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# Observing the CMB at High-ℓ using the VSA and AMI

## 1 Introduction

With the publication of the WMAP data wmap , the focus for observational CMB effort is moving to higher resolution. Here we describe two experiments, one currently operating, one under construction, which are designed to provide complementary observations of primary and secondary CMB anisotropies over the multipole range $`\mathrm{}=150`$ to $`10000`$.

## 2 The Very Small Array

The Very Small Array (VSA) is a 14-element interferometric telescope designed to image faint structures in the CMB on degree and sub-degree angular scales. The instrument is situated on Mount Teide in Tenerife, and is operated jointly by the Cavendish Astrophysics Group, Cambridge, Jodrell Bank Observatory (JBO), Manchester and the Instituto de Astrofisica (IAC), Tenerife. The VSA currently can operate in the frequency range 26–36 GHz with an observing bandwidth of 1.5 GHz and has been routinely observing the CMB since September 2000.

Each receiving element of the array consists of a corrugated horn-reflector antenna feeding a cooled HEMT amplifier. The antennas are mounted on a tilt-table and can be placed anywhere on the table, allowing freedom to design the array configuration for specific observational goals. During the first two observing seasons (September 2000 – September 2001 and October 2001 – present) observations of the CMB have been made using two different array configurations; the first used a compact configuration with a maximum baseline (antenna separation) of 1.2 m, while during the second season a more extended configuration was used, with a maximum baseline of 2.5 m (see Figure 1). The results from the two observing seasons are summarised below.

### 2.1 Observations in compact configuration

In its compact configuration, the VSA was sensitive to angular scales of $`3.6^{}`$$`0.4^{}`$ (equivalent to angular multipoles $`\mathrm{}=150900`$). It mapped CMB fluctuations at 34 GHz in eight fields covering three separate areas of sky with a total area of 101 deg2 (see Figure 2). The noise levels in each field agree well with the expected thermal noise level of the telescope, and there is no evidence of any residual systematic features. Discrete radio sources were detected using a separate 15 GHz survey 9c  and their effects removed using pointed follow-up observations at 34 GHz using a single-baseline interferometer operating alongside and simultaneously with the CMB observations. The residual confusion noise due to unsubtracted radio sources is less than $`15\mu `$K in the full-resolution images, which added in quadrature to the thermal noise increases the noise level by 6 $`\mu `$K. The rms contribution to the images from diffuse Galactic emission is less than $`6\mu `$K. The power spectrum derived from this data produced clear detections of first and second acoustic peaks at $`\mathrm{}250`$ and $`\mathrm{}550`$. The results of the first season of VSA observations were released in May 2002, and presented in references V1 ; V2 ; V3 ; V4 .

### 2.2 Observations in extended configuration

In September 2001, the VSA was re-configured for making higher-resolution observations of the CMB. Each receiver was re-fitted with a larger horn-reflector, 322 mm in diameter, and the antennas were spaced more widely on the table. In this ‘extended’ configuration, the VSA is sensitive to angular scales of $`1.8^{}`$$`0.25^{}`$ ($`\mathrm{}=300`$$`1400`$). By March 2002, it had completed nine fields covering three separate regions of sky with a total area of 25 deg2 (these fields are contained within the same regions of sky already observed by the VSA in its compact configuration).

The combined power spectrum from the two observing seasons (Figure 3, V5 ) covers angular multipoles $`\mathrm{}=160`$$`1400`$, clearly resolves the first three acoustic peaks, shows the expected fall off in power at high $`\mathrm{}`$ and starts to constrain the position and height of a fourth peak. Using the data from the two VSA configurations, we estimated cosmological parameters for four different models of increasing complexity V6 . In each case, the Bayesian evidence was calculated in order to determine whether the increased complexity of the models was required by the data. We found that the data are adequately explained by a simple flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}`$ cosmology without tensor modes. In this case, combining just the VSA and COBE data sets yields the 68 per cent confidence intervals $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{b}h^2=0.034_{0.007}^{+0.007}`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{\mathrm{dm}}h^2=0.18_{0.04}^{+0.06}`$, $`h=0.72_{0.13}^{+0.15}`$, $`n_\mathrm{s}=1.07_{0.06}^{+0.06}`$ and $`\sigma _8=1.17_{0.20}^{+0.25}`$. We also find that, by combining VSA data with estimates of $`H_0`$ from either the HST Key Project hst  or Sunyaev-Zel’dovich and X-ray observations jones ; reese  we obtain strong evidence for a non-zero cosmological constant independent of supernovae data.

The extended configuration results described above were announced in December 2002 and are presented in references V5 ; V6 .

Observations in the extended configuration are ongoing, with the aim of imaging a further 24 fields in 7 regions of the sky. This programme is due to be completed by mid-2003, and will contain $`4`$ times the amount of data presented in V5 .

### 2.3 Future VSA Observations

The first three acoustic peaks in the CMB power spectrum have now been detected at high significance, with positions and heights in line with those predicted by the concordance model. However, significant degeneracies in estimates of cosmological parameters still exist, which can be broken by making higher resolution measurements, beyond $`\mathrm{}=900`$. Recent results from the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI) CBI  and Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR) ACBAR  at intermediate and high $`\mathrm{}`$-values have shown the gradual decline of the CMB power spectrum towards higher $`\mathrm{}`$, which is expected from Silk damping, but beyond $`\mathrm{}2000`$, the CBI data show an unexpected detection of power, which may be due to the integrated SZ effect CBI-bond .

We are now planning to upgrade the VSA to enable high resolution, sensitive measurements of the power spectrum out to $`\mathrm{}2500`$. These measurements will be important both for breaking degeneracies in cosmological model fitting and also for confirming or otherwise the CBI measurement of excess power at high-$`\mathrm{}`$. To achieve the required sensitivity and resolution, four upgrades to the current system are proposed:

* Super-extended configuration The current VSA array configuration will be stretched to allow maximum baseline lengths of up to 3.0 m (see Figure 4), and will allow observations out to $`\mathrm{}2500`$. To maintain a good filling factor and to increase the sensitivity of the array, it is also necessary to replace the current 350-mm antennas with larger light-weight antennas approximately 550-mm wide. The new antennas will be fabricated from carbon-fibre laminate with a metal mesh front reflecting surface.
* Broadbanding the main array At present the performance of the VSA is limited by its RF bandwidth. Using a broadband correlator and IF system already developed for AMI (see Section 3), we will upgrade the VSA from 1.5 to 6 GHz-bandwidth. This improvement will increase the observing speed of the VSA by a factor of 4.
* Improved system temperature To further increase the sensitivity and observing efficiency of the VSA, the front-end amplifiers of each receiver will be upgraded by replacing the transistors with newer, lower-noise devices. This will reduce the overall system temperature from the current 35 K to 25 K. The combined improvement provided by the new broadband-system and amplifiers will result in an 8-fold increase in the observing speed of the instrument. The overall flux sensitivity of the upgraded VSA is shown in Figure 4.
* Improved source-subtraction sensitivity Contamination of the CMB power spectrum from extragalactic point sources increases as $`\mathrm{}^2`$ and is expected to dominate at high $`\mathrm{}`$. Therefore the flux density down to which point sources are currently detected and removed from VSA data must be improved. The single-baseline source-subtraction interferometer operating alongside the VSA will therefore also be upgraded with a new broadband correlator and improved amplifiers.

The new super-extended and enhanced VSA should be ready for operation by the end of 2004. During the first 12 months of observation in the new configuration, two distinct observing modes will be implemented. We plan to observe three large regions of sky, each consisting of a 19-field hexagonal close-packed mosaic. This level of mosaicing will provide resolution in $`\mathrm{}`$-space of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}=80`$. In addition we will also make deeper observations of a smaller patch of sky consisting of one 3-field mosaic. This will be sample-variance limited at low $`\mathrm{}`$ but have sufficiently good thermal noise to determine the CMB power level in broad bins ($`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{}250`$) at $`\mathrm{}>2000`$. Figure 5 shows simulated power spectra for these two observing modes. The error bars include sample variance, thermal noise and calibration error.

## 3 The Arcminute MicroKelvin Imager

The Arcminute MicroKelvin Imager (AMI) is designed principally to image secondary anisotropies in the CMB, at higher angular resolution than the VSA. It consists of two interferometric arrays sited in Cambridge, both operating in the frequency range 12–18 GHz and both employing an analogue correlator system working over 6–12 GHz. The smaller array is entirely new, consisting of ten 3.7-m paraboloidal antennas situated inside a 30 $`\times `$ 40-m, 4.5-m high metal enclosure. The second array consists of the eight existing 13-m diameter antennas of the Ryle Telescope reconfigured from the present east-west arrangement into a new 2-dimensional compact array, with their receivers upgraded, and the entire existing correlator system replaced with the new 6–12 GHz design. This dual array design gives AMI good temperature sensitivity over a very large range of angular scales, as well as the high flux sensitivity needed to identify and remove the effect of radio sources from the data. The novel correlator design has all the intermediate frequency (IF) processing (amplification, path compensation, slope equalisation, as well as the correlation) done at the relatively high frequency of 6–12 GHz, using microstrip circuits. The advantage of this is that the relatively low fractional bandwidth eases the design of many of the system components, compared with a more traditional baseband design. The relatively low operating frequency allows a low system temperature from a sea-level site, at the expense of increased confusion from radio sources. This is dealt with by the longer baselines of the larger array, which have high sensitivity to point sources, allowing their removal from the short baseline data.

