al. 2002) and X-rays (Vanderspek et al. 2002) indicate a further steepening of the light curve. This suggests that the GRB 020813 OA has a smoothly changing light curve, as partly demonstrated by the data shown in Figure 4; it also suggests that our measured value of $`\alpha _2`$ is only an intermediate result between the early and the late-time measurements, and that the derived parameters ($`t_b`$, $`\alpha _1`$, $`\alpha _2`$, $`s`$) may need to be revised when later data are considered in the model fit. Unfortunately, such late-time data for GRB 020813 are not available at the time of writing; thus, we adopt $`\alpha _2=1.39\pm 0.05`$, which is the average of values reported by Malesani et al. (2002), Levan et al. (2002), and Vanderspek et al. (2002). The power-law decay index before the break ($`\alpha _1`$) is not expected to be significantly changed, as it is dominated by the early-time measurements already presented here, so we adopt $`\alpha _1=0.21\pm 0.05`$ from the model fit to all the data shown in Figure 4.

The optical spectral index of the GRB 020813 OA was reported as $`\beta =1.06\pm 0.01`$ from red-channel Keck spectra (5600–9400 Å) taken at $`t6`$ hr (Barth et al. 2003). Levan et al. (2002) reported a shallower optical spectral index of $`\beta =0.8`$ from Hubble Space Telescope images taken at $`t98`$ hr after the burst. We adopt the Keck measurement, as it was made during the time of the photometric observations presented here, and we correct it for a Galactic reddening of $`E(BV)=0.11`$ mag (Schlegel, Finkbeiner, & Davis 1998). The final $`\beta `$ we use for the GRB 020813 OA is $`0.73\pm 0.01`$.

### 3.3 Discussion

The current standard model for GRBs and their afterglows is the fireball shock model (for a review see Mészáros 2002), in which a fireball expands relativistically into an ambient medium and decelerates as it sweeps up matter. The shock between the fireball and the medium accelerates electrons to relativistic energies, and gives them a power-law differential energy distribution with index $`p`$. The simplest afterglow model (e.g., Sari, Piran, & Narayan 1998) predicts that the afterglow flux $`f_\nu (t)t^\alpha \nu ^\beta `$, where $`f_\nu (t)`$ is the flux at frequency $`\nu `$, and $`\beta `$ is the spectral index of the OA. Interpretation of the afterglow data in the framework of these models can, in principle, yield many interesting parameters of the GRB explosion (e.g., Wijers, Vreeswijk, & Galama 1999; Holland et al. 2000) because the properties of the observed light curve of the afterglow, such as the power-law decay rate $`\alpha `$, are primarily determined by the hydrodynamic evolution (e.g., adiabatic or radiative), the geometry (spherical or collimated), and the density profile of the ambient medium (constant or stellar-wind type) of the fireball (e.g., Sari, Piran, & Narayan 1998; Wijers & Galama 1998; Rhoads 1999; Chevalier & Li 2000).

A break in the OA light curve is often regarded as a signature of a jet (e.g., Mészáros & Rees 2000; Kulkarni et al. 1999; Rhoads 1999; Moderski, Sikora, & Bulik 2000), either with a fixed opening angle $`\theta _0`$, or expanding sideways as well as radially. A jet with a fixed opening angle $`\theta _0`$ can have a break in the light curve when the Lorentz factor decreases to $`1/\theta _0`$, due to the geometrical effect that the observer only receives radiation emitted within the collimated beam. A jet that expands sideways as well as radially can have a break in the light curve when the sideways expansion dominates over the radial expansion.

During the initial phase, however, the GRB outflow looks spherical to the observer in most current models. Under the assumptions of adiabatic cooling and an ambient medium of constant density, the predicted power-law decay index in this phase is $`\alpha _1=(3p3)/4`$, when $`\nu <\nu _c`$ (the cooling frequency, above which the electrons cool on the dynamical timescale of the system), and $`\alpha _1=(3p2)/4`$ when $`\nu >\nu _c`$ (e.g., Sari, Piran, & Halpern 1999). The measured $`\alpha _1=0.21\pm 0.05`$ then implies $`p=1.28`$ ($`\nu <\nu _c`$), or $`p=0.95`$ ($`\nu <\nu _c`$), which would imply a diverging electron energy. This may be an indication that (1) radiative process may be significant, though Sari, Piran, & Narayan (1998) show that a radiative fireball decays with $`\alpha _1=4/7`$, which is still steeper than the observations; (2) the ambient medium may not have a constant density — for an outflow expanding into a stellar wind environment, Chevalier & Li (2000) calculate $`\alpha _1=1/4`$ at early times of a GRB when $`\nu >\nu _m`$ (the peak frequency, which corresponds to the minimum-energy electrons), in good agreement with the observations; (3) energy is being injected into the outflow even during the afterglow phase (e.g., Zhang & Mészáros 2002), a hypothesis that could be constrained with radio and X-ray observations; or (4) there is a significant color change for the early afterglow, so that the transformation from the unfiltered magnitudes to $`R`$ is incorrect. However, to achieve a steeper $`\alpha _1`$, the color of the afterglow will need to change from red to blue, inconsistent with the model prediction by Sari, Piran, & Narayan (1998). Alternatively, there are some theoretical considerations (e.g., Bykov & Mészáros 1996) to allow the formation of a flat electron spectrum (i.e., $`p<2`$).

GRB 020813 has the slowest pre-break decline rate, $`\alpha _1`$, of all GRBs with well measured optical light-curve breaks (which all show $`\alpha _10.7`$; see, e.g., Figure 3 of Stanek et al. 2001). Afterglow models generally predict a correlation between the decline rates $`\alpha `$ and the spectral index $`\beta `$; for GRB 020813, however, the observed $`\beta =0.73`$ is fairly typical among GRB OAs. To be more consistent with the models, it is possible to invoke host-galaxy extinction; as little as $`E(BV)=0.05`$ mag of reddening in the host would imply an intrinsic $`\beta =0.50\pm 0.03`$, which increases to $`\beta =0.26\pm 0.03`$ for $`E(BV)_{\mathrm{host}}=0.10`$ mag. However, such flat spectral indices typically imply unreasonable electron indices $`p1`$, and thus host-galaxy extinction is unlikely to explain the peculiarities of GRB 020813.

The amplitude of the break ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =\alpha _2\alpha _1`$) is independent of extinction with the assumption of no color change, and can also be used to constrain models. For GRB 020813, we find $`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =1.18\pm 0.07`$, which is also fairly typical among well-observed GRBs. In the framework of a constant ambient density model, this result favors a sideways-expanding jet ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =\alpha _1/31=1.07\pm 0.02`$) over a jet with a fixed opening angle ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\alpha =3/4`$; Rhoads 1999), but as discussed above, a wind medium may better explain the early decline.

## 4 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper we present the technical details of the GRB alert system at KAIT, a 0.76 m telescope with relatively high resolution imaging capacity (0$`\stackrel{}{\mathrm{.}}`$8 pixel-1). Connected to the GCN via socket communication, KAIT is capable of responding to GRB alerts in real time, and of capturing a pre-arranged sequence of images automatically. The observations are done in the unfiltered mode to reach deeper limiting magnitudes in relatively shorter exposures. A grid image procedure is used to increase the efficiency of the early-time observations. The sequence of images starts with short-exposure grid images, and continues with increasingly longer exposures to compensate for the decline of a GRB OA. A different sequence that starts with long exposures is followed in response to a GCN notice with updated positions for a previous GRB. All of these efforts are aimed to getting good early-time photometry rather than searching wide regions for the OAs of GRBs.

Our reduction of the GRB 020813 data taken with KAIT shows that unfiltered magnitudes can be reliably transformed to a standard passband with a precision of $``$5%, if the color of the object is known.

The available data on GRB 020813 from KAIT, Magellan, and elsewhere (as reported in the GCN Circulars) indicate that the GRB 020813 OA has an exceptionally slow early-time power-law decay index, though other light-curve parameters and the optical spectral index are fairly typical. GRB 020813 thus presents an interesting challenge to afterglow models for GRBs; additional observations (for instance, in the radio or X-rays) may shed light on the situation for this particular burst. Continued automatic observations with KAIT of other bursts in the future will help determine whether GRB 020813 remains exceptional in a larger sample.

A.V.F. is grateful to Stan Woosley for encouraging him, years ago, to use KAIT for the optical follow-up of GRBs having sufficiently precise coordinates. We thank Mike Gladders and Pat Hall for making their superb Magellan data available and for assistance with the reductions, and Scott Barthelmy for his help setting up the KAIT GRB alert system. We also thank Shiho Kobayashi and Bing Zhang for useful discussions. The work of A.V.F.’s group at U. C. Berkeley is supported by National Science Foundation grant AST-9987438, as well as by the Sylvia and Jim Katzman Foundation. KAIT was made possible by generous donations from Sun Microsystems, Inc., the Hewlett-Packard Company, AutoScope Corporation, Lick Observatory, the National Science Foundation, the University of California, and the Katzman Foundation. S.J. thanks the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science at U. C. Berkeley for support through a research fellowship.


text:
# Untitled Document

How does the Universe expand?