The primary goal of AMI is to make blind surveys for galaxy clusters via the SZ effect. Figure 7 shows the sensitivity of the two arrays plotted as flux density as a function of $`\mathrm{}`$ (which is related to baseline length in wavelengths $`u`$ by $`\mathrm{}=2\pi u`$). The thermal noise of the instrument, binned into quasi-independent (aperture-sized) bins, is shown, along with the expected rms signal from the primary CMB anisotropies, and the SZ signal from a set of representative clusters. It can be seen that most clusters are detected well above both the thermal noise and the primary CMB signal in the 3.7-m array and on the shortest baselines of the 13-m array, while the longer baselines of the 13-m array resolve out both primary and secondary CMB anisotropies and provide sensitivity to point sources (which have constant flux density as a function of baseline).

AMI is currently under construction and is expected to begin operation towards the end of 2003.

Many thanks to the large number of people working on the VSA and AMI projects. I would also like to thank Ben Rusholme for presenting this talk on my behalf at very short notice.


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# 1 Lower curves: Resistances as function of 𝐵 for up and down 𝐵-sweeps. The left curves expand the high field region. The different curves are for different currents, ranging from 0.01mA to 3mA (0.01, 0.02, 0.04, 0.07, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.6 0.8 1. 1.5, 2.1, 3)mA. The upper curve, which is the resistance for the down sweep with 1mA, illustrates how we determine the different transition points. The resistances were measured using an AC resistance bridge at 17Hz and 𝑇=450mK

Experimental phase diagram of moving vortices
M. Hilke, S. Reid, R. Gagnon, and Z. Altounian
Dpt. of Physics, McGill University, Montréal, Canada H3A 2T8

In the mixed state of type II superconductors, vortices penetrate the sample and form a correlated system due to the screening of supercurrents around them. Interestingly, we can study this correlated system as a function of density and driving force. The density, for instance, is controlled by the magnetic field, $`B`$, whereas a current density $`j`$ acts as a driving force $`F=j\times B`$ on all vortices. The free motion of vortices is inhibited by the presence of an underlying potential, which tends to pin the vortices. Hence, to minimize the pinning strength we studied a superconducting glass in which the depinning current is 10 to 1000 times smaller than in previous studies, which enables us to map out the complete phase diagram in this new regime. The diagram is obtained as a function of $`B`$, driving current and temperature and led a remarkable set of new results, which includes a huge peak effect, an additional reentrant depinning phase and a driving force induced pinning phase.

The Peak effect (PE), which is one of the most intriguing consequences of the motion of vortices in superconductors, is a peak in the critical current as a function of $`B`$ and typically occurs below, but near, the critical field ($`B_{c2}`$) in some strong type II conventional superconductors belincourt ; rosenblum ; pippard ; kes ; higginsexp . In high temperature superconductors the $`PE`$ is also observed but usually appears well below $`B_{c2}`$ hitcexp  as inferred from magneto-transport measurements. The $`PE`$ can lead to a reentrant superconducting phase as a function of $`B`$ or $`T`$ when a current slightly below the maximum critical current is applied. Above the critical current, vortices experience a force strong enough to be depinned and they start moving, which leads to a non-zero electrical field $`(E=\overline{v}\times B)`$ and hence to a non-zero resistance, where $`\overline{v}`$ is the average vortex velocity. At the $`PE`$ the vortices are pinned again, which decreases the resistance and enhances the critical current. While the exact mechanism of the $`PE`$ is not fully understood, recent experiments on $`Nb`$ have correlated the $`PE`$ with the disappearance of neutron scattering Bragg peaks from the vortex structure. This was attributed to the transition from a long-range ordered phase to a short-ranged disordered phase, which in turn is pinned more efficiently proorderdisorder ; troyanovski . This transition can be induced either by increasing disorder or equivalently by increasing $`B`$, since the disorder potential couples to all vortices, hence effectively increasing with $`B`$. However, recent experiments on $`NbSe_2`$ have questioned the amorphous nature of the phase in the $`PE`$ regime conorderdisorder .

In this work we investigate the vortex dynamics in a system with the weakest possible pinning potential. It is well known that amorphous superconductors have a lower critical current than crystals because of the absence of long-range order, which implies weaker collective pinning. The remaining pinning is then mainly governed by impurities. We therefore used high purity $`FeNiZr`$ based superconducting glasses, which have a similar critical temperature ($`T_c`$) and $`B_{c2}`$ as the widely studied crystalline $`2HNbSe_2`$ system higginsexp  and others rosenblum ; pippard ; hitcexp ; troyanovski ; proorderdisorder ; conorderdisorder , but our amorphous samples exhibit a critical current density, ($`J_c0.4A/cm^2`$), just below the $`PE`$t, which is typically 100 to 1000 times smaller. In comparison to earlier studies on the $`PE`$ in amorphous films, our samples still have a $`J_c`$ 10 times smaller belincourt ; kes ; kes2 ; wordenweber , which reflects the high level of purity of our samples.

We obtained these high purity superconducting glasses by melt spinning altounian  $`Fe_xNi_{1x}Zr_2`$ with different values of x. Although we only present results for x=0.3, qualitatively very similar features were obtained for x=0, 0.1 and 0.2, which suggests that these effects are inherent to these types of materials and do not depend critically on composition. The transition temperature ($`T_c`$) for x=0.3 is $`2.30\pm 0.02`$K as extracted from three different samples. The sharpness of the transition region is quite remarkable, with a transition temperature width (10-90% value) ranging between 5 and 20mK for all three samples, indicative of very homogenous samples. The absence of crystallinity is confirmed by the absence of Bragg peaks in X-ray diffraction. The samples have the following typical sizes (thickness=$`21\mu `$m, width=1.15mm, and length between indium contacts=8mm). Using standard expressions for superconductors in the dirty limit kes , we can estimate the different length scales in our system. The zero temperature penetration depth is $`\lambda =1.05\times 10^3(\rho _N/T_C)^{1/2}0.9\mu m`$, the BCS coherence length is $`\xi 7.3nm`$ (or 8.3nm using GL), the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) parameter $`\kappa 76`$ and $`B_{c1}29`$mT. Relevant experimental quantities are $`T_c=(2.30\pm 0.02)`$K, $`B_{c2}(T=0)=(4.8\pm 0.1)`$T, $`\rho _N=(1.7\pm 0.2)\mu \mathrm{\Omega }`$m (normal resistivity) and $`\frac{dB_{c2}}{dT}|_{T_c}=(2.7\pm 0.2)`$T/K. These numbers are typical for a strong type II low-$`T_c`$ material.

Since moving vortices give rise to a non-zero resistance in a superconductor, we measured the $`B`$-dependence of the magneto-resistance for different currents to probe the dynamics of the vortices. The results are presented in figure 1. The most striking feature is the $`B`$-induced reentrant superconducting phase for currents above 0.07mA. Such a strong reentrant superconductor was never observed before in any amorphous superconductor. However, because we observed a similarly strong reentrant behavior for different concentrations of $`Fe`$ ($`x`$=0, 0.1, and 0.2), we believe that this effect is very general for high purity and weakly pinned amorphous superconductors. Indeed, when comparing our results to previous studies on the $`PE`$ in amorphous superconductors belincourt ; kes ; kes2 ; wordenweber , the most notable difference is the critical current, which is a measure of the pinning strength and is at least 10 times smaller in our samples, indicating that weak pinning enhances the reentrant behavior. The reentrant behavior is the most dramatic signature of the $`PE`$, which disappears below 0.07mA and implies a peak in the critical current in the region of the reentrant superconductor.

We map-out the phase diagram of the moving vortices using the dissipative transport in figure 1 and illustrated by the top figure with the help of the 1mA down-sweep curve. The results of the diagram are presented in figure 2. At low fields we have the first depinning transition defined when the resistance exceeds 0.5m$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, which is our experimental resolution. The choice of this cut-off is not critical since close to the depinning transition the dependence of the resistance on $`B`$ is stronger than exponential. When increasing $`B`$ further, the system becomes more and more resistive for currents above 0.07 mA. In this region, which we denote depinning 1, the vortices start moving. At even higher $`B`$, the moving vortices are pinned again in the pinning region, which leads to the reentrant superconducting phase inside this pinning region. The pinning transition is defined when $`dR/dB=0`$. Inside the pinning region, the resistance eventually vanishes within our experimental resolution (0.5m$`\mathrm{\Omega }`$). Finally, at high enough $`B`$ we cross $`B_{c2}`$ and the system becomes normal. $`B_{c2}`$ is defined as the point of strongest negative curvature just before reaching the normal state. At higher driving currents we observe another region, labelled depinning 2, which corresponds to a sudden increase of resistance after the pinning or depinning 1 regions, indicative of another depinning transition, before reaching $`B_{c2}`$, which is defined as the point of highest positive curvature.

A striking feature of the phase diagram is the huge $`PE`$ at 4.3T. Indeed, the critical current, which delimits the superconductor (shaded in dark blue in figure 2) from the non-zero resistance depinned phases, jumps from 0.07mA to 1.5mA close to 4.3T. This $`PE`$ is associated with the depinning 1 \- to - pinning transition of the vortices.

Quite generally, the depinning 1 region is characterized by weakly pinned vortices, which move beyond a $`B`$-dependent activated threshold. Giamarchi and co-workers giamarchiBG  argued that this phase is a long-range ordered moving Bragg glass (MBG), consistent with a recent experiment showing algebraic neutron scattering Bragg peaks in this region with measurements performed on $`(K,Ba)BiO_3`$ giamarchiBGexp . Our results support this picture since the dependence of the voltage (V) on current (I) below the $`PE`$ for $`B`$-fields between 0.25 and 3.75T, (as illustrated in the inset of figure 3), is well fitted by the activated creep expression $`Ve^{U/T\sqrt{I}}`$. $`U`$ reflects the pinning strength and the expression was derived directly from the equation of motion creepIV  and assumes a long-range ordered phase, such as a Bragg glass. The long-range nature of this phase can be inferred from the geometry dependent transition point. Indeed, when tilting the field so that $`B`$ is aligned along the wide axis of the sample (instead of perpendicular to it), the transition is shifted upwards between 1.5T and 2.5T depending on the current. Since the sample is amorphous and 1mm wide but only 20$`\mu `$m thick this implies long range order above 20$`\mu `$m. This transition is the only one, which is significantly affected by the tilted field below 1.5mA, suggesting that the remaining phases have short-ranged order.

At higher $`B`$ the pinning increases in the $`PE`$ region. In this region the inter-vortex distance is close to $`\xi `$, which is the size of the vortex core and implies strong inter-vortex correlations. The exact nature of this pinning transition is still under debate, but is commonly associated with an order-disorder transition giamarchirev , the melting of the vortex structure larkin  or the anomalous friction close to $`B_{c2}`$ nissila . Experimentally, the reentrant superconductor is nonetheless the most spectacular demonstration for the existence of a depinning \- to - pinning transition. In figure 2, the reentrant superconductor is shaded in dark blue, which is included in the pinning region delimited by the light blue line. We mapped out the pinning regions for both $`B`$-sweep directions up (solid lines) and down (dotted lines) and observed an increasing hysteresis as a function of driving current, which is the region shaded in light blue. The region of hysteresis does not depend on the sweeping rate and is stable once reached. The left inset of figure 1 shows details of the region of hysteresis and the $`B`$-sweep direction is labelled with corresponding arrows. The hysteresis is particularly striking, when coming from the low $`B`$ region into the pinning region. Indeed, at a fixed $`B=4.3`$T and $`I=1mA`$, the sample is superconducting, then we can either increase the current to 2mA and back or sweep $`B`$ to 4.5T and back, or increase $`T`$ to 1K and back, and the sample is no longer superconducting and remains dissipative on time scales beyond our experiment. Sweeping $`B`$ to 3.5T and back recovers a highly stable superconducting phase. Hence, for the same $`B`$ and $`I`$ we can have two different phases, which are stable over very long time scales. Moreover, when increasing the temperature, the size of the region of hysteresis decreases and eventually vanishes as illustrated in figure 4 (the light blue shaded region). Since the dependence on temperature is non-critical, this transition is strongly suggestive of a first order phase transition inside the region of hysteresis, which we indicated as a thick dashed line in figure 2. This is in agreement with earlier experiments on crystals zeldov ; twophases , but in our system this first order transition is not associated with the formation of the pinning region but rather with the transition to the depinning 2 phase at $`B`$-fields above the $`PE`$.

This additional depinning 2 phase between the $`PE`$ and the normal phase is only seen at sufficiently high driving currents (figure 2) and is masked by the hysteresis at low $`T`$ and becomes more apparent at higher $`T`$ as seen in figure 4. This hints to a much richer transition region between the $`PE`$ and the normal state than previously expected and constitutes an important new experimental finding for the theoretical understanding of these systems.

At even higher currents the depinning 2 region can be reached directly from the depinning 1 region, which corresponds to a sudden delocalization of the vortices identified by a jump in the resistance. This region is not an inhomogeneous mix of normal and superconducting regions because at low currents the superconducting - to - normal transition is extremely sharp, i.e., less than 50mT wide for the 10-90%, which excludes any large scale inhomogeneities in the sample. This type of transition is consistent with several theoretical and numerical results giamarchiDyn ; olson ; fangohr  describing the transition from a $`MBG`$ to a smectic or plastic flow of vortices. Moreover, the depinning 2 region is increasingly geometry dependent at large currents above 2mA as observed from tilted field measurements, which suggests that the vortex order of the depinning 2 region increases with current as expected from the above-mentioned theoretical results.

However, there is an overall downward bending of the pinning region with current, which implies that for some fields vortices get pinned again before they eventually depin. This is very unusual and has never been observed before in the context of vortices. We analyzed this behavior in more detail with the help of the $`IV`$’s shown in figure 3. For $`B`$4T there is a negative differential resistance as a function of current, which implies a dynamical pinning mechanism at high average vortex velocities. This effect cannot be due to an increase of effective $`T`$ since $`B_{c2}`$ is almost not affected by currents in this range, but it is hysteretic and might be due to the non-monotonous ordering as a function of driving force, similar to the situation of driven charge-density waves grant .

Summarizing, we have studied a new class of superconductors in relation to the peak effect, in which the depinning threshold is extremely weak and where there is no underlying crystalline order. In our system the $`PE`$ is huge, with an increase by more than an order of magnitude of the critical current in the $`PE`$ region, indicating that very low pinning tends to enhance the peak effect. In addition, after mapping out the entire phase diagram of our system, while many similarities with previous studies on the $`PE`$ have been found, we also observed two striking differences. Indeed, we observed an additional transition between the $`PE`$ and the normal state as well as a dynamical pinning transition at constant vortex density. These results have important implications on our understanding of the dynamics of vortices in very weakly pinned systems.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge helpful discussions with T. Ala-Nissila, M. Grant, H. Guo and J.O. Strom-Olsen and support from NSERC and FCAR.

(hilke@physics.mcgill.ca)


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# Discovery of Radio/X-ray/Optical Resolved Supernova Remnants in the Center of the Andromeda Galaxy

## 1 Introduction

Ground-based and spaced-based observations have allowed many supernova remnants (SNRs) in our Galaxy to be resolved, showing various different morphologies in radio, X-ray, and optical wavelengths (Weiler & Sramek 1988; van den Bergh 1988; Rho & Petre 1998). The expanding SNR shock can heat the surrounding interstellar medium (ISM) to temperatures up to $`10^8`$ K and beyond, producing thermal X-ray emission, while synchrotron radiation seen in the radio band is due to the relativistic electrons accelerated behind the shock front in the magnetic field of the SNR. Optical emission from SNRs is from shocked-heated collisionally ionized species such as \[S II\], \[N II\] and \[O III\], as well as H$`\alpha `$ recombination emission. Multiwavelength observations of SNRs therefore provide important information on the structure of the ISM and chemical composition in the host galaxy, the evolutionary stage of the SNR, the character of the supernova ejecta and the nature of the progenitor and its associated stellar winds.

Most detailed studies of SNR have concentrated on our Galaxy simply because of the large angular size of the SNRs. However, studies of Galactic SNRs can be limited by the lack of reliable distance estimates, high interstellar absorption at optical and X-ray wavelengths, and the high level of confusion in many Galactic fields (Magnier et al. 1995). These limitations are overcome by studies of SNRs in nearby extragalactic systems such as the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (e.g., Williams et al. 1999), and the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). At a distance of 780 kpc (Stanek & Garnavich 1998), M31 is the closest spiral galaxy that shares similar morphology, metallicity and size with the Milky Way; it is the best candidate for a comparative study of SNRs.

Studies of SNRs in M31 are mainly done in the optical (e.g., d’Odorico, Dopita, & Benvenuti 1980; Blair, Kirshner, & Chevalier 1981, 1982; Braun & Walterbos 1993; Magnier et al. 1995). About 200 SNR candidates have been identified by these surveys. In a recent extensive ROSAT Position Sensitive Proportional Counter (PSPC) survey (Supper et al. 2001) of M31, 16 X-ray SNRs were identified within a total area of $`10.7`$ deg2 by cross-correlating with these optical catalogs. Their X-ray luminosities (0.1–2.4 keV) range from $`10^{36}`$ to $`10^{37}`$$`\text{erg}\text{s}^1`$. More recently, Kong et al. (2002a) discovered a spatially resolved X-ray SNR in M31 with Chandra. In the radio, Sjouwerman & Dickel (2001) found 3 SNRs near the center of M31. In this Letter, we report the discovery of the first radio/X-ray/optical resolved SNRs in the center of M31.

## 2 Observations and Results

### 2.1 Radio Data

At the distance of M31, the typical diameter of SNRs is between $`1`$ arcsec and 20 arcsec so that some of the SNRs are large enough to be studied with high-resolution instruments in sufficient detail (Sjouwerman & Dickel 2001; Kong et al. 2002a). In particular, sensitive interferometric radio images have sufficient resolution to resolve the SNRs without suffering from the large scale diffuse background in the center of M31 (Hjellming & Smarr 1982; Crane, Dickel, & Cowan 1992; Crane et al. 1993). Very sensitive 8.4 GHz (3.6 cm) radio observations of the central 500 arcsec (1.9 kpc) of M31 were obtained by combining in total 120 hours of archival data taken with the Very Large Array (VLA) in its largest array configurations (A and B) between 1990 and 1996. The resulting radio image has an angular resolution of 0.24 arcsec and is sensitive to angular sizes of up to 20 arcsec, and has an rms noise level of $``$ 4 $`\mu `$Jy/beam. After discovering three faint radio SNRs in the 8.4 GHz archival data, we also observed the remnants for 24 hours with the VLA at 4.9 GHz (6 cm) in July 2002. The recent 4.9 GHz radio image (Fig. 1) is sensitive to angular structures from 1.2 to 36 arcsec and has an rms of $``$ 5 $`\mu `$Jy/beam. Both radio images clearly show resolved shell-like objects that are brighter at 4.9 GHz than at 8.4 GHz (Sjouwerman & Dickel 2001). The largest SNR is located at 70 arcsec east-south-east of the nucleus of M31 at a position of R.A.=00h42m50s.41, Dec.=+411556′′.4 (J2000), labeled object 1 in Fig. 1. The integrated flux density of the complex radio morphology is measured to be 1.13 mJy at 4.9 GHz. Its size of $`11.6\times 8.4`$ arcsec ($`44\times 32`$ pc) is consistent with a previous $`10.9\times 7.8`$ arcsec low-resolution (5 arcsec) VLA detection at 1.4 GHz designated Braun-101 (Braun 1990). With the notion that the flux density measured at 1.4 GHz might be confused with the extended background (Hjellming & Smarr 1982; Braun 1990), we derive a spectral index between 1.4 and 4.9 GHz of $`\alpha `$ = $``$0.77 or flatter, where $`S_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$. The radio morphology and radio spectral index are consistent with a shell-type SNR (Dickel & Milne 1998). It is worth noting that our radio observations also discover two more new SNRs, designated Braun-80 and Braun-95 (Braun 1990), near the nucleus of M31 (Sjouwerman & Dickel 2001).