Samir D. Mathur

Department of Physics

The Ohio State University

Columbus, OH 43210, USA

mathur@mps.ohio-state.edu

Quantization of gravity suggests that a finite region of space has a finite number of degrees of freedom or ‘bits’. What happens to these bits when spacetime expands, as in cosmological evolution? Using gravity/field theory duality we argue that bits ‘fuse together’ when space expands.

\[This essay received an ”honorable mention” in the 2003 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.\]

A quantum cosmologist, arguing very naïvely, finds the following puzzle. He takes a spacelike region which has a proper volume $`V`$ at time $`t`$. Quantum gravity tells him that there is a cut-off at planck length $`l_p`$, so he has $`N=V/l_p^3`$ ‘cells’ or ‘bits’. He thus expects the quantum theory to be described by a Hilbert space with dimension $`e^N`$. But the volume $`V`$ expands, and for $`t^{}>t`$ seems to have $`N^{}=V^{}/l_p^3>N`$ bits. Since in quantum mechanics the dimension of the Hilbert space must stay fixed, he concludes that no standard quantum theory can handle cosmological expansion.

The simplest retort to this argument is – there is no cutoff at planck length; fourier modes of quantum fields have wavelengths that go all the way down to $`\lambda =0`$. But wait: this assumption leads to trouble with black holes. In Hawking’s computation of radiation  it is assumed that vacuum modes with $`\lambda <<ł_p`$ exist; such modes dilate as they evolve near the horizon and eventually become the radiation quanta. This computation, if correct, gives information loss. Faced with this failure of quantum mechanics we exclaim: But it is wrong to use transplanckian modes so naïvely! In a ‘correct’ derivation of radiation the modes with $`\lambda <<l_p`$ are to be replaced by nonlocal  data; nonlocality occurs across such large distances that information in the singularity ($`r=0`$) is encoded in the radiation that is apparently leaving from $`r=R_{Schwarzschild}`$.

Today most physicists would probably agree that in some sense there are a finite number of degrees of freedom in a finite region; in fact holography suggests that $`N`$ is even smaller, given by the surface area of the region in planck units . We are really up against the most basic question: What are the ‘bits’ making up spacetime, and how do these bits behave when spacetime deforms, as for example in cosmological expansion? Without a quantum description of spacetime we cannot understand why $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ is finite (and small), or what determines the wavefunction of the Universe. Inflation expands a planck volume by an enormous factor and derives $`\delta \rho /\rho `$ by freezing vacuum fluctuations; this makes it imperative to have some insight into how degrees of freedom reshuffle when spacelike slices ‘stretch’.

To address this issue we look at a different system where we also see a ‘stretching’ of space but where we also have an exact quantum description of spacetime.

Maldecena’s duality  says that string theory (describing quantum gravity) on certain spacetimes has an exact dual description as a field theory. One case where this duality has been established in detail is the ‘D1-D5 system’ . The field theory is described by an ‘effective string’ which has winding number $`N`$ around a circle of length $`L`$. This string can be wound as $`N`$ separately closed loops (fig.1a), or joined up into a single ‘multi-wound’ string (fig.1b), or more generally have $`m`$ ‘component strings’, each of which winds $`n_i`$ times before closing:

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{m}{}}n_i=N.$$

All these states have the same mass and charge, but from fig.1 we see that their dual gravity descriptions have ‘throats’ that ‘stretch’ to different depths . We will shortly argue that each of the $`m`$ component strings is a ‘bit’, but we already see the moral: When spacetime stretches, bits fuse together.

To see why component strings are ‘bits’ consider the dynamics in the field theory and gravity descriptions . A graviton incident on the effective string gets absorbed, its energy converted to a left moving vibration (L) and a right moving vibration (R). In fig.1a the L and R excitations travel around the loop, collide and exit the string after time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{string}=L/2`$, while in fig.1(b) the string loop is $`N`$ times longer and $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_{string}=NL/2`$. In the gravity description the incident quantum just falls down the throat and returns back up, in each case after a time

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t_{gravity}=\mathrm{\Delta }t_{string}=\frac{L}{2}n_i=\frac{L}{2}\frac{N}{m}$$

If we have two pairs of vibrations $`(L,R)`$ and $`(L^{},R^{})`$ in the field theory then they interact only if both pairs are carried by the same component string. This makes the effective interaction strength $`G_{eff}^{string}1/m`$.

In the dual geometries there is a compact direction of length $`L^{}`$ (not drawn). $`L^{}`$ is smaller for longer throats, and we again find

$$G_{eff}^{gravity}=\frac{G}{L^{}}\frac{1}{m}$$

($`G`$ is Newton’s constant.)

When the number of quanta in the throat exceeds $`m`$ we find that the gravitational backreaction becomes order unity and a horizon forms. In the dual field theory the presence of more than $`m`$ excitations means that two or more excitations would be forced to live on the same component string – the ‘bits’ are all ‘used up’.

To summarize, longer throats are described by fewer component strings (bits), and each particle placed in the throat corresponds to exciting one component string.