### 2.2 X-ray Data

Following the discovery of the radio SNRs, we compare their radio positions with the M31 X-ray source positions as detected by the Chandra X-ray Observatory (Kong et al. 2002b; Kaaret 2002) and indeed the largest radio SNR, Braun-101, is spatially coincident with the X-ray source CXOM31 J004250.5+411556 (Kong et al. 2002b). We further examine a 40 ksec (37.7 ksec after rejecting high background period) Chandra X-ray image taken with the back-illuminated chip (S3) of the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). The SNR is clearly detected in the 0.3–7 keV image and it is resolved as a ring-like object with a diameter of about 5 arcsec (Fig. 1). The SNR has about 55 background-subtracted photons (0.3–7 keV) in a $`3^{\prime \prime }`$ radius extraction region. All of the emission from the SNR is confined to energies below $`1`$ keV, indicating that it is a soft X-ray source (e.g., Di Stefano & Kong 2003). The shell-like X-ray morphology, soft X-ray nature, and good positional coincidence with the radio SNR makes the X-ray source as a secure X-ray counterpart of the radio identified SNR. We extracted the energy spectrum from a $`3^{\prime \prime }`$ radius and background from an annulus centered on the source. In order to allow $`\chi ^2`$ statistics to be used, the spectrum was grouped into at least 10 counts per spectral bin. We fitted the data with a Raymond-Smith model and kept the $`N_H`$ fixed at $`10^{21}`$ cm-2. The best fit temperature is $`0.25_{0.06}^{+0.09}`$ keV (90% confidence) with a value of reduced chi-squared statistic $`\chi _\nu ^2=1.05`$ for 5 degrees of freedom (d.o.f.). The 0.3–7 keV luminosity of the best fitting spectrum is $`(4.4_{2.2}^{+1.3})\times 10^{35}`$$`\text{erg}\text{s}^1`$. We also re-examined the 50 ksec Chandra High Resolution Camera (HRC) observation (Kaaret 2002) and Braun-101 is indeed visible as a faint extended source though it was not in the published HRC source list. Assuming the above spectral model, the corresponding 0.3–7 keV luminosity of the SNR is $`(7.1\pm 2.5)\times 10^{35}`$$`\text{erg}\text{s}^1`$.

The other radio SNR, Braun-95, is also detected in the Chandra observation as an extended (with a diameter of $`10`$ arcsec) object (marked as 2 in Fig. 1). Although it shows a clear shell morphology in the radio image, the X-ray emission is very patchy. We extracted the energy spectrum with a $`4.5^{\prime \prime }`$ radius circle centered on the source and background from a source-free region. We kept the $`N_H`$ fixed at $`10^{21}`$ cm-2 and fitted the spectrum with Raymond-Smith model. The fit is rather poor ($`\chi _\nu ^2=1.55`$ for 10 d.o.f.). We then added an additional power-law component and the fit was improved ($`\chi _\nu ^2=1.2`$ for 8 d.o.f.). The best fit temperature is $`0.26_{0.07}^{+0.13}`$ keV, while the photon index is $`2.16_{2.16}^{+1.39}`$; the 0.3–7 keV luminosity is $`(8_{2.2}^{+7.0})\times 10^{35}`$$`\text{erg}\text{s}^1`$.

### 2.3 Optical Data

With the detection of radio and X-ray emissions from Braun-101, we searched the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) archive for any narrow-band exposures near that position. We found images taken with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) in H$`\alpha `$ (F656N) filter. We downloaded the pipeline-calibrated images, registered them, and combined them with cosmic-ray rejection. The resulting continuum (F547M filter) subtracted image of the region around the SNR is shown in Figure 2. A resolved shell-like object with 3 arcsec diameter is seen at the radio and X-ray position in the H$`\alpha `$ image, indicating an optical counterpart of the SNR. The total H$`\alpha `$ flux is $`(7.3\pm 0.5)\times 10^{16}`$ erg cm-2 s$`{}_{}{}^{1}\stackrel{̊}{\mathrm{A}}_{}^{1}`$, while the peak H$`\alpha `$ surface brightness of the SNR is $`(3.3\pm 0.4)\times 10^{16}`$ erg cm-2 s-1 arcsec$`{}_{}{}^{2}\stackrel{̊}{\mathrm{A}}_{}^{1}`$ in the continuum-subtracted H$`\alpha `$ image. Re-examination of ground-based narrow-band optical images from the Kitt Peak National Observatory 0.6-m Burrell Schmidt telescope also reveals Braun-101 (but unresolved) with \[S II\]/H$`\alpha 0.65`$. This high ratio makes it unlikely that the H$`\alpha `$ emission is from a HII region near the SNR (Levenson et al. 1995), and confirms the radio/X-ray identification as a SNR. Unfortunately, radio/X-ray SNR, Braun-95, is just outside the field of view of the HST observations.

## 3 Discussion

Using VLA, Chandra, and HST data, we found one radio/X-ray/optical resolved SNR (Braun-101) and one radio/X-ray resolved SNR (Braun-95) near the center of M31. The radio emission of Braun-101 traces the outer shell of the remnant; it is an asymmetric shell with the northeastern side about three times brighter (67 versus 23 $`\mu `$Jy/beam) than the southwestern side. The X-ray remnant with a diameter of about 5 arcsec (20 pc) is considerably smaller than the radio remnant and the X-ray outline lies predominantly inside the brighter part of the radio remnant. Both wavelengths show a shell configuration but the X-ray remnant is elongated toward the north, while the southern part of the X-ray remnant near the center of the radio remnant is slightly brighter in X-ray. It could be that the situation is similar to that seen for SNR 1E 0102.2-7219 in the Small Magellanic Cloud (Amy & Ball 1999; Gaetz et al. 2000). The X-ray emission is brightest in a ring primarily inside the radio shell but very faint X-rays are seen extending out to the shock just outside the radio shell. The bright inner X-ray ring is interpreted as coming from heating and ionization from the reverse shock moving into a strong gradient in pre-explosion ejecta of the progenitor star. A longer X-ray exposure might reveal the expected faint outer X-ray emission. The larger radio shell is perhaps the forefront of the shock in a relatively low ISM density toward southwest, where the greatest magnetic field compression and particle acceleration occurs.

The optical emission of Braun-101 is the smallest (3 arcsec; 11 pc) compared to other wavelengths and it is encompassed by the X-ray emission (Fig. 2). The H$`\alpha `$ shell roughly traces the inner X-ray ring of the remnant and shows a non-uniform distribution of emission over the shell, with slight enhancement toward the southwest. It also shows a crescent opening and possibly a double-ring structure in the northern region of the optical remnant. In the northeast, a local enhancement of the X-ray emission corresponds to a local optical enhancement. The optical emission could be produced by shocks driven into cooler and denser material by the high pressure downstream of the reverse shock. It is worth noting that such large discrepancies in SNR size at different wavelengths are not typical (Winkler & Long 1997). In this case, we may be seeing only the brightest optical knots and not the whole optical shell.

Braun-101 is only 0.5 arcsec from an optically identified planetary nebula candidate (Kong et al. 2002b; Ciardullo et al. 1989). Our multiwavelength observations provide strong evidence that the source is actually a SNR. As planetary nebulae are usually identified by their strong \[O III\] emission (Ciardullo et al. 1989), they could resemble the \[O III\] emission from some SNRs. However, the large angular size (from 10 pc in the optical to 40 pc in the radio) and high X-ray luminosity ($`4.4\times 10^{35}`$ erg s-1) rule out the possibility of a planetary nebula for which the typical diameter and X-ray luminosity is $`<1`$ pc ($`<0.25`$ arcsec) and $`10^{30}`$ erg s-1, respectively.

Like Braun-101, Braun-95 is clearly a shell-like radio remnant (see Fig. 1) and its morphology is also very similar to Braun-101. The X-ray remnant of Braun-95, however, is patchy and is mainly located in the northeastern side of the radio remnant, where the radio emission is brightest. Faint X-ray emission is also seen near the radio shell. The X-ray spectrum likely consists of two components: a Raymond-Smith model and a power-law model. The Raymond-Smith temperature is similar to Braun-101 and CXOM31 J004327.7+411829 (Kong et al. 2002a). The extra power-law component might hint that Braun-95 contains a pulsar and/or a pulsar nebula.

Discovery of SNRs near the center of M31 provides some information about the star formation history of the region. For instance, type Ia SNRs suggest an old stellar population, while type Ib/II SNRs are associated with young population. Unfortunately, we do not have direct evidence about the type for the two SNRs based on the current multi-wavelength data. By comparing with Galactic SNRs, the mismatch in morphology of the two SNRs in different wavelengths might hint the type. For example, IC 443 (Petre et al. 1988; Kawasaki et al. 2002) and Sgr A East (Maeda et al. 2002) are type II SNRs that have different morphology in radio and X-ray, and type Ia SNR like Tycho and SN 1006 generally have a well matched morphology in X-ray and radio. On the other hand, the X-ray and radio surface brightness of Tycho does not show correspondence (Hwang & Gotthelf 1997), and the X-ray emission of SN 1006 is non-thermal (Long et al. 2003), suggesting a synchrotron origin of X-rays. In addition, type Ib/II SNRs such as Cas A (compare Hughes, et al. 2000 and Braun, Gull & Perley 1987; see also Keohane et al. 1996 and Dickel et al. 1982) and RCW103 (compare Dickel et al. 1996 and Tuohy & Garmire 1980) also have a good match in different wavelengths. Further multi-wavelength observaitons of these 2 SNRs are required to identify their type and hence the assoicated stellar population in the bulge of M31.

The multiwavelength detection of SNRs in M31 can also provide further information about the local ISM density around the SNRs. The ISM near M31’s SNRs is thought to be low ($`<0.1`$ cm-3), which is 1 to 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the measurements by the H I observations (Magnier et al. 1997). Our discovery of X-ray emission from SNRs near the nucleus of M31 indicates that the ISM density in the vicinity of the SNRs could be higher.

We have shown that by combining all the high-resolution instruments across many wavebands, we can study the morphological structure of SNRs in M31 for the first time. This is a first step toward understanding the evolutionary states and shock morphologies of SNRs in M31. More specific multiwavelength observations in the future will shed more light on the properties of SNRs in M31, allowing more comprehensive comparative studies with our own Galaxy.

This research was supported by NASA under LTSA grants, NAG5-10889 and NAG5-10705. A.K.H.K. acknowledges support from the Croucher Foundation.


text:
# Beyond Lyman 𝛼: Constraints and Consistency Tests from the Lyman 𝛽 Forest

## 1. Introduction

A typical high redshift quasar spectrum is shown in Fig. 1. Most studies of the intergalactic medium (IGM) focus on the part of the spectrum where the only kind of absorption (aside from occasional absorption by metal systems) is that by neutral hydrogen via Lyman-alpha (Ly$`\alpha `$) .i.e. the well-known Ly$`\alpha `$ forest. This is the part of the spectrum that has a wavelength between $`(1+z_q)\lambda _\beta ^0`$ and $`(1+z_q)\lambda _\alpha ^0`$, where $`z_q`$ is the quasar redshift. (Hereafter, we will use the symbols $`\lambda _\alpha ^0=1215.67\AA `$, $`\lambda _\beta ^0=1025.72\AA `$, and $`\lambda _\gamma ^0=972.54\AA `$ to denote the rest-frame Ly$`\alpha `$, Ly$`\beta `$ and Ly$`\gamma `$ wavelengths.) Absorption blueward of $`(1+z_q)\lambda _\beta ^0`$ is generally ignored because Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption is entangled with absorption by the higher Lyman series (for exceptions, see e.g. Press, Rybicki & Schneider 1993). For instance, absorption at a wavelength $`\lambda `$ between $`(1+z_q)\lambda _\gamma ^0`$ and $`(1+z_q)\lambda _\beta ^0`$ has two sources:

$`e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}(\lambda )}=e^{\tau _\alpha (z_\alpha )}e^{\tau _\beta (z_\beta )}`$ (1-1)
where $`\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}`$ is the net total optical depth observed at the wavelength $`\lambda `$, and $`\tau _\alpha `$ and $`\tau _\beta `$ are the Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ optical depths respectively, which arise from absorption by materials at two different redshifts: $`z_\alpha =[\lambda /\lambda _\alpha ^0]1`$, and $`z_\beta =[\lambda /\lambda _\beta ^0]1`$. We will refer to this part of the spectrum as the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region.

The key observation of this paper is that $`z_\alpha `$ and $`z_\beta `$ are associated with physically widely separated parts of the IGM:

$$u2c\times (\lambda _\alpha ^0\lambda _\beta ^0)/(\lambda _\alpha ^0+\lambda _\beta ^0)=5.1\times 10^4\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}$$
(1-2)
where $`c`$ is the speed of light. The velocity separation $`u`$ is much larger than the correlation scale at redshifts of a few: $`100`$ km/s. This means that to good approximation, the Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ optical depths that contribute to the total $`\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}`$ at a given observed wavelength are uncorrelated. This implies

$`e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}(\lambda )}=e^{\tau _\alpha (z_\alpha )}e^{\beta _\alpha (z_\beta )},`$ (1-3)
$`e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}(\lambda ^1)}e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}(\lambda ^2)}`$
$`=e^{\tau _\alpha (z_\alpha ^1)}e^{\tau _\alpha (z_\alpha ^2)}e^{\tau _\beta (z_\beta ^1)}e^{\tau _\beta (z_\beta ^2)},`$
where $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes ensemble averaging (or, operationally, averaging over lines of sight), and $`\lambda ^1`$ and $`\lambda ^2`$ refers to two different wavelengths that reside in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region. The redshifts $`z_\alpha ^1`$ and $`z_\alpha ^2`$ are the corresponding Ly$`\alpha `$ redshifts, and similarly, $`z_\beta ^1`$ and $`z_\beta ^2`$ are the corresponding Ly$`\beta `$ redshifts.

The first equality in eq. (1-3), which states that the average transmission in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region factorizes into two parts, is implicitly assumed in the existing work that makes use of Ly$`\beta `$ absorption (e.g. Cen & McDonald 2002, Fan et al. 2002, Lidz et al. 2002).

The second equality goes one step further: it tells us that the two-point correlation in the same region also factorizes into two parts: the Ly$`\alpha `$ correlation and the Ly$`\beta `$ correlation respectively. Since both the two-point correlation in $`e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}}`$ and the two-point correlation in $`e^{\tau _\alpha }`$ can be measured directly (the latter from separate lines of sight to quasars at lower redshifts), eq. (1-3) tells us that we have a handle on the two-point correlation in $`e^{\tau _\beta }`$ as well. 111Obviously, the same logic applies to the three-point correlation and so on, which we will not discuss here.

The crucial point here is not to separate Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ absorption on an absorption-line by absorption-line basis, which is a challenging task. Rather, the strategy is to exploit the property of uncorrelated absorption to statistically separate out the two sources of absorption in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region of quasar spectra.

Why is the Ly$`\beta `$ absorption interesting? Its utility lies in the smallness of the Ly$`\beta `$ absorption cross-section: it is lower by a factor of $`5.27`$ than the Ly$`\alpha `$ cross-section. This means that for a given neutral hydrogen density, the associated Ly$`\beta `$ optical depth is a factor of $`5.27`$ lower than the Ly$`\alpha `$ optical depth. Therefore, Ly$`\beta `$ absorption is more sensitive to structure at higher overdensities compared to Ly$`\alpha `$ (because Ly$`\alpha `$ goes saturated before Ly$`\beta `$). As we explain, this allows a better measurement of the equation of state of the IGM. Furthermore, by the same token, Ly$`\beta `$ absorption also offers a better hope for constraining the large scale structure at high redshifts ($`z\text{ }>5`$) where Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption is often saturated.

The organization of this paper is as follows. In §2, we demonstrate how the Ly$`\beta `$ forest is more sensitive to high overdensities than the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest, especially as far as the equation of state is concerned. In §3, we develop the method of statistically separating Ly$`\beta `$ from Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption by rewriting eq. (1-3) in Fourier space. We demonstrate using a concrete example how the Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectrum differentiates between different equations of state that have very similar Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectra. We end in §4 with a discussion of 1. how a better measurement of the equation of state might allow stronger constraints on the slope of the mass power spectrum, 2. how the Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectrum provides a more precise test of the gravitational instability model of the forest, and yields more stringent constraints on feedback processes, and 3. corrections to eq. (1-3).

## 2. The Equation of State of the IGM:
Lyman-$`\alpha `$ versus Lyman-$`\beta `$

The photoionized IGM is well described by a temperature-density relation, or an effective equation of state, of the form:

$$T=T_0\mathrm{\Delta }^\alpha $$
(2-1)
where $`T`$ is the temperature, $`T_0`$ is its value at mean density, $`\alpha `$ is the slope of the equation of state, and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\rho /\overline{\rho }`$, with $`\rho `$ being the gas density, and $`\overline{\rho }`$ its mean. Such a relation appears to hold for $`\mathrm{\Delta }\text{ }<5`$ (Miralda-Escude & Rees 1994, Hui & Gnedin 1997).

Current measurements from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest in the redshift range of $`z2.44.0`$ yield much better constraints on $`T_0`$ than on $`\alpha `$ (Ricotti, Gnedin & Shull 2000, Schaye et al. 1999, Bryan & Machacek 2000, McDonald et al. 2001, Meiksin, Bryan & Machacek 2001, Zaldarriaga, Hui & Tegmark 2001 \[ZHT01 hereafter\]). The reason is quite simple to understand. Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption is sensitive largely to $`\mathrm{\Delta }12`$, and the short lever arm does not allow a precise measurement of the slope $`\alpha `$. Present constraints are consistent with the full physically plausible range $`\alpha =00.6`$ (Hui & Gnedin 1997), according to ZHT01. 222ZHT01 constrain $`\alpha `$ using measurements of the small scale flux power spectrum. McDonald et al. (2001), using a line–fitting method, find a tighter constraint on $`\alpha `$ at $`z=2.4`$, requiring $`\alpha 0.38`$ at a $`1\sigma `$–confidence level. Schaye et al. (2000) obtain still tighter constraints also using a line–fitting method. The difference between the Schaye et al. (1999) error bars and the McDonald et al. (2001) error bars is due to different line selection criteria (See McDonald et al. (2001) for a discussion of this).