Let us now apply these lessons to cosmological expansion. Imagine that the region marked in fig.2a inflates as shown in fig.2b. A spherical wave sent in towards $`r=0`$ in the spacetime of fig.2a returns back in some time $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_1`$. For the spacetime of fig.2b it would return after $`\mathrm{\Delta }t_2>>\mathrm{\Delta }t_1`$.

In this case we do not know the map to a field theory dual, but based on intuition from the exact duality studied above we expect the following:

$``$ Fusion of bits: The marked region in fig.1a is described by $`N_i`$ bits; these fuse together to give $`N_f`$ bits for the inflated region in fig.2b with

$$N_f<N_i$$

$``$ Evolution equation: The D1-D5 states pictured in fig.1 are stable, but if we break supersymmetry either by adding energy or by modifying the action then we get an interaction Hamiltonian $`H_{int}`$ which cuts and joins loops

Such would be the fundamental equation describing the evolution of spacetime at the quantum level. (The particles on the spacetime are excitations of the bits, and these excitations get rearranged when there is a merger of the bits they live on. ) Einstein’s equations give only an effective low energy description which treats spacetime as an infinitely stretchable smooth manifold.

$``$ Increase of effective coupling: When the space expands and bits fuse we expect that the effective coupling $`G_{eff}`$ will increase. The simplest way to realize this would be to have a compact direction (as in the D1-D5 system) whose length shrinks as the visible directions stretch.

Physicists have long sought to describe spacetime in terms of discrete bits . A crucial result of our analysis is that bits are ‘dynamic’ objects that must join and split as spacetime deforms. Near the cosmological singularity ($`t=0`$) space is minimally stretched, so $`m`$ will be large and the excitations representing different particles in spacetime will be typically carried by different bits. (This would validate the proposal  that there be a decoupling of dynamics between nearby points when $`t0`$.) At the other extreme, expansion will stop when all bits have fused together ($`m=1`$). This is a very nonperturbative quantum gravity effect, and cannot be seen by solving the classical Einstein equations or by performing a semiclassical quantization of gravity.

References

relax S. Hawking: 1975, Comm. Math. Phys. 43, 199. relax G. ’t Hooft, gr-qc/9310026; L. Susskind, J. Math. Phys. 36 (1995) 6377. relax J. Maldacena: 1998, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2, 231; S. Gubser, I. Klebanov and A. Polyakov: 1998, Phys. Lett. B428, 105; E. Witten: 1998, Adv. Theor. Math. Phys. 2, 253. relax A. Strominger and C. Vafa: 1996, Phys. Lett. B379, 99; C. Callan and J. Maldacena: 1996, Nucl. Phys. B472, 591; S.R. Das and S.D. Mathur: 1996, Nucl. Phys. B478, 561. relax O. Lunin and S. D. Mathur, Commun. Math. Phys. 227, 385 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0103169\]. relax O. Lunin and S. D. Mathur, Nucl. Phys. B 623, 342 (2002) \[arXiv:hep-th/0109154\]. relax For recent work and some past references see R. Bousso, JHEP 0011, 038 (2000) \[arXiv:hep-th/0010252\], A. Ashtekar, arXiv:gr-qc/9302024. relax V.A. Belinski, I.M. Khalatnikov and E.M. Lifshitz, Adv. Phys. 19 (1970) 525, Adv. Phys. 31 (1982) 639.


text:
# Long and faint GRBs in archival BeppoSAX-WFC data

## 1. Introduction

The longest continuously active GRB detected with BATSE is GRB 971208 (Connaughton et al. 1997; Giblin et al. 2002) which exhibits a single fast-rise exponential-decay profile lasting a couple of thousand seconds. Such a long duration is an interesting feature because it touches upon questions as when the prompt emission ends and the afterglow emission starts, and on the detect-ability of bursts at extreme redshifts. In principle prolonged (and fainter) GRB emission is easier to detect with a device that has (some) imaging capability because there will not be confusion with variations in the background radiation. Particularly this applies to coded aperture devices because they employ many detector pixels per point source and, thus, are also not susceptible to ’hot’ pixels.

The BeppoSAX Wide Field (coded aperture) Cameras (WFCs; Jager et al. 1997) are able to pick up transient events that are as short as a few tens of milliseconds (from SGR 1900+14) and as long as months to years (from X-ray binaries). The algorithms that are employed to search for new transient sources differ per time scale, in an attempt to simultaneously optimize processing speed and sensitivity. On time scales between 1 s and 1 min, photon counts from the whole detector are searched for increases in a manner typical for triggering algorithms in non-imaging gamma-ray devices. The typical on-axis sensitivity is $`2\times 10^9`$ erg cm-2s-1 (2–10 keV). On time scales between one BeppoSAX orbit (1.7 hr) and one BeppoSAX pointing (mostly about 1 d), full Iterative-Removal-of-Sources (IROS; Hammersley et al. 1992) reconstructions are performed and the resulting images searched for unidentified point sources. The typical sensivity is $`(15)\times 10^{10}`$ erg cm-2s-1. Yet another imaging algorithm is applied for time scales between 1 min and 1 hr. We here report on four transients which were detected in the IROS reconstructions of orbital data stretches. Three of these were covered by BATSE. Thus, we are able to measure the broad-band spectrum of these extreme examples of GRBs.

## 2. Individual cases

961229. This event lasted 540 s in X-rays. Data of the Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor on BeppoSAX (Costa et al. 1998) do not show a simultaneous increase, with an estimated upper limit to the peak intensity of 5 c s-1. There are no BATSE data. The 2–28 keV peak flux is 0.2 Crab units and the peak profile triangular-like. The interesting feature of this event is that its 3.3 arcmin-radius (99%-confidence) error region contains the double-lobed radio galaxy PKS J0234-0049 at 2.9 arcmin from the WFC centroid. PKS J0234-0049 is 89 mJy at 20 cm (Dunlop et al. 1989; White et al. 1997). There is no redshift determination. We estimate a 1.0$`\times 10^3`$ chance probability for a radio source this bright or brighter to be in the WFC error box. We suspect this is a GRB because it is hard to explain it as an X-ray burst (atypical time profile), stellar flare (too short) and short-duration accretion event on a local galactic compact object (the galactic latitude is -54). Nevertheless, in absence of $`\gamma `$-ray measurements, we cannot completely rule it out as an accretion event.

970111B. This is the brightest event in our sample. It occurred 13.9 hr after the famous GRB 970111. In the WFC data it lasted 2550 s, similar to GRB 971208 although there is much more structure in the time profile. For part of the 2550 s there is concurrent BATSE data during which there is a strong detection lasting 400 s. The 50-300 keV fluence is measured to be 10-5 erg cm2 which puts it in the top 10% of the BATSE sample. The 2–10 keV over 50–300 keV fluence ratio is 0.2 which is outside the X-ray flash regime (Heise et al. 2001).

981018. This again is a fairly strong detection in both the WFC and BATSE. The event lasted 900 s and the X to $`\gamma `$-ray fluence ratio is 0.24 over 160 s of simultaneous data, again outside the X-ray flash regime. This is the only event in our sample which was found independently in searches of untriggered BATSE events thus far (Stern et al. 2001). It was also detected in an offline search for GRBs in archival 40-700 keV GRBM data in which it had a duration of $`150`$ s (Guidorzi 2002).

990413. This is a good WFC and BATSE detection. The X to $`\gamma `$-ray fluence ratio is 0.10 over 274 s of simultaneous data. The X-ray duration is ill-determined, the event being cut on both sides by data gaps; it is between 800 and 4000 s.

## 3. Conclusions

* The longest duration of the prompt X-ray emission from a GRB (2550 s for GRB 970111B) is similar to that ever measured in $`\gamma `$-rays (2000 s for GRB 971208).
* In as far as 2-1000 keV $`\nu F_\nu `$ spectra could be measured, they tend to have low peak energies but normal high-energy power law indices, compared to canonical GRBs. The X-ray to $`\gamma `$-ray fluence ratio (see Fig. 4) indicates mildly soft events which, nevertheless, are outside the X-ray flash regime (cf, Heise et al. 2001).
* Given that two out of three BATSE-detected events were not identified yet as such, despite the facts that the onboard trigger algorithm was enabled (on channels 1+2 for 970111B, 3+4 for 981018, 2+3 for 990413) and a number of offline searches have already been performed (e.g., Stern et al. 2001), there must be many more as yet unidentified GRBs in BATSE data.
* If the 961229 event, the only one in our sample not detected in $`\gamma `$-rays, is indeed associated to the radio galaxy PKS J0234–0049, that would be remarkable and warrants follow-up study of the galaxy.

## References

Connaughton, V., et al. 1997, IAUC 6785

Dunlop, J.S., et al. 1989, MNRAS, 238, 1171

Costa, E., et al. 1998, Adv. Sp. Sc, 22, (7)1129

Giblin, T.W., et al. 2002, ApJ, 570, 573

Guidorzi, C. 2002, PhD Thesis, University of Ferrara

Hammersley, A.P., et al. 1992, NIM, A311, 585

Heise, J., et al. 2001, in 2nd Rome GRB workshop, GRBs in the Afterglow Era, eds. E. Costa, F. Frontera and J. Hjorth (Berlin: Springer), 16 (astro-ph/0111246)

Jager, R., et al. 1997, A&AS, 125, 557

Stern, B.E., et al. 2001, ApJ, 563, 80

White, R.L., et al. 1997, ApJ, 475, 479


text:
# Nuclear Transparency with the 𝛾n→𝜋⁻ p Process in 4He.

thanks: Present address:FZ Rossendorf, Dresden Germany

Jefferson Lab E94104 Collaboration

## Abstract

We have measured the nuclear transparency of the fundamental process $`\gamma `$ n $`\pi ^{}`$ p in 4He. These measurements were performed at Jefferson Lab in the photon energy range of 1.6 to 4.5 GeV and at $`\theta _{cm}^\pi =70^{}`$ and $`90^{}`$. These measurements are the first of their kind in the study of nuclear transparency in photoreactions. They also provide a benchmark test of Glauber calculations based on traditional models of nuclear physics. The transparency results suggest deviations from the traditional nuclear physics picture. The momentum transfer dependence of the measured nuclear transparency is consistent with Glauber calculations which include the quantum chromodynamics phenomenon of color transparency.