To illustrate the range of overdensities to which the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest is sensitive, we measure the transmission power spectrum from mock Ly$`\alpha `$ spectra that are generated using N-body simulations. The simulations used throughout this paper are $`256^3`$-grid, $`128^3`$-particle, P3M simulations of a Standard Cold-Dark-Matter model with a box size of $`16`$ Mpc/h. The simulations are dark-matter only simulations generated with the HYDRA code of Couchman et al. (1995). The baryon density is obtained by smoothing the dark matter density to mimic the effect of pressure forces (See ZHT01 for more details). These simulations have lower resolution than recommended by McDonald (2003) and Meiksin & White (2003) to achieve convergence in measuring the flux power spectrum. We expect, however, that our present simulations are adequate to qualitatively illustrate the benefits of measuring the Ly$`\beta `$ flux power spectrum.

In Figure 2 (left panel) we show the Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectrum at $`z=3.0`$ for a set of artificial equations of state parameterized in the form (following ZHT01):

$$T=\{\begin{array}{cc}T_0\mathrm{for}\mathrm{\Delta }<\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\hfill & \\ 2T_0\mathrm{for}\mathrm{\Delta }>\mathrm{\Delta }_\mathrm{c}\hfill & \end{array}$$
(2-2)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ defines the density threshold where the gas temperature $`T`$ has a jump and $`T_0=1.2\times 10^4`$ K. The left panel shows the Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectrum for $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ varying from $`0.0`$ to $`3.2`$ in steps of $`0.4`$. We have subtracted from each power spectrum a baseline power spectrum corresponding to that of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c=0.0`$. In comparing power spectra with different $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$, we fix all of the other IGM modeling parameters.

The Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission (or flux) power spectrum $`P_{f,\alpha }(k)`$ is defined as:

$`\xi _{f,\alpha }(u)=\delta _{f,\alpha }(u^1)\delta _{f,\alpha }(u^1+u),`$ (2-3)
$`P_{f,\alpha }(k)={\displaystyle \frac{dk}{2\pi }\xi _{f,\alpha }(u)e^{iku}}`$
where $`\xi _{f,\alpha }(u)`$ is the two-point correlation function at a velocity separation of $`u`$, the transmission power spectrum $`P_{f,\alpha }(k)`$ is its Fourier counterpart as a function of wavenumber $`k`$, and $`\delta _{f,\alpha }`$ is the fluctuation of the Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission about its mean:

$`\delta _{f,\alpha }{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\tau _\alpha }}{e^{\tau _\alpha }}}1.`$ (2-4)
Note that the definition of $`\xi _{f,\alpha }`$ differs from the kind of two-point correlation in eq. (1-3) in that $`\xi _{f,\alpha }`$ involves the correlation of $`\delta _{f,\alpha }`$, which has zero mean, and is properly normalized. We will sometimes refer to $`\xi _f`$ as the normalized two-point function.

Figure. 2 (left panel) shows that the Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectrum at high $`k`$ ($`0.1`$ s/km) increases, as $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ increases from $`0`$ (or, in other words, according to eq. (2-1), as the temperature drops). This is consistent with the picture that thermal broadening smooths the flux field, and suppresses small scale power, a fact that is used to constrain the thermal state of the IGM from observations (ZHT01). The interesting point of Figure 2 (left panel) is that changes in the Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectrum are most pronounced in a narrow range of $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$’s, from about $`1`$ to $`2`$. For smaller or larger $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$’s, the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum does not change in a substantial way. This is fundamentally why current observations from the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest yield useful constraints on the temperature around mean density (or $`12`$ times the mean density), but not on the slope of the equation of state $`\alpha `$ (eq. (2-1) ). A stronger constraint can be obtained if one has the means to probe the temperature of the IGM over a larger range of densities.

The Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectrum provides the requisite probe of the IGM over a large range of densities, as illustrated by Figure 2 (right panel). This panel is similar to the left panel, except that it shows the Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectrum rather than the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum. The Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power is defined by (similar to eq. (2-3), and (2-4) ):

$`\xi _{f,\beta }(u)=\delta _{f,\beta }(u^1)\delta _{f,\beta }(u^1+u),`$ (2-5)
$`P_{f,\beta }(k)={\displaystyle \frac{dk}{2\pi }\xi _\beta ^f(u)e^{iku}},`$
$`\delta _{f,\beta }{\displaystyle \frac{e^{\tau _\beta }}{e^{\tau _\beta }}}1.`$ (2-6)
In the right panel, we let $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ vary from $`0.0`$ at the bottom to $`6.0`$ at the top. Clearly, the Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectrum is sensitive to higher densities: it continues to vary from $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ of $`1`$ to about $`4`$. 333At sufficiently high overdensities, the equation of state given in eq. (2-1) would no longer be a good description of the temperature-density relation, because large–scale shock heating becomes important, which introduces a significant scatter to the temperature. The temperature-density relation for overdensities of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ up to $`5`$ can probably still be described by eq. (2-1) (Hui & Gnedin 1997).

Note that the experiment shown in Fig. 2. is done at $`z=3`$. If one moves to higher redshifts, the $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ one is sensitive to shift to lower values for both Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$. This is simply because the mean density of the universe is higher, and lower overdensities give rise to the same amount of absorption as at $`z=3`$. For instance, we have repeated the above experiment at $`z=3.74`$, and find that the range of sensitive $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ shifts downward by about $`0.5`$ for both Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$.

Fig. 2. is only meant to illustrate the range of densities to which Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ absorption are sensitive. Does the Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectrum differentiate between realistic equations of state that are otherwise difficult to disentangle using the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum alone? This is addressed in Fig. 3. At the top of the figure, we show three different Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectra, each assuming a different equation of state slope ($`\alpha `$ in eq. (2-1) ). The other IGM model parameters (see ZHT01) are adjusted slightly (well within observational uncertainties) 444In the notation of ZHT01, model A/B has $`(k_F,\alpha ,T_0,\overline{f})=(36,0.0,310,0.512)`$ / $`(39,0.4,305,0.507)`$. Here $`k_F`$ is in units of $`h`$ Mpc-1 and $`T_0`$ is in units of $`(km/s)^2`$. in each case to give very similar $`P_{f,\alpha }(k)`$’s. The Ly$`\beta `$ transmission power spectra for these three cases show more differences at high $`k`$, suggesting that observational constraints on $`P_{f,\beta }(k)`$ might be useful. Our next task is to describe how to tease out $`P_{f,\beta }(k)`$ from the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region of quasar spectra.

## 3. Constraining the Ly$`\beta `$ Power Spectrum

As discussed in §1, the coincident Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ absorption in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region of a quasar spectrum are to a good approximation uncorrelated. This gives rise to a simple factorization of the (un-normalized) two-point function (eq. (1-3) ). The normalized two-point function obeys

$`\xi _{f,\mathrm{tot}.}(u)=\xi _{f,\alpha }(u)+\xi _{f,\beta }(u)+\xi _{f,\alpha }(u)\xi _{f,\beta }(u)`$ (3-1)
where $`\xi _{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ as a function of velocity separation $`u`$ is defined in a similarly to eq. (2-3) and (2-5) (i.e. $`\xi _{f,\mathrm{tot}.}(u)\delta _{f,\mathrm{tot}.}(u_1)\delta _{f,\mathrm{tot}.}(u_1+u)`$, with $`\delta _{f,\mathrm{tot}.}[e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}}/e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}}]1`$, and $`\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}`$ being the total Ly$`\alpha `$ \+ Ly$`\beta `$ optical depth). The velocity separation $`u`$ is related to the quantities $`\lambda ^1`$, $`\lambda ^2`$, $`z_\alpha ^1`$ $`z_\alpha ^2`$, $`z_\beta ^1`$ and $`z_\beta ^2`$ in eq. (1-3) by:

$`u=c{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda ^2\lambda ^1}{\overline{\lambda }}}=c{\displaystyle \frac{z_\alpha ^1z_\alpha ^2}{1+\overline{z}_\alpha }}=c{\displaystyle \frac{z_\beta ^1z_\beta ^2}{1+\overline{z}_\beta }}`$ (3-2)
where $`\overline{\lambda }`$ is the mean observed wavelength in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region, and $`\overline{\lambda }=(1+\overline{z}_\alpha )\lambda _\alpha ^0=(1+\overline{z}_\beta )\lambda _\beta ^0`$.

The Fourier counterpart of eq. (3-1) is

$`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}(k)`$ $`=`$ $`P_{f,\alpha }(k)+P_{f,\beta }(k)`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{dk^{}}{2\pi }P_{f,\alpha }(kk^{})P_{f,\beta }(k^{})}`$
where $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ is the power spectrum of the total transmission in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region. We will often refer to $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ as the total power. Note that implicit in the above expression is that $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ and $`P_{f,\beta }`$ are at different mean redshifts: $`\overline{z}_\alpha `$ and $`\overline{z}_\beta `$.

One can directly measure both $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ and $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ from observational data. To constrain the Ly$`\beta `$ power spectrum $`P_{f,\beta }`$, it is important that quasars at different redshifts are employed to measure $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ and $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ – the former from higher redshift quasars, and the latter from lower redshift quasars whose Ly$`\alpha `$-only region overlaps in wavelengths with the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region of the former.

In principle, once $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ and $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ are given, eq. (3) can be inverted to obtain $`P_{f,\beta }`$ if one thinks of it as a linear vector equation:

$`𝐏_{𝐟,\mathrm{tot}.}𝐏_{𝐟,\alpha }=𝐌𝐏_{𝐟,\beta }`$ (3-4)
where $`𝐌`$ is a matrix whose components are

$`M(k_i,k_j)=\delta _{ij}+{\displaystyle \frac{dk_j}{2\pi }}P_{f,\alpha }(k_ik_j).`$ (3-5)
In other words, from eq. (3-4), one can in principle obtain:

$`𝐏_{𝐟,\beta }=𝐌^1(𝐏_{𝐟,\mathrm{tot}.}𝐏_{𝐟,\alpha })`$ (3-6)
While such an inversion is useful for visually inspecting the Ly$`\beta `$ power spectrum, in practice it can be noisy and one is likely better off focusing on the total power but keeping in mind that the Ly$`\alpha `$ contribution is known.