Nuclear transparency is a very useful quantity for testing calculations based on traditional models of nuclear physics. It is defined as the ratio of the cross section per nucleon for a process on a bound nucleon in the nucleus to the cross section for the process on a free nucleon. It is also a typical quantity used in searches for deviations from the expectations of traditional nuclear physics, such as the phenomenon of Color Transparency (CT). CT refers to the vanishing of the final (and initial) state interactions of hadrons with the nuclear medium in exclusive processes at high momentum transfer ct1 , and is a natural consequence of QCD. It is based on the idea that, at sufficiently high momentum transfer, the dominant amplitudes for exclusive reactions involve hadrons of reduced transverse size which can then pass undisturbed through the nuclear medium. This is a novel QCD phenomenon which, if observed, would be a clear manifestation of hadrons fluctuating to a small size in the nucleus. Moreover, it also contradicts the traditional Glauber multiple scattering theory in the domain of its validity. Therefore, measurements of nuclear transparency have attracted a significant amount of effort during the last two decades. A clear signature for the onset of CT would involve a dramatic rise in the nuclear transparency as a function of the momentum transfer involved in the process, i.e. a positive slope with respect to the momentum transfer.

A number of searches for color transparency have been carried out in the last decade in experiments using the $`A(p,2p)`$ and $`A(e,e^{}p)`$ reactions and coherent and incoherent meson production from nuclei ct6  – fermipi . The $`A(p,2p)`$ nuclear transparency experiments carried out at Brookhaven ct6  show a rise followed by a decrease in the momentum transfer squared range of $`Q^2`$ 3 – 10 (GeV/c)2. This surprising behavior can be explained in terms of mechanisms other than color transparency ct7 ; brodsky . $`A(e,e^{}p)`$ experiments at SLAC ne18  and more recently at JLab ct5 ; hallc\_ct , have not found any evidence for an increase of the nuclear transparency up to a $`Q^2`$ value of 8.1 (GeV/c)2. One would expect an earlier onset of CT for meson production than for proton scattering blattel93 , as it is much more probable to produce a small transverse size in a $`q\overline{q}`$ system than in a $`qqq`$ system. Experiments performed at Fermilab and DESY seem to support this idea fermirho  – fermipi . More recently, the HERMES collaboration hermesrho  has reported a positive slope in the $`Q^2`$ dependence of nuclear transparency from coherent and incoherent $`\rho ^0`$ production from nuclei at fixed coherence length.

In this letter, we report the first measurement of nuclear transparency of the $`\gamma n\pi ^{}p`$ process from 4He. There are several important advantages to the choice of the 4He nucleus and the $`\gamma n\pi ^{}p`$ process. Nucleon configurations obtained from the Monte Carlo method based on the exact nuclear ground state wavefunction are available for 4He wiringa95 . These configurations along with the elementary hadron-nucleon cross-sections can be used to carry out precise calculations of the nuclear transparency haiyan\_t  in the framework of Glauber theory glauber . Therefore, precise measurement of nuclear transparency from 4He nuclei is a benchmark test of these traditional nuclear calculations and can be used to explore where the calculations start to breakdown. This could help identify the transition from the nucleon-meson degrees of freedom of the traditional nuclear physics to the quark-gluon degrees of freedom of QCD. Furthermore, light nuclei such as 4He are predicted to be better for the search of CT phenomenon because of their relatively small nuclear sizes, which are smaller than the length scales over which the hadrons of reduced transverse size revert back to their equilibrium size. ct3 ; ct4 .

The experiment was performed in Hall A halla  at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab). The continuous wave electron beam, with currents of approximately 30 $`\mu `$A and energies ranging from 1.6 to 4.5 GeV, impinged on a $`6\%`$ copper radiator to generate an untagged bremsstrahlung photon beam. The combined photon and electron beam was then incident on a 15 cm target cell containing either helium or liquid deuterium. The two High Resolution Spectrometers (HRS) in Hall A, with a momentum resolution of better than $`2\times 10^4`$ and a horizontal angular resolution of better than 2 mrad, were used to detect the outgoing pions and recoil protons in coincidence. The backgrounds from the electron beam and from the target cell walls were measured by taking data without the radiator inserted in the beam (only electron beam impinging on the production target) and also with an empty target cell inserted in the beam (both with and without the radiator inserted in the beam). Additional details on the experimental setup and the detectors used in this experiment can be found in Ref. lingyan .