We therefore will not pursue the path of inversion here. Instead, we will be content with posing the question: how different is the total observable power $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ for models that are quite degenerate in their Ly$`\alpha `$ power, for instance those shown in Fig. 3?

The answer is provided by Fig. 4. Shown here is the fractional difference (squared) in the total power (top curve) between the two models labeled $`A`$ and $`B`$ ($`\alpha =0`$ and $`\alpha =0.4`$ respectively) in Fig. 3. The total power here is computed using eq. (3) by taking $`P_{f,\beta }`$ at $`\overline{z}_\beta =3.74`$, and $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ at $`\overline{z}_\alpha =3.0`$.

For comparison, we show in the same figure the fractional difference in the Ly$`\alpha `$ power (bottom curve) between the same two models at the same redshift as the Ly$`\beta `$ power, i.e. $`z=3.74`$. Comparing the two curves tells us how much more the total power (due to the information from Ly$`\beta `$ absorption) can constrain the equation of state at $`z=3.74`$ compared to the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum alone. We assume implicitly here that $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ at $`\overline{z}_\alpha =3.0`$ is well known from data at low redshifts. 555In order to calculate the total power, we use the same $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ at $`\overline{z}_\alpha =3.0`$ in model A and model B – the difference in the total power of these models comes only from differences in their Ly$`\beta `$ power.

From Fig. 4, we can infer the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) with which one can distinguish between the two different equations of state (models A and B). The $`(\mathrm{S}/\mathrm{N})^2`$ is given by

$`(S/N)^2={\displaystyle \underset{k}{}}\left[P_f^A(k)P_f^B(k)\right]^2/\sigma _P(k)^2`$ (3-7)
where $`P_f^A`$ and $`P_f^B`$ are the power spectra for model $`A`$ and $`B`$ respectively ($`P_f`$ here can stand for either $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ or $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$), and $`\sigma _P(k)^2`$ is the variance in power (here taken to be that for model $`B`$). The summation extends to all modes with positive $`k`$ values, up to $`k_{\mathrm{max}}=0.12`$ s/km. The power at higher $`k`$ is expected to be contaminated significantly by metal lines (McDonald et al. 2000) and so the sum is truncated at $`k_{\mathrm{max}}`$. The variance $`\sigma _P(k)^2`$ equals $`(P_f^B(k)+\mathrm{shot})^2`$, if one approximates the fluctuations as Gaussian random (see Hui et al. 2001). It is likely inaccurate to assume Gaussian errors for some of the high $`k`$ modes considered here. A more accurate error estimate is, however, unlikely to change our main point that the Ly$`\beta `$ flux power spectrum distinguishes between models with different temperature-density relations, $`\alpha `$, that have identical Ly$`\alpha `$ flux power spectra.

The shot-noise term ’shot’ is approximately equal to $`(\mathrm{\Delta }u/e^\tau )(s/n)^2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }u`$ is the size of a pixel in km/s, and $`s/n`$ is the signal-to-noise ratio per pixel of the data (different from $`S/N`$ defined above). High quality spectra (e.g. Kim et al. 1997, Kirkman & Tytler 1997, Simcoe, Sargent & Rauch 2002, Kim et al. 2002) often have a sufficiently low shot-noise that shot-noise can be ignored altogether, in which case, $`(S/N)^2=_k(P_f^A(k)P_f^B(k))^2/P_f^B(k)^2`$, which is the area under the curve shown in Fig. (4).

We find that using the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum at a mean redshift of $`z=3.74`$ gives a discriminating power of $`(S/N)^2=0.8`$, while using the total power from the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region (corresponding to Ly$`\beta `$ at the same $`z=3.74`$) gives $`(S/N)^2=7.6`$. This is the $`(S/N)^2`$ for one line of sight, assuming that the Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ regions have a length of $`5.1\times 10^4`$ and $`5.1\times 10^4(\lambda _\alpha ^0\lambda _\beta ^0)/(\lambda _\beta ^0\lambda _\gamma ^0)=1.4\times 10^4`$ km/s respectively. The discriminating power $`(S/N)^2`$ scales linearly with the number of line of sights used. Note that this estimate assumes that one has enough resolution to measure the power spectra at high $`k`$ (up to $`k=0.12`$ s/km) i.e. a resolution of Full-Width-at-Half-Maximum (FWHM) $`=8`$ km/s or better. In summary, using the Ly$`\beta `$ forest boosts the discriminating power ($`S/N`$) between an equation of state of $`\alpha =0`$ and an equation of state $`\alpha =0.4`$ by a factor of $`3`$. If only modes up to $`k=0.1`$ s/km are included then this number goes down to $`2.5`$. These numbers are typical for models very close in Ly$`\alpha `$.

To completely quantify how much better one can constrain the equation of state, $`\alpha `$, using the Ly$`\beta `$ flux power spectrum in addition to the Ly$`\alpha `$ flux power spectrum, a more rigorous approach is necessary. One should run a large grid of simulated models, simulating both $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ and $`P_{f,\alpha }`$, compare with mock data, and marginalize over all of the other modeling parameters to obtain the reduced likelihood function for $`\alpha `$. A comparison between the resulting likelihood function formed using $`P_{f,\alpha }`$ alone, with that formed using $`P_{f,\mathrm{tot}.}`$ plus $`P_{f,\alpha }`$, quantifies how much one gains using the Ly$`\beta `$ forest. Here we are content to illustrate that the Ly$`\beta `$ flux power spectrum adds extra information on $`\alpha `$ that is not available from the Ly$`\alpha `$ flux power spectrum alone (Figure 3), without completely quantifying how much tighter the resulting constraints on $`\alpha `$ are.

## 4. Discussion

The discussion §3 suggests that the Ly$`\beta `$ forest can indeed be beneficially used in conjunction with the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest to help discriminate between different models, especially between different equations of state. The reason for its utility lies in its sensitivity to higher overdensities. Better measurements of the equation of state are useful in constraining the reionization history of the universe (Theuns et al. 2002, Hui & Haiman 2003). Since spectra of quasars at sufficiently high redshifts often extend well into the Ly$`\beta `$ forest, there is no reason not to exploit this part of the spectrum to increase the scientific return. An alternative possibility for constraining the equation of state is to use the Ly$`\alpha `$ flux bispectrum in conjunction with the flux power spectrum. Referring to Table 3 of Mandelbaum et al. (2003), it appears that combining the flux bispectrum and power spectrum yields tighter constraints on the temperature density relation than using the power spectrum alone.

Zaldarriaga, Scoccimarro & Hui (2001) pointed out that from the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum alone, there is a near-degeneracy between models that trade off variations in the mass power spectral index $`n_s`$ with variations in the equation of state. Our finding that the Ly$`\beta `$ forest can place stronger constraints on the equation of state suggests that one might be able to break this degeneracy using the Ly$`\beta `$ power spectrum.

We have carried out an experiment similar to that in Fig. 4, except we replace models A and B with the following two models: one has $`n_s=0.7`$, $`\alpha =0.0`$ and $`T_0=2.1\times 10^4`$ K, and the other has $`n_s=1.1`$, $`\alpha =0.6`$ and $`T_0=1.6\times 10^4`$ K (see eq. (2-1) for definitions of $`\alpha `$ and $`T_0`$); these two models have quite similar Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectra. The total power distinguishes between the models at a level similar to that shown in Fig. 4. However a perhaps more readily realizable option is to break the degeneracy by measuring the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum as accurately as possible on large scales, $`k0.0010.01`$ s/km. In this range the models are different in the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum, albeit at a level that is too small to distinguish with existing data. Quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey are well suited for this.

An interesting use of the Ly$`\beta `$ forest is to search for signs of feedback processes in the IGM. Recent interest in the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest as a cosmological probe relies on a framework in which fluctuations in the forest arise naturally from gravitational instability (e.g. Bi, Borner, & Chu 1992, Cen et al. 1994, Zhang et al. 1995, Reisenegger & Miralda-Escude 1995, Hernquist et al. 1996, Miralda-Escude et al. 1996, Muecket et al. 1996, Bi & Davidsen 1997, Bond & Wadsley 1997, Rauch et al. 1997, Hui, Gnedin & Zhang 1997, Croft et al. 1998, Theuns et al. 1999, Nusser & Haehnelt 2000, McDonald et al. 2000, White & Croft 2000, Meiksin et al. 2001, Pichon et al. 2001, Croft et al. 2002, Gnedin & Hamilton 2002, Viel et al. 2002). An important assumption behind this picture is that feedback processes, such as galactic winds (Adelberger et al. 2003), do not significantly disturb the IGM. The good agreement between observations (particularly the Ly$`\alpha `$ transmission power spectrum) and the gravitational instability model is often used as an argument that feedback processes, while inevitably present, do not affect large volumes of the IGM. A reasonable expectation is that they preferentially affect higher density regions. If so, the Ly$`\beta `$ forest offers a better hope of testing for the presence of such feedback processes. Particularly interesting is the fact that once the gravitational instability model parameters (such as the mass power spectrum, cosmology, etc) are tuned to match observations of the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest, there are definite predictions for the correlations observed in the Ly$`\beta `$ forest, since Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ optical depths are simply related by a rescaling in the cross-section. As we have discussed, changing the slope of the equation of state ($`\alpha `$) does seem to modify the Ly$`\beta `$ power spectrum while leaving the Ly$`\alpha `$ power spectrum relatively unchanged. Feedback processes might behave in the same way i.e. affecting the Ly$`\beta `$ forest more than the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest, except that it is unlikely that their effects can be mimicked by simply varying $`\alpha `$. Galactic winds for instance change the density structure of the IGM, by creating evacuated shells around galaxies. They might also introduce a larger than expected scatter in the IGM temperature at high overdensities.

It is important to reiterate the method we advocate is not to decipher the Ly$`\beta `$ forest on an absorption line–by–absorption-line basis. Rather, the strategy is to statistically detect the presence of Ly$`\beta `$ correlation, exploiting the fact that the Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ absorptions that fall within the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region of a quasar spectrum are uncorrelated (eq. (1-3) ). A natural question is: how good an approximation is it? The fractional correction to the first equality of eq. (1-3) is the two-point correlation between Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ transmission fluctuations at a velocity separation of $`u5.1\times 10^4`$ km/s (eq. (1-2) ). It is safe to assume that this correlation is weaker than the Ly$`\alpha `$ two-point correlation ($`\xi _{f,\alpha }`$; see eq. (2-3) ), since we know from experience that Ly$`\beta `$ absorption weakens the correlation (compare the Ly$`\alpha `$ and Ly$`\beta `$ curves in Fig. 3). The observed two-point correlation function in the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest has only been reliably measured at velocity separations of $`u1700`$ km/s (McDonald et al. 2000). In order to estimate the two-point correlation function at velocity separations of $`u5.1\times 10^4`$ km/s, we extrapolate from our simulation measurements assuming linear biasing (Scherrer & Weinberg 1998, McDonald et al. 2000, Lidz et al. 2002). The resulting estimate is $`\xi _{f,\alpha }(u=5.1\times 10^4\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s})10^5`$. Therefore, any correction to the first part of equation (1-3), $`e^{\tau _{\mathrm{tot}.}(\lambda )}=e^{\tau _\alpha (z_\alpha )}e^{\beta _\alpha (z_\beta )}`$, must be very small: $`10^5`$. Such a correction is even smaller at lower redshifts where the two-point correlation is weaker. We can similarly estimate the corrections to the factorization of the two-point function (second part of eq. (1-3), or equivalently, eq. (3-1) ). The fractional error we make in the two point function is roughly $`2\xi _{f,\alpha \beta }(u_{\alpha \beta },\overline{z}_{\alpha \beta })/\xi _{f,\beta }(u,\overline{z}_\beta )`$. Here $`\xi _{f,\alpha \beta }`$ refers to the two point correlation between the Ly$`\beta `$ absorber that absorbs at observed wavelength $`\lambda ^2`$ and the Ly$`\alpha `$ absorber that absorbs at $`\lambda ^1`$, $`\overline{z}_{\alpha \beta }`$ is the mean redshift between these absorbers, and $`u_{\alpha \beta }`$ is their velocity separation. The fractional error depends on the relative size of $`u`$ and $`u_{\alpha \beta }`$. Here we estimate the error when the Ly$`\beta `$ absorbers are separated by one correlation length, $`u100`$ km/s, and situated at $`\overline{z}_\beta =3.74`$. In this case the Ly$`\alpha `$ absorber is separated from the Ly$`\beta `$ absorber by $`u_{\alpha \beta }5.1\times 10^4`$ km/s. A conservative error estimate then comes from taking $`\xi _{f,\beta }(u,\overline{z}_\beta )\xi _{f,\alpha }(u,\overline{z}_\beta )/5`$, (see Fig. 3),and $`\xi _{f,\alpha \beta }(u_{\alpha \beta },\overline{z}_{\alpha \beta })\xi _{f,\alpha }(u_{\alpha \beta },\overline{z}_\beta )/\sqrt{5}`$. From McDonald et al. (2000), the observed two-point function at a separation of one correlation length is $`\xi _{f,\alpha }(u100\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s},\overline{z}4)0.2`$, which shows that the fractional error is $`(10/\sqrt{5})(10^5/0.2)0.03\%`$. For very widely spaced pixels in the quasar spectrum, the fractional error is larger, but these pixels have a negligible correlation.

Two issues are worth further exploration. First, one must take care in masking out the intervening metal absorption lines in the Ly$`\alpha +\beta `$ region of the spectrum, just as one normally does in the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest. Metal lines that cannot be easily masked out, such as OVI, can be suitably divided out using a method similar to the one mentioned in this paper i.e. use lines of sight where the red-side of Ly$`\alpha `$ coincides in wavelengths with the Ly$`\beta `$ forest of interest; the two-point correlation of metal absorption from these lines of sight can be used to take out the metal contamination, much as we remove the Ly$`\alpha `$ contamination to the Ly$`\beta `$ forest (a similar technique for ’cleaning’ the Ly$`\alpha `$ forest has been developed by P. McDonald and U. Seljak \[2003, private communication\]). Second, it is interesting to explore whether the ideas presented here can be extended to the higher Lyman series. While this is in principle possible, it is likely that the combination of diminishing path lengths, and the increasing entanglement of different kinds of absorption (i.e. the coexistence of Ly$`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, $`\gamma `$, and so on), makes it difficult to exploit the factorization of correlations in practice.

Acknowledgments MD and AL thank the Theoretical Astrophysics group at Fermilab for their hospitality. We thank Arlin Crotts for useful conversations and for providing the spectrum of Q2139-4434 for figure 1, and Matias Zaldarriaga for making his simulations available to us. We also thank the referee for useful comments, in particular for pointing out the importance of OVI and the possibility of constraining the equation of state using the flux bispectrum in conjunction with the flux power spectrum. This work is supported in part by an Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the DOE, by NSF grant AST-0098437 and the NASA grant NAG5-10842.


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# Comment on “New Experimental Limit on the Photon Rest Mass with a Rotating Torsion Balance”

During the last three decades, photon rest mass problem captured special attention of many investigators who have reported several experimental upper limits on the photon mass by using various methods. More recently, Luo et al. obtained the most new upper limit on photon rest mass of $`1.2\times 10^{54}`$ Kg by means of rotating torsion balance experiment. Although Luo et al.’s experiment is excellent, here we have a supplement to their result, since our evaluation shows that the photon effective rest mass due to the self-induced charge currents in the environmental dilute plasma (e.g., the muon component and other charged particles in secondary cosmic ray flux) is just the same order of magnitude as Luo’s obtained upper limit on photon mass.

It is known that at the sea level, the current density of muon component in secondary cosmic rays is about $`1\times 10^2\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. Assuming that the muon velocity approaches speed of light, the volume density of muon can be derived and the result is $`N_\mu =0.3\times 10^6`$ $`\mathrm{m}^3`$. So, according to the photon effective rest mass formula $`m_{\mathrm{eff}}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{c}\sqrt{\frac{2N_\mu e^2}{ϵ_0m_\mu c^2}}`$ with $`m_\mu `$, $`\mathrm{}`$, $`c`$ and $`ϵ_0`$ denoting the muon mass, Planck’s constant, speed of light and electric permittivity in a vacuum, respectively, electromagnetic wave with wavelength $`\lambda 100`$ m at the sea level acquires an effective rest mass about $`0.3\times 10^{53}`$ Kg. Hence the ambient cosmic magnetic vector potentials (interstellar magnetic fields) with low or zero frequencies will truly acquire this effective rest mass.

Note that the above-mentioned muon volume density ($`0.3\times 10^6`$ $`\mathrm{m}^3`$) is only the datum at the sea level. In order to evaluate the muon volume density in the environment where Luo’s experiment was performed, readers may be referred to the following handbook data of muon current density in underground cosmic rays: the muon current densities are respectively $`10^4`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ and $`10^6`$ $`\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ at the equivalent water depths of $`100`$ m and $`1000`$ m under the ground. In Luo’s experiment, the total apparatus is located in a cave laboratory, on which the least thickness of the cover is more than $`40`$ m. It is reasonably believed that the muon density of secondary cosmic rays in the vacuum chamber of Luo’s experiment may be one or two orders of magnitude less than that at the sea level. This, therefore, means that the effective rest mass acquired by photons in Luo’s vacuum chamber may be about $`(0.31)\times 10^{54}`$ Kg.

It is believed that the air molecules in the low-pressure vacuum chamber of torsion balance experiment cannot be easily ionized by the alpha-particles, electrons and protons of cosmic rays, because, for example, it is readily verified that the mean free path of alpha-particle moving at about $`10^7\mathrm{m}\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the dilute air with the pressure being only $`10^2`$ Pa is too large (i.e., more than $`10^6`$ m). So, the air medium in the low-pressure vacuum chamber has nothing to contribute to the effective rest mass of photons. However, as far as the alpha-particles, $`\pi `$ mesons, electrons, etc. in secondary cosmic rays are concerned, it follows that these ions will also contribute $`10^{54}`$ Kg or so to photon effective mass, since their total volume density in Luo’s cave laboratory is about only one order of magnitude less than that of muon.

Thus the photon effective rest mass resulting from both muons and other ions in secondary cosmic rays can be compared to the newly obtained upper limit ($`1.2\times 10^{54}`$ Kg) by Luo et al. in their recent rotating torsion balance experiment. For this reason, now Luo’s experimental upper limit on photon mass becomes just an interesting critical value. We think Luo’s recent result is of physical interest but it still deserves further experimental investigation so as to improve the present upper limit on photon mass. It is claimed that, in the near future, only the contribution of ions in secondary cosmic rays is ruled out, can we deal better with the experiment schemes of photon rest mass and related experimental results.

Acknowledgements This project is supported partially by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the project No. $`90101024`$.