Based on two-body kinematics the incident photon energy is reconstructed for each event using the measured angles and momenta of the $`\pi ^{}`$ and $`p`$. In case of 4He we also assume that the residual nucleus is 3He. The resulting photon energy spectrum is a convolution of the bremsstrahlung distribution, the Fermi motion of the neutrons and the experimental acceptance. Cuts on trigger type, coincidence time, particle identification and acceptance were also applied while obtaining these spectra. A typical reconstructed photon energy spectrum is shown in Fig. 1. The experimental yield is obtained from these spectra by integrating over a 100 MeV window starting 25 MeV below the electron beam energy. This ensures that the contributions from multi-pion processes are negligible. The background yield from the electrons incident on a target were obtained by repeating the same procedure on data taken on that target without the radiator inserted in the beam. Similarly the background yields from the real photons and electrons incident on the target cell walls were obtained from the data taken for an empty target cell with and without the radiator inserted in the beam.

The background subtracted yield was then compared with the yield from a Monte Carlo simulation of the experiment with the same acceptance cuts. The Monte Carlo simulation was performed with the JLab Hall A Monte Carlo program, MCEEP MCEEP , which was adapted for photo-pion production experiments lingyan . The input angular distribution and cross-section used in MCEEP were obtained from a fit to the $`\pi ^+`$ photo-production data at 4, 5 and 7.5 GeV anderson . The Fermi motion of the neutrons in the target nuclei was simulated using calculated momentum distributions (two-body breakup) and separation energy distributions of neutrons. For deuterium a calculated momentum distribution momdist1  and fixed binding energy was used in the simulation. While for 4He, a calculated momentum distribution momdist2  and an energy distribution based on the missing energy spectra measured in 4He(e,e’p) experiments for missing momentum $`p_m`$ = 100 $`\pm `$ 60 MeV/c florizone , was used. Additional details on the modifications to MCEEP for photo-pion production can be found in Ref. lingyan .

The photon energy spectrum was reconstructed in the Monte Carlo simulation using the same method as used for the data, which includes the assumption in case of 4He that the residual nucleus is 3He. The quality of the simulation was studied by comparing the reconstructed angular and momentum distributions and the reconstructed photon energy spectrum with those obtained from the simulation. An example of the comparison of the reconstructed photon energy spectrum for a 4He target is shown in Fig. 1.

As per the definition of nuclear transparency one needs the cross section for $`\gamma n\pi ^{}p`$ reaction in 4He and in free space to extract transparency. However, since there are no free neutron targets we used a deuterium target and corrected for deuterium transparency. The transparency was extracted from the data and Monte Carlo yields from 4He and 2H targets, using the relation:

$$T({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟒}}\mathrm{𝐇𝐞})=\frac{\frac{\text{Yield}_{\text{Data}}({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟒}}\mathrm{𝐇𝐞})}{\text{Yield}_{\text{Monte Carlo}}({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟒}}\mathrm{𝐇𝐞})}}{\frac{\text{Yield}_{\text{Data}}({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝐇)}{\text{Yield}_{\text{Monte Carlo}}({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝐇)}}T({}_{}{}^{\mathrm{𝟐}}𝐇)$$
(1)
All data yields were corrected for computer dead time. A number of corrections such as pion decay, detector efficiencies and absorption in the spectrometer cancel when forming the ratio shown in Eq. 1. The ratio of the yields is corrected for the nuclear transparency of deuteron ($`T_{{}_{}{}^{2}H}`$) which was obtained from the measured transparency of protons in $`d(e,e^{}p)`$ quasi-elastic scattering hallc\_ct  and a Glauber calculation haiyan\_t  of the transparency of $`\pi ^{}`$ in the deuteron. This correction was found to be on the order of 20%. The point-to-point variation of the transparency in the deuteron is negligible but there is a 3% normalization systematic uncertainty associated with this correction. The assumption that the residual nucleus is 3He, which is used in reconstructing the photon energy, introduces a normalization systematic uncertainty of $``$ 1.5% and a point-to-point uncertainty of $`<`$0.5%. This was determined from the fraction of Monte Carlo events which are generated from the tail of the input energy distribution above the two body breakup energy. Another source of normalization systematic uncertainty is the neutron momentum and energy distribution used in the Monte Carlo simulation. This was found to be 1% for 2H and 2% for 4He by using different calculated momentum distributions. The total normalization systematic uncertainty is 4.0%.

In this procedure of extracting transparency using a super-ratio (Eq. 1), a number of systematic uncertainties such as charge, beam energy and bremsstrahlung photon yield cancel. This was checked rigorously by varying each of these quantities within their respective systematic uncertainties and then looking for the corresponding changes in the super-ratio. This test was also repeated on all the different cuts applied to the data, which were varied by 10–20%. From these tests the point-to-point systematic uncertainty is estimated to be 2.7% with most of the contribution coming from uncertainty in the target density due to local beam heating effects (2H - 1%, 4He - 1.5%) and the energy loss calculation (1.4%). Thus the total systematic uncertainty of the transparency measurement is 4.8%.

The extracted nuclear transparency for the 4He target along with calculations is shown in Figs. 2 and 3; the results are also listed in Table 1. The Glauber calculation uses 4He configurations, which are snapshots of the positions of the nucleons in the nucleus, obtained from the variational wave function of Arriaga et al. wiringa95 .

These contain correlations generated by the Argonne $`v_{14}`$ and Urbana VIII models of the two body and three body nuclear forces respectively. The classical transparency was calculated from these configurations using the method described in Ref. haiyan\_t . The hadron-nucleon total cross-sections were taken from Ref. pdb . The calculation which includes the CT effect was obtained by repeating the calculation mentioned above with the hadron-nucleon total cross-section modified according to the quantum diffusion model ct3 . This procedure is also described in Ref. haiyan\_t  and was normalized to the Glauber calculation without CT at the lowest energy point (Eγ = 1.648 GeV). There is $``$ 4-6% uncertainty in both the Glauber and CT calculations arising from the uncertainty in the measured hadron-nucleon total cross-sections.

A number of other CT calculations strikma ; nikola  have been performed for the $`A(e,e^{}p)`$ and $`A(e,e^{}\pi )`$ reactions. These different calculations generally predict 10 – 25% effect for the 12C$`(e,e^{}p)`$ reaction at a $`Q^2`$ = 10 (GeV/c)2. Nevertheless, the positive slope of the transparency is very consistent among the different models.

In Fig. 2 and 3 the traditional nuclear physics calculation appears to deviate from the data at the higher energies. The absolute magnitude of the calculations with CT was normalized to the calculation without CT at the lowest energy point, however, it is the momentum transfer squared ($`|t|`$) dependence of the transparency which is of greater significance. The $`|t|`$ dependence is not affected by the normalization systematic uncertainties. The slopes of the measured transparency obtained from the three points which are above the resonance region (above $`E_\gamma `$ = 2.25 GeV ) are shown in Table 2.

These slopes are in good agreement, within experimental uncertainties, with the slopes predicted by the calculations with CT and they seem to deviate from the slopes predicted by the Glauber calculations at the $``$$`\sigma `$ (2 $`\sigma `$) level for $`\theta _{cm}^\pi =70^{}`$ ($`90^{}`$). The deviation from Glauber calculation is larger at $`\theta _{cm}^\pi =90^{}`$, as expected for a CT-like effect, since it is at a higher pion $`|t|`$. It is also interesting that the results are consistent with the rise expected for CT at the same photon energy at which the onset of scaling behavior was observed in the cross-section for the $`\gamma `$ n $`\pi ^{}`$ p and the $`\gamma `$ p $`\pi ^+`$ n processes lingyan . Thus, these data suggest the onset of deviation from traditional calculations, but future experiments with significantly improved statistical and systematic precision are essential to put these results on a firmer basis.

In conclusion we have measured for the first time the nuclear transparency for the process $`\gamma `$ n $`\pi ^{}`$ p on a 4He target at $`\theta _{cm}^\pi =70^{}`$ and $`90^{}`$ in the photon energy range from 1.6 to 4.5 GeV. These measurements provide important tests for calculations based on the traditional model of nuclear physics and on Glauber theory. The measured transparency show interesting momentum transfer squared dependence which seem to deviate from the traditional nuclear physics predictions at the higher momentum transfers that suggests a CT-like behavior. A first indication of CT-like effect in this kind of reaction is interesting and calls for more data. Future experiments with better statistical and systematic precision in this energy range together with improved theoretical calculations are crucial for confirming these results.

We acknowledge the outstanding support of JLab Hall A technical staff and Accelerator Division in accomplishing this experiment. We thank K. Bailey and T. O’ Connor for their help with preparation of this experiment. We thank H. Arenh$`\ddot{\mathrm{o}}`$vel and R. B. Wiringa for calculating the momentum distribution of the neutron in the deuteron and 4He. We thank Z. Chai for providing the codes to apply R-function cut on acceptance. We also thank T. W. Donnelly, P. Jain and G. Miller for helpful discussions. This work was supported in part by the U. S. Department of Energy, DOE/EPSCoR, the U. S. National Science Foundation, the Ministero dell’Università e della Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica (Murst), the French Commissariat à l’Énergie Atomique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). This work was supported by DOE contract DE-AC05-84ER40150 under which the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA) operates the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility.