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# Quantum information isomorphism: beyond the dillemma of Scylla of ontology and Charybdis of instrumentalism

## I Introduction

In science no one is lonely island. There are many entangled paths leading to truth about nature. On the one of them we met Charles Bennett - co-discoverer of quantum information phenomena which had a decisive influence on development of quantum information theory C. H. Bennett (1984); Bennett and Wiesner (1992); Bennett et al. (1983); Bennett et al. (1997a); Bennett et al. (1996); Bennett et al. (1997b). During the visit at IBM we got to know his renaissance and stimulating personality. It is a great pleasure to one of us participate in the IBM Symposium honouring 60th birthday of Charles.

The aim of this contribution is to point out that the quantum information revolution had and still has also great influence on the change of our thinking about quantum formalism and its relation to physical reality. The quantum information theory (QIT) is definitely new approach, which has significant advantage - it allows to ask quit new questions that wouldn’t be though in the old paradigm. This new way of thinking is not only more fruitful from pragmatic point of view. We hope it would also lead to new physical picture of nature, in like manner Copernican scheme was not only convenient change of frame reference but had led us to gravitation low governing planetary motion.

We do not want to discuss the problem of measurement in quantum mechanics. So far the word ”interpretation of quantum mechanics” was inevitably connected with this problem. After decades, the discussions become less and less fruitful, and more and more tiresome. The main reason is that they had no connection with experimental results. Thus there was no criterion for validity of any interpretations. The Copenhagen one in a sense won the competition, just because it was minimal. There is a question: is it of use to undertake any new intepretational effort? We believe it is still important task. Yet the goal would not be to solve measurement problem, but to provide a fresh view of quantum mechanics based on the new questions that are asked within QIT. And vice versa, one has to promote such interpretation that would stimulate the search a deeper ordering principle of quantum mechanics. QIT provided a powerful notion of quantum information, which could be taken as a new orientation sign, in the permanent interpretative chaos, rather than the minimality proposed by Copenhagen principle.

## II Ptolemy-like instrumentalism and Copernicus-like realism in the description of quantum phenomena

There are historical reasons for which an instrumental Copenhagen interpretation does not involve explicitly entanglement being at the root of the quantum formalism. But we know it is physical property of the compound system, then can not be ignored in building of any consistent interpretation.

The other even deeper reason for which the Copenhagen interpretation becomes in efficient is that there was no notion of quantum information. The information was treated only in classical terms as knowledge rather than the property of physical system. In fact the heart of this interpretation is passive Ptolemy paradigm, which takes as a reference frame the preparation parameters and outcomes of the measurements, that is the ”surface” of the things.

This is similar to the Ptolemy description that is related directly to what we see in the sky. However while looking at the sky it is hard to notice the order of planetary orbits as discovered by Copernicus. Yet Ptolemy description was artificial.

This was known in time of Copernicus. Actually, while studying in Cracovian Academy, where he learned Ptolemean description. While carrying out the course on astronomy the lecturers criticised the Ptolemean approach.

The main point was that the description based on just a geometrical trick made to obtain the picture agreeing with observations. It is important that both descriptions where compatible with observations. Yet Ptolemean approach was passive. Copernicus found that the ordering principle is somehow connected with Sun. This allowed Kepler and then Newton to find the deeper principle governing planetary motions. We can conclude that Copernican approach was more isomorphic to Nature than Ptolemean. Therefore the former one carried more contents than it was supposed to do.

In quantum mechanics we do have Schrodinger equation, that describes ”intrinsically” the dynamics of quantum. In Copenhagen approach, however this description is thought was used merely to predict the results of outcomes given preparation. Thus we were in situation, as we would be using Copernicus description just to the goal of describing planetary motions, instead of making step forward as Newton did. One of the reason is that the opposite view (de Broglie-Bohm and Einstein approach) was too classical, hence not suitable to reflect the curious features of quantum mechanics. Thus the Copenhagen interpretation was the most safe way of dealing with the ”great smoky dragon” - the thing that is between preparation and measurement. Quantum information theory shows that one can avoid two extremes: its results are not dependent on interpretation, yet the way of thinking is Copernican, or post-Copernican. In most cases, one does not think about the outcomes of measurement at all (this corresponds to analysing Copernican picture rather than looking at the sky). This gives the hope that some new organisation principle will be found, basing on the notions like quantum systems, the states of the systems, functions of the states such as entanglement, quantum processing the states. Such notions that can’t be used in Copenhagen approach.

In Copenhagen interpretation, we describe the experiment, not the quantum systems.

The experiment consist of the apparatus (heavy basis) which is tuneable (classical input) and which produces outcomes (classical output). One shouldn’t think that one deals with quantum systems, that are processed. Rather the apparatus includes everything, and this is unanalysable whole. In quantum information, we think about the whole as analisable.

Three stages are distinguished:

* preparation
* control
* measurement

The main difference is made by here by introducing the control stage as autonomous part. In that stage one has a quantum system, compound of subsystems. The subsystems can be localised in space. They can be controlled individually, and communicated. Especially the communication of quantum systems (or states) is completely ”orthogonal” to Copenhagen approach. This quantum communication allows thinking about quantum information, which is by no means knowledge! We will elaborate it later in the context of cryptography and quantum computation. For the sake of present discussion, let us note that in this new picture offered by QIT approach, we have got the conceptual tools that will allow us to push forward new way of understanding Nature, by asking new questions. One of such questions is for example capacity of quantum channel to transmit quantum information. A simpler question would be: can one transform one state into another one by means of given class of control operations?  This is the simplest and one of the most fundamental questions of QIT. The translation of this question into preparation-measurement language We leave to the reader as the exercise.

Such questions can be formulated in terms of preparation-measurement language, yet they become completely artificial. Similarly, Newton wouldn’t ask the question what forces the planets to go around the Sun, which is not natural in Ptolemean picture. In this way any question motivated by QIT can be rephrased in measurement-preparation terminology, yet it would never arise within the latter picture. In this way, QIT constitutes a revolution in thinking about quantum mechanics. Of course, even before QIT era people thought in non-Copenhagen terms, yet the goals of research in quantum mechanics was somewhat dominated by instrumental mentality enforced by minimal Copenhagen approach. One has to stress here, that even in QIT we cannot fully abandon preparation-measurement terminology. It is because it binds the Platonic world of wave function with what we observe in labs. More precisely, the preparation part can be almost completely absorbed into control part: e.g. in quantum computation one has just to prepare standard input $`|00\mathrm{}0`$. Just the experiment can be thought (on the conceptual level) as being mostly ”control-measurement” setup. For example the quantum computer, if is to be useful for people, has to produce some desired classical output. Thus the main effort of constructors of quantum algorithms is the desirable connection between processing quantum states (Copernican part) and the ”surface” (what we see in the sky). Yet, again, one shouldn’t be concentrated just on getting desirable classical input. Indeed, an important branch of ”quantum computer science” is devoted to quantum input - quantum output algorithms. They are not to solve given classical tasks, but they solve some quantum analogues. This subdomain of QIT is perhaps the most contradicting the spirit of Copenhagen approach.

## III Informational isomorphism

There is a lot of discussions on what is the status of wave function. According to the Copenhagen approach it is a not an immanent state of quantum system but it describes our mathematical representation of knowledge about the experimental setup. In realistic interpretations (in its extreme version) it is ”real wave physically present in space”. The latter approach tends to more naive realism. On the other hand the former approach seems to be too passive. It seems that the suitable approach that would not go into those extremes. Namely, any description of Nature can be thought as a sort of isomorphism between the laws Nature and their mathematical representation. By definition, isomorphism should be not only just one-to-one function, but it should preserve structure. If we insist that the role of wave function is merely to describe probabilities, we resign to treat the wave function as isomorphic image of what we are processing in laboratories. Using ”isomorphism” approach, we can further claim, that quantum information is indeed carried by the quantum systems. The wave function is the image of this information. The latter cannot be written on paper, but the wave function can be. Thus, we would say that quantum information does exist, yet it is not just wave function, but it is represented by it. There are two main examples that support this view against narrow Copenhagen treatment of wave function or quantum state.

Before discussing them let us stress that we are far away from naive realism. It is obvious that we can never say, for example that wave function exists. Yet we can argue (say) that wave function is not merely on the paper, but rather it is an image good mapping of something that exists. Of course we will have never proofs that the quantum information exists.

### III.1  Quantum fast algorithms.

As one knows Shor’s algorithm Shor (1994) most probably is exponentially faster than any classical algorithm. If this is the case, then the wave function in the quantum computer at some stage of computation cannot be efficiently computed by classical devises. Thus people will never write this wave function on paper. If we insist to interpret quantum state as knowledge, we have to say that from operational point of view the quantum computer is not in any state, as nobody will know it in a reasonable time. Yet, something is happening during performing the algorithm, as after completing it, the classical outcomes give solution of the required task. However what we process is definitely not anybody knowledge. Now, instead of saying quantum computer is ”great smoky dragon” we prefer to say that we process just the quantum information that is objectively carried by the system. The wave function is an image of this information, and sometimes we will not have wave function but the information is there. It is tempting to say here that we process statistics. However the statistics has to be encoded into quantum systems, and only this form of processing give powerful results such as fast factoring. Thus another name of quantum information is a form of encoding statistics. There is a notion introduced in Horodecki (1990, 1991) that is especially suitable to describe the paradigm we advocate here. It is ”information determinism”. The quantum information carried by quantum states is processed deterministically because the state into which the statistics is encoded evolves deterministically. The final stage of computation is then to decode the statistic from the quantum information by the measurement. To summarise, exponentially fast quantum algorithms rise doubts whether treating wave function as representation of knowledge about the setup is fully justified. Or, more precisely, in this case it is inadequate to say that quantum evolution (algorithm) is evolution of our knowledge, whatever it means. Rather it is representation of quantum information - isomorphic image of the fundamental objective property of the system - that evolves during quantum computing.

### III.2  Quantum cryptography

Quantum cryptographic key distribution schemes C. H. Bennett (1984) (see also pioneering work Wiesner ) also suggest that there is a feature that is naturally ascribed to quantum systems, and that feature we can choose to call quantum information. It is clear that there must be quantum communication between Alice and Bob to achieve secret key. Indeed, Alice cannot simply throw a wave function written on paper to Bob, as Eve could read it out without disturbing it (knowledge is something classical, that can be copied). Yet, by sending quantum systems Alice and Bob can achieve something impossible within classical world. The goal of the game is to obtain a joint distribution of outcomes of Alice, Bob and Eve, having a feature that Alice and Bob are correlated with themselves, but not with Eve. Thus it must be expressed in terms of preparation-measurement. However the heart of the phenomenon can be explained in one sentence, in ”Copernican” approach: quantum information cannot be cloned. Thus it is reasonable to think that Alice sends to Bob systems that carry quantum information. Again, he wave function represents this information, rather than being merely the tool to calculating the fact that finally the outcomes of Alice and Bob will be correlated with themselves but not with Eve’s outcomes.

### III.3 Direct computing functions of quantum state

There is another interesting quantum scenario where both natural character of quantum information and its isomorphism to reality in Nature is doubtless. This is direct calculation of quantum state function Ekert et al. (2002); Horodecki and Ekert (2002). Cosider a quantum stationary source that produces us copies of d-level system in unknown quantum state $`\varrho `$. Suppose the goal is to find given function of quantum state $`f(\varrho )`$. There are two basic approaches. In first one performs tomography estimating $`d^21`$ parameters and reconstructing the density matrix  $`\varrho _{mn}`$ in some basis. Then the function of the state is calculated as a function those parameters.

The second approach Ekert et al. (2002) is quite different - instead of performing estimation of many states we subject some specially designed quantum dynamics that involves interaction between different copies of the system and, possibly, interaction of our system with some controlling ancilla. This is a kind of quantum computing on purely quantum input. Finally we subject the part of the system (or ancilla) to elementary binary measurement on quantum output which reproduces us just $`f(\varrho )`$. Such approach has two advantages: (i) it is more natural if $`\varrho `$ is viewed as representing a sort of real quantity to be processed rather than state of our knowledge where the letter approach comes form orthodox Copenhagen interpretation. Indeed more realistic approach to $`\varrho `$ makes it much more easy to come up with idea of such quantum computing schemes (not only because then they are naturally interesting). (ii) it is much more ”ecological” - it involves much less entropy production in devices and records. We have not informational by-products in the sense that we do not need to collect and processed classical information that is to be finally (almost) entirely discarded as being non-interesting for observer.

A nice example has been proposed Ekert et al. (2002) where the function

$$f(\varrho )Tr(\varrho ^k)$$
(1)
Instead of tomography a classical matrix multiplication one can perform controlled shift operation on $`k`$ copies. Final binary measurement of polarisation of controlling qubit reproduces the above function completely.

## IV Information and entanglement

Inspired by connections between information and thermodynamics, and on the other hand by entanglement manipulations theory we applied the Bennett-Landauer paradigm Landauer (1961); Bennett (1982, 1989); Landauer (1996) to quantum distributed systems. We considered work that can be drawn locally from local heat baths by use of bipartite state that can be processed by means of local operations and classical communication Horodecki et al. (2003), see also Żurek . Since work is equivalent to information, one can think of localising information by LOCC. It turned out that analysing what it local (or what can be localised) we also got to know what is non-local. Part of the information contents of the state is from the beginning local. The other part, mutual information represents correlation, and it can be partially localised. The part of correlation that cannot be localised, must be somehow quantum. For pure states we have obtained that the non-localisable part of information corresponds exactly to entanglement. Thus analysing what is local, we have arrived at entanglement. This binds the thermodynamical approach where the information losses are counted with entanglement theory. It is interesting, that the for two components of pure states - localisable information and entanglement, we have unique measures. Indeed, we have two theories of information.

* NO model
* Pure state entanglement theory

In general the theory is given by a class of operations. Any function that cannot increase under the class is a resource. For reversible theories, there is only one type of resource.

In NO model Horodecki et al. (2003), we consider simple (not compound quantum systems), and the class of operations is noisy operations including

* unitary operations
* partial trace
* adding ancilla in maximally mixed state

It turns out that under the following conditions, the theory is reversible, and the only resource is what we can call information. It is quantified by n-S.

In theory of pure state entanglement Bennett et al. (1996), the class is LOCC, and under the same conditions there is only one resource, quantified by entropy of subsystem. It is called entanglement.

## V Local-nonlocal complementarity.

Bohr’s complementarity Bohr (1928, 1935) concerned the properties of the system that are observable. Indeed, Bohr thought about complementary classical setups of experiments. Two observables that cannot be measured jointly correspond to two setups of the device. In QIT there are complementarities between quantities that are not directly related to outcomes of measurements. Moreover, in Bohr complementarity there was no place for locality notion. In Oppenheim et al. (2002) we proposed a complementarity that involves the notion of locality. It describes the mutual exclusiveness of two processes, performed by means of state of compound quantum systems and classical communication between the subsystems that are distantly localised. One process (i) is to gain maximal amount $`I_l`$ of local systems in pure state. The second process (ii) is to communicate maximal amount of quantum information $`Q_D`$. Now let us observe that instead of performing one of the above two tasks optimally one can consider protocol $`𝒫`$ which produces some (may be nonoptimal) number $`I_l(𝒫)`$ of pairs in local pure state and leads also to transfer of some number of qubits with the rate $`Q_D(𝒫)`$. The protocol $`𝒫`$ performs two tasks but perhaps none of them optimally. It can be shown Oppenheim et al. (2002) that the following basic inequality holds:

$$Q_D(𝒫)+I_l(𝒫)I_l$$
(2)
One can think that information complementarity is trivial in a sense of the well known saying ”one cannot have a cake and eat it at the same time”. Indeed it seems natural to interpret our complementarity as follows: one cannot keep singlet for teleportation and at the same time to use it to obtain local information. This is of course not complementarity, and moreover it is completely trivial. However our phenomenon is not trivial, for the following reasons. Firstly, we do not consider trade-off between singlets and local information. Rather we consider trade-off between the following processes:

* how much qubits one can teleport through the singlet
* how many pure local qubits one can get from it a the same time

In fact it could happen that using one singlet one could teleport one qubit and also use the remaining state to draws 1 bit of local information, or at least some nonzero amount of local information. It would be so if in teleportation process did not produce two bits of entropy. However it has been shown in original paper on telerpotation Bennett et al. (1983) that one has to send two bits in teleportation process. This follows from causality. This fact is not obvious, but it is implication of quantum formalism.

So far we have shown that the phenomenon is non-trivial, yet it still can be called just trade-off, rather than complementarity. However there is another feature of our phenomenon that allows calling it complementarity. Namely if one decides to perform one task - teleportation of qubit, then one irreversibly looses the possibility to draw local information. And vice versa, if one chose to draw one bit of local information, one irreversibly looses possibility of teleportation of one qubit. As a matter of fact, one can think that after drawing local information one could reverse the process (investing now the information that has been drawn) to regain the possibility of teleportation. However we see that it is hopeless, because drawing local information destroys entanglement which irreversible process in LOCC paradigm.

### V.1 Local-Nonlocal complementarity out of basic principles

There is a question how fundamental is the presented complementarity. More precisely, is our complementarity an implication of say, properties of space-time and bare quantum formalism, or does it base on some additional, less fundamental assumptions? At first glance it seems that it bases on some specific additional, less fundamental assumptions. Namely it could be argued that more or less arbitrarily we allow only for classical communication between distant observers. Such an assumption is not of fundamental nature: the privileged role of classical communication comes from decoherence. The latter is on the consequence of specific form of physical Hamiltonians. Therefore distinction of classical communication cannot be regarded as a consequence basic properties of space-time and quantum formalism.

However we will now argue that our complementarity is indeed a more fundamental phenomenon. To this end, we cannot use LOCC as basis. To begin with, note that the notion of entanglement of pure states can be regarded as a consequence of locality and quantum description of compound systems. Indeed, since quantum interactions are local, in the sense that they decrease as the distance increase, then for spatially separated systems, local operations are natural. Since in quantum formalism, basic role is played by pure states, it is enough to define entanglement for pure states. We can do so by calling the pure state entangled, if it cannot be produced by local operations. The concept can be then naturally extended to mixed states, still without introducing a priori notion of classical communication, but simply by taking into account probabilistic nature of mixed states. A suitable definition of entanglement of mixed states is of course the one of Werner (the state is entangled iff it is not a mixture of product states).

Now the notion of entanglement itself will induce a class of operations, Namely we can single out those operations that do not create entanglement out of separable states (such a class was considered in Horodecki and Horodecki (1998)). The operations are not taken a priori, but are generated by the notion of entanglement, which in turn is a consequence of locality and quantum description of compound systems. We will call the operations SP (separability preserving).

Let us now consider another notion - information. Again, as argued in Horodecki et al.  it can be obtained from properties of basic quantum operations (unitary transformations, adding ancilla, removing ancilla) and requirement of having nontrivial theory of state transformations (i.e. that not all states can be obtained for free).

Having then two notions, information and entanglement, and associated two classes of operations, those not creating entanglement, and those not creating information (noisy operations NO Horodecki et al. (2003)), we can consider a class that is intersection of the two: the class that does not create information and also does not create entanglement (call this class N(oisy)SP). Let us repeat here, that this class is not an independent notion, assumed a priori: we have derived it from entanglement and information. This class is a tool, by which we can trace the flow of information while using the SP class. Now we can ask how much information can be localised (i.e. brought to product form - again the keyword locality is invoked) by SP (to this end we of course need to consider the joint class NSP). In this way we arrived at the notion of localisable information, without involving LOCC as basic notion. The complementarity between quantum communication via SP and localisation of information via SP can be now viewed as a pretty fundamental one.

Note that the class NSP is greater than the NLOCC one, so that the localisable information obtained here may be greater than the one defined by means for NLOCC. Thus we have modified a bit the quantity we used in derivation of complementarity in this paper. Yet, the modification does not change the main idea of interplay between local information and entanglement.

## VI Concluding remarks

To conclude, quantum information isomorphism allowed us to domesticate the ”great smoky dragon”- the reality that is between preparation and measurement. In particular it implies informational determinism, according to which quantum information carried by quantum states is processed deterministically. It is compatible with the generic information paradigm, according to which the notion of information is fundamental category in the description of physical reality. On this basis existence of unitary information field was postulated as a necessary condition of any communication (or correlation). In particular the double, hylemorphic nature of the unitary information field Horodecki (1990, 1991) involves two mutually coupled levels of physical reality: logical (informational), due to potential field of alternatives and energetic due to the fields of activities (events) <sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1In fact the coupling of these two levels was first explicitly recognised by Landauer Landauer (1961) and Bennett Bennett (1982).. The logical level naturally requires axiomatisation i.e. set of axioms that would extract facts that hold within quantum formalism and are essential for quantum information processing (cf. Horodecki and Horodecki (1998)).

Finally note that quantum informational isomorphism opens many interesting questions. For instance: is there intimate connection between symmetries in Nature and robustness of the quantum states against quantum noise Is there one two one connection between fundamental interactions and the spectrum of physical states? (For instance, why quarks states spectrum do not contain GHZ states?) Is gravitation somewhat distinguished in Nature? If so, has it influence on quantum information processing? Our hope is that quantum information isomorphism will allow for better understanding of fundamental processes in nature. Finally we would like to emphasise that quantum information isomorphism does not solve the well-known measurement problem, however it can serve as a guide for new interpretations of quantum mechanics, which would go beyond either of two extrema - Scylla of ontology and Charibdis of instrumentalism.

Acknowledgments .- The authors would like to thank Christofer Fuchs, Jonathan Oppenheim and Karol Horodecki for discussions on foundations of quantum mechanics.


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# On the non-thermal high energy radiation of galaxy clusters

## 1 Introduction

Galaxy clusters – the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe – contain many hundreds or thousands member galaxies surrounded by diffuse hot gas with temperature close to $`10^8`$K. Correspondingly, these objects are characterized by intensive thermal X-ray emission. At the same time, nonthermal processes connected with acceleration and radiation of relativistic particles play non-negligible role in the energy budget of these objects. In particular, diffuse radio emission with steep energy spectrum and low surface brightness is observed from many galaxy clusters (Giovannini et al. 1999). Polarization measurements provide strong evidence for the synchrotron origin of this emission. The recent reports of the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) “excess” emission and hard X-radiation (HXR) from some galaxy clusters represent new, although less firmly established evidence for nonthermal activity in galaxy clusters.

The first systematic search for nonthermal X-ray emission from six galaxy clusters by HEAO-1 resulted only in upper limits (Rephaeli & Gruber 1988). However, the recent studies with RXTE and BeppoSAX satellites revealed possible nonthermal X-ray component from a few clusters of galaxies. While there is clear evidence for nonthermal X-rays from Coma cluster (Fusco-Femiano et al. 1999; Rephaeli & Gruber 2002), the claims of presence of nonthermal X-rays in the spectra of other objects, e.g. Abell 2199 (Kaastra et al. 1999) and Abell 2256 (Fusco-Femiano et al. 2000), need further confirmation. The detection of diffuse “excess” radiation at lower energies (in the EUV band) from Coma (Lieu et al. 1996; Bowyer et al. 1999) and Virgo (Bowyer et al. 1996; Berghöfer et al. 2000) was initially interpreted as thermal radiation of warm intracluster medium, but soon it became clear that this radiation has most likely nonthermal origin (see e.g. Berghöfer & Bowyer 2002). Later, using the data of BeppoSAX LECs observations, Kaastra et al. (1999) reported detection of nonthermal emission from Abell 2199, however Bowyer et al. (1999); Berghöfer & Bowyer (2002) argued that this, as well as the claims of “excess” EUV emission from some other galaxy clusters (except for Coma and Virgo) were not adequately justified. On the other hand, the community seems quite confident in detection of nonthermal high energy radiation from the Coma cluster in both EUV and X-ray bands.

The radio and EUV/X-ray emission components from galaxy clusters could be tightly coupled, i.e. produced by the same population of electrons through the synchrotron and inverse Compton (IC) channels of radiation, respectively (Rephaeli 1977). Since the main target photons for the inverse Compton scattering are provided by the 2.7 K CMBR, the ratio of the radio and EUV/HXR fluxes depends significantly ($`B^2`$) on the intracluster magnetic field (ICMF), but is rather insensitive to the specific energy distribution of electrons. Since last several years the inverse Compton origin of the EUV/HXR “excess” has been explored by many authors (e.g. Hwang 1997; Bowyer & Berghöfer 1998; Sarazin & Lieu 1998; Atoyan & Völk 2000; Petrosian 2001; Brunetti et al. 2001; Tsay et al. 2002). The general conclusion of these studies is that if one interprets EUV and HXR emission as a result of inverse Compton scattering of electrons responsible for diffuse radio emission, ICMF cannot significantly exceed $`0.10.2\mu `$G, unless one introduces quite unusual assumptions concerning the energy spectrum and the pitch angle distributions of electrons. This is an order of magnitude lower than follows from Faraday Rotation Measures (RM) for several galaxy clusters (Clarke et al. 2001). Although, this discrepancy could be somewhat reduced within more sophisticated IC models and by adequate treatment of observational selection effects (Petrosian 2001; Rephaeli & Gruber 2002), it is important to search for alternative approaches and mechanisms for explanation of the EUV/HXR excess. Atoyan & Völk (2000) and Tsay et al. (2002) have shown that formally it is possible to accommodate, within the two-component IC models, the EUV excess from Coma even with high intracluster magnetic field. At the same time, they demonstrated that the hard X-ray emission cannot be reproduced by any inverse Compton scenario if magnetic field exceeds a few $`\mu `$G. It is clear that for explanation of hard X-ray emission from Coma one needs alternative radiation mechanism(s).

In particular, it has been suggested that HXR might be explained by bremsstrahlung of supra-thermal electron population (Enßlin et al. 1999; Blasi 2000; Dogiel 2000; Sarazin & Kempner 2000) This model, however, leads to unreasonably high energy requirements, given the fact that only a negligible ($`10^6`$) fraction of sub-relativistic electrons is released in the form of bremsstrahlung X-rays (Petrosian 2001). Recently Liang et al. (2002) suggested a revised version of this model assuming quasi-thermal distribution of electrons responsible for X-rays, and argued that this model could partly avoid above mentioned energetic problem.

In this paper we propose a new scenario for production of nonthermal EUV and X-ray emission in clusters of galaxies by synchrotron radiation of ultrarelativistic electrons. The key assumption of the model is that these electrons have “photonic” origin, i.e. are produced at interactions of very high energy (VHE) $`\gamma `$-rays with diffuse extragalactic background radiation. In this way the relativistic electrons are continuously implemented throughout the entire intracluster medium, and therefore, the resulting synchrotron EUV and X-ray emission should have diffuse morphology even in the case of a single point source of VHE $`\gamma `$-rays located in the cluster.

Below we discuss implications of this hypothesis for high energy nonthermal radiation from clusters of galaxies with some specific calculations for the Coma cluster which shows the strongest evidence for nonthermal emission at EUV and X-ray bands.

## 2 The model: motivations and basic assumptions

The proposed scenario is based on two assumptions: (i) the nonthermal high energy radiation of galaxy clusters is dominated by synchrotron radiation of ultrarelativistic electrons; (ii) these electrons have non-acceleration origin, namely, they are produced throughout the entire cluster volume in interactions of hypothetical primary very high energy $`\gamma `$-rays with the diffuse extragalactic radiation fields.

The synchrotron radiation of relativistic electrons is so far the most effective mechanism for production of X-rays in conditions typical for intracluster medium (ICM). Indeed, the characteristic time of radiation of synchrotron X-ray photons with energy $`E_\mathrm{X}`$: $`t_{\mathrm{syn}}5\times 10^4(E_\mathrm{X}/1\text{keV})^{1/2}(B/1\mu \text{G})^{3/2}`$ yr, is much shorter than any other relevant timescale characterizing radiative and other losses of electrons in these objects. Therefore for production of the EUV/HXR flux $`F_{\mathrm{EUV}/\mathrm{X}}`$ reported from the Coma cluster on the level of a few times $`10^{11}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}`$ a reasonable injection power of multi-TeV electrons in ICM is required, $`\dot{W}_\mathrm{e}L_{\mathrm{EUV}/\mathrm{X}}=4\pi d^2F_{\mathrm{EUV}/\mathrm{X}}3\times 10^{43}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$, where $`d`$ is the distance to the cluster (for Coma $`d100`$ Mpc). Note that this estimation is almost independent on the exact value of ICMF as long as the B-field exceeds $`3\mu \mathrm{G}`$. The current overall energy in these electrons, $`W_\mathrm{e}\dot{W}_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{syn}}`$, does depend on the magnetic field. For $`B=3\mu \mathrm{G}`$, $`W_\mathrm{e}10^{55}\mathrm{erg}`$. Assuming, a broad band (e.g. power-law) injection spectrum of electrons, this estimate can be increased by one or two orders of magnitude (depending on the spectral index and the low energy cutoff in the electron spectrum), but in any case it remains well below the total energy for electrons with energy between 100 MeV and a few GeV – $`W_\mathrm{e}\dot{W}_\mathrm{e}t_{\mathrm{IC}}10^{62}\mathrm{erg}`$, required by the IC models.

On the other hand, the high efficiency of synchrotron radiation of multi-TeV electrons in ICMF leads to other problems. It is over-efficient in the sense, that the short radiative cooling time of electrons requires an adequate acceleration rate in order to boost electrons to energies well beyond 100 TeV. Note, that in order to produce synchrotron photons of energy $`E_\mathrm{X}`$ one needs electrons with energy $`E_e140(E_\mathrm{X}/1\text{keV})^{1/2}(B/3\mu \text{G})^{1/2}`$ TeV. Although very high energy electrons can be effectively accelerated by strong accretion or merger shocks (Loeb & Waxman 2000; Inoue & Sasaki 2001; Miniati 2002; Blasi 2002; Gabici & Blasi 2003), even for most favorable conditions (allowing the acceleration to proceed in the Bohm diffusion regime), the maximum electron energy cannot achieve $`100`$ TeV which is required to explain the nonthermal X-ray spectrum of the Coma cluster reported up to 80 keV. Also, the short lifetime does not allow electrons to propagate away from the acceleration sites more than 1 kpc. Thus, the diffusive character of the observed EUV and HXR cannot be explained, unless we assume continuous (in space and time) production of electrons throughout the cluster. While the direct acceleration of multi-TeV electrons on $`1`$ Mpc scales in the intracluster medium seems a rather unrealistic scenario, such energetic electrons can be implemented continuously in the cluster as secondary products of interaction of high energy protons and $`\gamma `$-rays with ambient matter and photon fields (Aharonian 2002).

Since protons in galaxy clusters can be accelerated and effectively confined up to energies $`10^3\mathrm{TeV}`$ (Volk et al. 1996; Berezinsky et al. 1997) they unavoidably produce relativistic electrons through generation and decay of secondary $`\pi ^\pm `$-mesons. However, because of the low density of the intra-cluster gas, $`n10^3\mathrm{cm}^3`$, the p-p interaction time exceeds $`10^{19}\mathrm{s}`$, therefore the total energy in multi-TeV protons should be at least $`10^{63}\mathrm{erg}`$ in order to explain the EUV and HXR fluxes observed from the Coma cluster by electrons of “hadronic” origin.

The principal assumption of our model is that the ultrarelativistic electrons responsible for nonthermal high energy emission of galaxy are products of interaction of very high energy $`\gamma `$-rays ($`10^{14}10^{19}`$ eV) with soft photons of the cosmic diffuse background radiation. The mean free path of such photons is shown in Fig. 1. It varies in the range from 0.1 to 1 Mpc, which allows continuous injection of electrons in the entire volume of the cluster. This overcomes two problems that we face in the case of directly accelerated electrons – both related to the short synchrotron cooling time of electrons. The hypothesis of secondary origin of electrons do not have any intrinsic upper limit on the energy of electrons, and allows implementation of electrons in every point of ICM.

## 3 Results

The energy of the secondary, pair-produced electrons, and therefore the typical energy of their synchrotron radiation strongly ($`E^2`$) depends on the high energy end of the primary gamma-radiation. Below we discuss 3 different cases when spectra of primary $`\gamma `$-rays extend to (i) “conventional” energies of about $`10^{15}\mathrm{eV}`$ or less, (ii) to ultra-high energies exceeding $`10^{16}\mathrm{eV}`$, and (iii) extremely high energies extending to beyond $`10^{20}\mathrm{eV}`$. Although in all three cases the proposed mechanism works with almost 100 per cent efficiency transforming the energy of primary $`\gamma `$-rays to synchrotron radiation of pair-produced electrons, the resulting synchrotron radiation appears in essentially different energy bands. We apply this model for interpretation of the EUV and X-ray “excess” emission from the Coma cluster. Also, we discuss this mechanism in the context of future searches of $`\gamma `$-rays from clusters of galaxies.

### 3.1 Primary $`\gamma `$-rays with energy less than $`10^{15}\mathrm{eV}`$

We assume that a source or an ensemble of sources in the central part of the cluster radiate $`\gamma `$-rays with a constant rate and energy spectrum given by a “power-law with quasi-exponential cutoff”:

$$\dot{N}_\gamma (E)E^\mathrm{\Gamma }\mathrm{exp}\left[(E/E_0)^\beta \right].$$
(1)
We use in calculations the energy-dependent mean free path of gamma-rays shown in Fig.1. We calculate numerically the distribution of electrons and positrons (injection spectrum) produced by $`\gamma `$-rays from the central source(s) in each point of the cluster. The time-dependent spectra of pair-produced electrons are obtained taking into account their synchrotron and IC energy losses. Finally, spectra of synchrotron and IC radiation of these electrons are calculated. We assume that the secondary, pair-produced electrons are immediately isotropized, We also ignore the propagation effects of these electrons, i.e, assume that the electrons “die”, due to severe synchrotron losses, not far from their birthplace. For any reasonable intracluster magnetic fields this is a quite acceptable approximation. The propagation effect may become relatively important for low-energy electrons responsible for radio emission. However, within the assumed model we do not attempt to explain the radio emission, but rather assume that radio emission is due to relatively low energy electrons associated with nonthermal phenomena, that took place long time ago (see e.g. Enßlin & Sunyaev 2002). At the same time, radio emission produced by the cooled low energy (MeV/GeV) electrons in the framework of our model should not exceed the observed fluxes. This is an important condition which sets robust upper limit on the active time of operation of $`\gamma `$-ray sources and on their energy spectra.

In Figs. 2 and 3 we show the synchrotron and IC spectra of pair produced electrons in ICM, calculated for two values of the average ICMF: (a) $`B=6\mu `$G and (b) $`B=0.3\mu `$G, respectively. For both cases the following parameters of the $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum are assumed: $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2,\beta =1/2,E_0=700\text{TeV}`$. It is assumed that injection of $`\gamma `$-rays with a quasi-constant rate into ICM have been started $`10^7`$ yr ago. The fluxes shown are corrected for the intergalactic absorption due to interactions with the diffuse extragalactic background radiation fields adopting the distance to the source of 100 Mpc.

Figs. 2 and 3 demonstrate that for the chosen combination of parameters it is possible to explain the EUV and X-ray radiation by electrons of “photonic” origin. VHE $`\gamma `$-ray luminosities of about $`2\times 10^{45}`$ and $`3\times 10^{46}`$ erg/s are requited to support the reported EUV and X-ray fluxes for the cases (a) and (b) respectively. Assuming a low energy cutoff in the $`\gamma `$-ray spectra below 100 TeV one may significantly reduce these energy requirements. In the case (a) the value of ICMF is in agreement with the estimates derived from RM probes of the Coma cluster (Kim et al. 1990; Feretti et al. 1995). From the point of view of energy requirements, the preference obviously should be given to the case of strong magnetic field too. Actually, the case of low magnetic field, which predicts energy flux of the inverse Compton TeV $`\gamma `$-rays on the level of $`(23)\times 10^{10}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}`$ (see Fig. 3), is excluded by TeV observation. Such a flux hardly could be missed from the long-term observations of Coma by the HEGRA system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, even taking into account the extended character of this emission. The case of strong magnetic field predicts significantly reduced secondary $`\gamma `$-ray flux (Fig. 2), which however remains sufficiently high, so it can be probed by the next generation of Cherenkov telescope arrays.

In addition to the secondary $`\gamma `$-rays of IC origin, we should expect also primary $`\gamma `$-rays, even after intergalactic absorption which becomes significant already at energies above several TeV. The flux of primary $`\gamma `$-rays, determined by the normalization to provide the EUV and HXR fluxes by synchrotron radiation of secondary electrons, is shown in Figs. 2 and 3 by dotted line. It marginally agrees with the EGRET upper limit at MeV/GeV energies, and exceeds sensitivity of the HEGRA telescope system even assuming that the source is extended with angular size of about 1 degree, or $`\gamma `$-ray flux is contributed by many sources distributed over the cluster. This discrepancy can be removed if we assume anisotropic $`\gamma `$-ray emission, e.g. that $`\gamma `$-rays are contributed by a limited number of AGN with jets away from the direction to the observer. The conflict with the TeV upper limits can be overcome also assuming that the primary $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum is harder or contains low energy cutoff around 100 TeV. Such a cutoff could be a result of $`\gamma `$-ray absorption in the UV/optical/NIR fields inside the primary source(s). While with such an assumption we may dramatically reduce the flux of primary $`\gamma `$-rays in the observable ($`E10\mathrm{TeV}`$) energy domain, it cannot have a significant impact on the of synchrotron EUV and X-rays, because they are result of interactions of $`E100\mathrm{TeV}`$ photons with the diffuse background radiation.

Meanwhile, spatial profiles of the synchrotron radiation of the photoproduced electrons significantly depend both on the ICMF distribution and on the high energy cutoff in the spectrum of primary $`\gamma `$-rays. The dependence on the flux of the diffuse background radiation is less significant.

In Fig. 4 we show the surface brightness distribution of synchrotron radiation in different energy bands, assuming that the source(s) of primary $`\gamma `$-rays are concentrated in the central part of the cluster. The profiles are calculated for the same parameters as in Fig. 2. It is seen that with decrease of photon energy, the brightness distribution becomes broader. This reflects the reduction of the free path of $`\gamma `$-rays with energy. In this calculations we assume the average intracluster magnetic field of $`6\mu \mathrm{G}`$. In reality, the intracluster magnetic field should, of course, decrease at larger distances from the center. This should lead to sharper profiles, especially at high energies. On the other hand, if sources of primary $`\gamma `$-rays are more or less homogeneously distributed in the cluster, we should expect quite flat brightness distributions at all photon energies.

Comprehensive spectral and morphological studies of high energy synchrotron components in the spectra of galaxy clusters can provide a decisive test of the proposed model, and in case of confirmation would reveal unique information about the energy spectrum and angular distribution of “invisible” (absorbed in the way between the source and the observer) $`100`$ TeV primary $`\gamma `$-rays.

### 3.2 Primary $`\gamma `$-rays with energy exceeding $`10^{16}\mathrm{eV}`$

The energy of a $`\gamma `$-ray photon interacting with background radiation fields is shared between the secondary electron and positron. However, the major fraction of the energy of the $`\gamma `$-ray photon is transfered to one of the electrons. Therefore the maximum of the synchrotron radiation of secondary electrons is expected at energy $`h\nu 10(B/1\mu \mathrm{G})(\mathrm{E}_\gamma /10^{15}\mathrm{eV})^2\mathrm{keV}`$. Thus, if the spectrum of $`\gamma `$-rays extends beyond $`10^{17}\mathrm{eV}`$, the maximum of synchrotron radiation will be shifted to the $`\gamma `$-ray domain. Therefore, the spectrum of synchrotron radiation dramatically depends on the position of the cutoff energy $`E_0`$ in the primary $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum. For example, for $`E_0=10^{16}\mathrm{eV}`$, we obtain $`h\nu 1\mathrm{MeV}`$, while for $`E_0=10^{18}\mathrm{eV}`$, the synchrotron maximum appears in the energy range around 10 GeV.

This effect is demonstrated in Fig. 5 assuming that primary $`\gamma `$-rays have energy distribution given by Eq. (1) with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0`$; $`\beta =1`$, and (i) $`E_0=10^{16}\mathrm{eV}`$, (ii) $`10^{18}\mathrm{eV}`$ and (iii) $`10^{19}\mathrm{eV}`$, respectively. Note that these type $`\gamma `$-ray spectra can be formed by ultrahigh energy cosmic ray protons interacting with narrow-band radiation field. In this case $`E_0`$ is an order of magnitude less than the energy cutoff in the parent proton spectrum. On the other hand, the low energy part of the $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum ($`\mathrm{d}N/\mathrm{d}E=const`$) does not depend on the proton spectrum, but simply is result of the threshold of photomeson interactions.

The $`10^{16}10^{18}\mathrm{eV}`$ $`\gamma `$-ray can not only be effectively produced in AGN, but also can escape the production regions without catastrophic losses (see e.g. Neronov et al. 2002; Atoyan & Dermer 2003). Another site for production of extremely high energy gamma- rays could be the intracluster medium, where the highest energy, $`E10^{20}\mathrm{eV}`$, cosmic rays interact with the 2.7 K CMBR (Aharonian 2002). These interactions lead to copious production of secondary $`\gamma `$-rays, electrons and neutrinos with characteristic energy larger than $`10^{19}\mathrm{eV}`$.

In Figs. 5(a) we show the luminosities of synchrotron radiation of secondary electrons. It is seen that if in the case (i) the radiation of the secondary electrons peaks at MeV energies, in the case (ii) and (iii) the luminosity is dominated by GeV and TeV $`\gamma `$-rays, respectively. However, the very high energy $`\gamma `$-rays above 1 TeV suffer significant intergalactic absorption if sources are located beyond 100 Mpc. To demonstrate this effect, in Figs. 5b we show the expected $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes after correction for the intergalactic absorption, assuming that the source is located at a distance of 100 Mpc. Thus, for the assumed total luminosity in primary $`\gamma `$-rays of $`10^{44}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ and distance to the source of 100 Mpc, the resulting GeV and TeV $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes can be probed with GLAST and forthcoming arrays of atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. At the same time, because of limited sensitivity of $`\gamma `$-ray instruments in the MeV energy band, detection of the secondary synchrotron radiation initiated by $`10^{16}\mathrm{eV}`$ primary $`\gamma `$-rays would be very difficult, unless the power of primary $`\gamma `$-rays significantly exceeds $`10^{45}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$.

### 3.3 Non-thermal radiation resulting from decay of super-heavy primordial particles

In this section we discuss production of secondary electrons by $`\gamma `$-rays which are not associated with conventional accelerated processes, but are products of decay or interaction of primordial massive particles. These processes constitute the basis of the so-called “top-down” scenarios of production of highest energy cosmic rays (for a review see e.g. Bhattacharjee & Sigl 2000).

Decay or annihilation of weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) of the mass $`m_\mathrm{X}`$ results in 2 jets of hadrons, with energy $`m_\mathrm{X}/2`$ each. The products of hadronic jets are mostly pions – $`\pi ^0,\pi ^+,\pi ^{}(32\%\text{in each})`$ with a small fraction of energy released in nucleons ($`4\%`$). Decays of $`\pi `$-mesons result in $`\gamma `$-rays, electrons and neutrinos with mean energy of about $`10^{20}\mathrm{eV}`$. While neutrinos freely propagate through intergalactic medium, $`\gamma `$-rays cannot penetrate deeper than 10 Mpc because of interactions with diffuse extragalactic radio emission. While most of these $`\gamma `$-rays typically terminate outside of the cluster, the electrons from decays of charged $`\pi `$-mesons immediately radiate their energy through synchrotron channel in the form of $`\gamma `$-rays with mean energy $`E300(B/3\mu \mathrm{G})(\mathrm{E}_\mathrm{e}/10^{20}\mathrm{eV})^2\mathrm{TeV}`$. These $`\gamma `$-rays interacting with the 2.7 K CMBR and diffuse infrared background photons lead to a new generation of electrons which subsequently produce synchrotron EUV and X-rays as described in the previous section. It is remarkable that both the expected/predicted masses of X-particles and the magnetic fields in the galaxy clusters are in just “right” regions to yield, though the 2-step electron-photon conversions, a significant fraction of the mass of X-particles in the form of synchrotron EUV and X-radiation. Detailed calculations of this radiation require good knowledge of spectral distributions of secondary particles or the so-called fragmentation functions. The simplest form corresponding to a very flat spectrum of particles is approximated as $`\mathrm{d}N_\mathrm{i}/\mathrm{d}xx^{3/2}`$, where $`x=2E_\mathrm{i}/m_\mathrm{X}`$ is the dimensionless energy of the decay product of type i. Besides this “crude” approximation (called below as fragmentation function 1) in the present study we used four other, theoretically better developed approximations proposed by Hill (1983) (model 2), Berezinsky et al. (1997) (model 3), Berezinsky & Kacherliess (2001) (model 4) and by Birkel & Sarkar (1998) (model 5).

We performed calculation for several combinations of the intracluster magnetic filed strength $`B`$ and the mass of X-particle $`m_\mathrm{X}`$ in order to find the best fit to the reported fluxes. Results are presented in Fig. 6. The model parameters are presented in Table 1.

Since the relic X-particles have cosmological origin, we must assume that the process continuous over the age of the cluster of about $`1/H_010^{10}\mathrm{yr}`$. During this period the electrons cooled down to low energies and thus produce synchrotron radio emission. This provides a strict upper limit on the rate of decay of X-particles in order to prevent overproduction of radio emission.

The results presented in Fig. 6 show that with a normalization at the radio flux at GHz frequencies, and for chosen values for $`B`$ and $`m_\mathrm{X}`$, all five approximations predict EUV and X-ray fluxes which marginally agree with observations. However, the absolute normalizations used in Fig. 6 imply very high rate of appearance of highest energy electrons and $`\gamma `$-rays. Namely, the same rate of decay/annihilation of primordial massive particles in the Halo of our Galaxy, would result in 3 orders of magnitude higher flux of highest energy particles than the observed flux of cosmic rays. In order to avoid overproduction of highest energy cosmic rays, one has to assume higher density of X particles in the Coma cluster. Namely, while in the case of annihilation the density should be $`30`$ times higher than in the Galactic Halo, in the case of particle decays the density should be $`1000`$ times higher. Either case can not be easily accommodated within the current dark matter halo formation theories.

## 4 Discussion

The “excess” EUV and hard X-ray emission reported from several galaxy clusters is generally thought to be due to nonthermal processes in ICM. However, interpretation of this radiation within the most favored inverse Compton model poses serious difficulties. This model not only requires huge energy in accelerated particles, but also assumes intracluster magnetic fields which is significantly below the values derived from RM probes of galaxy clusters.

The synchrotron radiation of multi-TeV electrons which proceeds with almost 100 per cent efficiency, seems more viable channel for production of the “excess” EUV and X-ray emission. The challenge of this mechanism is the required energy of electrons – 100 TeV or more. The lifetime of these electrons and correspondingly their propagation are very short. No acceleration mechanism has been suggested so far, which could overcome the severe radiative losses and boost the electrons to such high energies. Moreover, such accelerator(s) should “operate” on $`1\mathrm{kpc}`$ scales in order to fill ICM with multi-TeV electrons.

In this paper we propose that these electrons have secondary origin, namely we assume that the EUV and X-ray “excess” emission is result of synchrotron radiation of secondary ultrarelativistic electrons introduced throughout the entire cluster continuously (in time and space) via interactions of very high energy $`\gamma `$-rays with photons from the 2.7 K CMBR and diffuse infrared background radiation.

Of course, generation of extremely high energy photons itself is not a trivial process, and, in fact, this assumption demands the main challenging question for the model. On the other hand, we know that the $`\gamma `$-ray spectra of BL Lac objects like Mkn 421 and Mkn 501 do extend to multi-TeV energies and do not show tendency, after correction for the intergalactic absorption, for a cutoff at least up to 20 TeV (see e.g. Aharonian et al. 2001). Therefore we may speculate that the energy spectra of these objects extend to 100 TeV or beyond. It has been recently argued that $`\gamma `$-rays of much higher energies can be produced in more powerful AGN (e.g. Neronov et al. 2002; Atoyan & Dermer 2003), or immediately in the intracluster medium due to interactions of highest energy cosmic rays with surrounding photon fields (Aharonian 2002). In this case, because the $`\gamma `$-ray spectra extent well beyond $`10^{15}`$ eV, the maximum of synchrotron radiation of the secondary electrons may appear in the $`\gamma `$-ray domain.

Also, extremely high energy $`\gamma `$-rays could be linked to the decay products of hypothetical super heavy particles from Dark Matter Halos. In this case the decay products – $`\gamma `$-rays and electrons (positrons) are produced with energies above $`10^{21}`$ eV. Their interaction with the surrounding photon and magnetic fields leads to appearance of the second generation of $`\gamma `$-rays with energies typically exceeding 100 TeV. The latters effectively interact with the diffuse extragalactic photon fields, resulting in electrons and positrons of second generation. And thus, the synchrotron radiation of these electrons will appear in the X-ray domain.

Above we applied this scenario for a specific case of Coma – a relatively nearby ($`d100`$ Mpc) galaxy cluster showing the strongest evidence of nonthermal emission in the overall EUV and X-ray bands. The numerical calculations demonstrate that the reported EUV and X-ray data can be adequately explained, within experimental uncertainties, for both high and low intracluster magnetic fields (see Figs. 2 and 3 ). However the value of the magnetic field has much stronger impact on the $`\gamma `$-ray fluxes produced through the inverse Compton scattering of the same electrons. In order to reduce the inverse Compton component of radiation down to $`10^{11}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}`$ (otherwise a positive signal would be seen in the HEGRA data) one must assume that the magnetic field exceeds $`3\mu `$G. This agrees very well with the RM probes of Coma (Kim et al. 1990; Feretti et al. 1995). This also makes more efficient the production of EUV and X-rays because in this case all kinetic energy of electrons is released through the synchrotron channel.

On the other hand, even in the case of high intracluster magnetic field one may expect quite large fluxes of direct (primary) TeV $`\gamma `$-ray emission. In particular, Eq.(1) with $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=2`$ predicts quite high direct TeV emission, even after correction for significant intergalactic absorption. This flux can be, however, suppressed assuming that $`\gamma `$-rays are produced in jets at large angles towards the observer (this would obviously imply that $`\gamma `$-rays are produced by a single or by a small number of AGN). Another possibility would be much harder spectrum of primary $`\gamma `$-rays (or the existence of a low energy cutoff) below 100 TeV. While these $`\gamma `$-rays do not interact effectively with diffuse background photon within 1 Mpc scales (and therefore they do not have significant impact on the spectrum of synchrotron radiation), this assumption can dramatically reduce the flux of primary $`\gamma `$-rays at TeV and lower energies.

The production of EUV and X-ray fluxes through synchrotron radiation requires electrons from 10 to 1000 TeV. Thus, the spectrum of primary $`\gamma `$-rays should extent to 1000 TeV or so. Such energetic $`\gamma `$-rays can be produced in individual galaxies, in particular in AGN, most likely due to proton-proton or proton-photon interactions. In both cases $`\gamma `$-ray emission is accompanied with high energy neutrinos of comparable flux. In contrast to $`10`$ TeV $`\gamma `$-rays, which are absorbed in the intergalactic medium, the neutrinos freely propagate through extragalactic photon fields and reach us. The expected flux of these energetic neutrinos is expected at the same level as for $`\gamma `$-rays if the latters would not be absorbed in the intergalactic medium, i.e. at the level of $`10^{10}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$. These fluxes can be detected by planned high energy neutrino detectors (see e.g. Halzen & Hooper (2002)), unless the primary $`\gamma `$-rays and, therefore, also neutrinos are not produced in the jets at large angles to the observer.

The maximum of synchrotron radiation strongly depends on the energy cutoff in the primary $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum, $`(h\nu )_{\mathrm{max}}E_0^2`$. If $`E_0`$ significantly exceeds $`10^{15}`$ eV, the synchrotron peak will be shifted to the $`\gamma `$-ray domain, from MeV to TeV energies, depending on $`E_0`$. If so, this scenario can compete with IC models of $`\gamma `$-radiation of clusters of galaxies (Keshet et al. 2003; Miniati 2003; Gabici & Blasi 2003). However, while the $`\gamma `$-ray spectra in the the IC models hardly could extend beyond 100 GeV (unless particle diffusion in the unshocked region proceeds in the Bohm regime, which however seems quite unlikely), in the proposed scenario of synchrotron radiation of electrons of “photonic” origin, the synchrotron peak could be easily shifted to TeV energies, assuming that the cutoff energy in the “primary” $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum exceeds $`10^{18}\mathrm{eV}`$. The proposed mechanism works with very high efficiency, providing GeV/TeV peak luminosities at the level of $`10^{43}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ for a relatively modest luminosity of about $`10^{44}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ in the primary $`10^{18}\mathrm{eV}`$ photons produced in all individual objects belonging to the cluster. If so, one should expect non-negligible contribution of $`\gamma `$-rays from rich clusters of galaxies into the diffuse extragalactic $`\gamma `$-ray background. However, it is difficult to give qualitative estimates of this contribution given uncertainties in the genuine extragalactic $`\gamma `$-ray background due to contamination caused by diffuse galactic radiation from high latitudes (Strong et al. 2000).

In this paper we inspected an interesting possibility that primary $`\gamma `$-rays may originate from the decay products of relic heavy particles like topological defects or WIMPs. Although this hypothesis can (marginally) fit the reported EUV and X-ray spectra from Coma, it requires strong, by a factor of 30 to 1000 enhancement of the dark mater density in Coma compared to the Halo around our Galaxy. This makes the hypothesis of cosmological origin of primary $`\gamma `$-rays quite unlikely.

We performed detailed numerical calculation in the framework of the proposed model for the Coma cluster, which shows so far the strongest evidence for nonthermal activity in the intracluster medium. On the other hand, the mechanism discussed in this paper may have non-negligible impact on radiation properties of other clusters of galaxies, especially those, which host strong central AGN or radiogalaxies, like M87 in the Virgo cluster or NGC 1275 in Perseus. If one assumes that these objects emit very energetic $`\gamma `$-rays, we should expect, in addition to the thermal component of X-rays, also nonthermal synchrotron radiation produced by secondary, pair produced electrons. If the energy spectrum of $`\gamma `$-rays extends to $`10^{15}\mathrm{eV}`$, one may expect significant amount of X-rays from the core of the cluster, given that the free path of $`10^{15}\mathrm{eV}`$ $`\gamma `$-rays is only $`10`$ kpc. If so, this hypothetical component of radiation should be taken into account in the treatment of X-ray phenomena from clusters of galaxies, in particular in the context of the on-going debates concerning the “cooling flows” (e.g Fabian et al. 2002; Colafrancesco et al. 2003). If identified, this radiation would also help to “recover” information about the $`100`$ TeV $`\gamma `$-rays which otherwise are not visible due to the intergalactic absorption.

Finally we note that search for synchrotron emission of electrons of “photonic” origin requires its identification and thorough separation from the thermal (optically thin bremsstrahlung) component, taking into account that these radiation components may have rather similar spectral shapes. Both components can be described by a power-law spectrum with “quasi-exponential cutoff”

$$F_\nu \nu ^\alpha \mathrm{exp}[(\nu /\nu _0)^\kappa ].$$
(2)
However, while the spectral index of thermal bremsstrahlung at energies $`h\nu kT`$ is $`\alpha _{\mathrm{therm}}=0`$, the spectral index of the synchrotron component is close to $`\alpha _{\mathrm{syn}}0.5`$. Thus, for the fixed cutoff energy $`h\nu _0`$, detection of an excess emission below $`h\nu _0`$ may be an indicator of the synchrotron component.

The cutoff energy for the thermal component is directly related to the temperature of the intracluster gas, $`h\nu _{0,\mathrm{th}}kT`$ (typically a few keV), and the spectrum in the cutoff region drops exponentially ($`k=1`$). The synchrotron cutoff energy depends on the intracluster magnetic field $`B`$ and on the cutoff energy in the primary photon spectrum $`E_0`$: $`h\nu _{0,synch}10(B/3\mu \mathrm{G})(\mathrm{E}_0/10^{15}\mathrm{TeV})^2`$ keV. For a certain combination of ICMF and the cutoff energy in the spectrum of primary $`\gamma `$-rays, the corresponding cutoff energy in the spectrum of synchrotron radiation may appear around a few keV, i.e. quite close the the cutoff energy expected in the thermal radiation component. On the other hand the spectrum of the synchrotron radiation in the cutoff region is described by the parameter $`\kappa \beta /2`$, therefore it drops as a plain exponent only for a specific distribution of primary $`\gamma `$-rays given by Eq.(1) with $`\beta =2`$.

Thus, although the position of the cutoff energy in the synchrotron spectrum may appear in the typical for thermal emission range of about several keV, the spectrum both below and above the cutoff energy generally should deviate from the thermal spectrum. It would be a challenge to search for such a component of radiation from the cores of galaxy clusters.

###### Acknowledgements.

Authors thank V. Petrosian for interesting discussion. AT acknowledges the financial support from INTAS, grant YSF-2002-229, and Russian Federation President Grant Program, grants NSh-388.2003.2, MK-895.2003.02.


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# On the efficiency of the Ultra Steep Spectrum tecnique in finding High-z Radiogalaxies

## 1 Introduction

The efforts made in the last three decades to build large samples of Ultra Steep Spectrum (USS) radio sources have been justified by a supposed high efficiency of this tecnique to select very distant galaxies. Its effectiveness derives from a combination of the (high) redshift of the source with an intrinsic steepening of the radio spectrum at high frequencies. In practice, distant sources with concave radio spectra, will have steeper spectral indices than similar sources at low redshift. It has been demonstrated (Tielens et al. 1979, Blumenthal & Miley 1979) that the introduction of a radio spectrum steepness criterium implied a large decrease of the fraction of object with optical counterparts identified on the POSS-I ($`R20`$). This was consistent with the steeper spectrum sources being, on average, at high redshifts. Surveys at low frequencies ($`\nu <400`$MHz) are particularly efficient in selecting radiogalaxies and have at least two benefits. One is that quasars contribute by no more than $`20\%`$ to the total number counts ; the second is that most of the detected energy arises from the radio-lobes with negligible contribution from the sources cores, where Doppler boosting can play an important role. In principle, as differential sources counts at $`400`$MHz show an excess over the Euclidean prediction in the range $`0.251`$Jy, a survey with such limiting fluxes should provide an unbiased sample of objects and a high fraction of high-redshift radiogalaxies (henceforth HzRGs) as well. The difficulty in picking-up these object arises from the large number of candidates to be targeted at optical; given the low intrinsic fraction of high-z objects in a radio survey, the majority of the targets will reveal to be unwanted foreground objects. It is thus of fundamental importance to introduce some kind of bias to reduce the number of HzRGs candidates.

In low-frequency radio surveys ($`178408`$MHz), the extragalactic sources with steep spectra ($`\alpha <1`$) are a small fraction of the total, typically no more than $`3÷5`$%, and this fraction lowers down to $`0.5`$% if more drastic cuts ($`\alpha <1.3`$) are adopted. Starting from large unbiased radio catalogs is thus essential to build-up conspicuous samples of USS sources. Selecting USS sources implies that the imaging/spectroscopic optical follow-up work is limited to a relatively small number of candidates, giving us higher chances of success. In addition, radio searches are not affected by dust/obscurement effects, contrarily to what happens with pure optical searches. The drawback is that the resulting sample may be not representative of the entire population of the high-z objects, since studies conducted on complete samples of classical double sources (Blundell et al. 1999) showed that sources with steep spectra at low frequencies tend to be smaller and more powerful with respect to sources with ’normal’ spectra. With the advent of the new all-sky surveys (WENSS, NVSS, FIRST), unprecedently deep and large USS samples have been selected (De Breuck et al. 2000), either to increase the number stastistics and to detect intrinsically fainter sources. These surveys virtually should have pushed the steep spectrum tecnique to its limit, in the sense that they are deep enough for any AGN class object to be detected even at the highest redshifts ($`z7÷10`$). Nevertheless, despite much has been published about the radio surveys and the properties of the USS sources, very few claims do exist about the real effectiveness of this tecnique in selecting HzRGs. The temptative estimate given by some authors (van Breugel et al. 1997), though quite realistic, resulted from such a mix of radio/optical/NIR biases that makes it impossible to disentangle the role of the radio spectrum steepness itself. The organization of the paper is as follows: the properties of the existing samples of USS sources are resumed in Sect. 2 and the procedure used to derive a quantitative estimate of the real effectiveness of the USS tecnique is described in Sect.3. Conclusions are summarized in Sect.4.

## 2 USS samples from the literature; radio and optical properties

Up to now many USS samples have been selected, as many groups started extensive searches for very distant radiogalaxies using the radio-spectrum steepness as a selection criterium. In practice, all the existing radio catalogs in the range of frequencies $`385000`$MHz have been combined together to build USS sources samples. When building an USS sample, it is common practice to perform a positional cross-correlation of the sources detected in a low-frequency survey with those of a high-frequency one, in order to calculate a two-point spectral index. The selection frequency plays an important role in determining the efficiency of finding HzRGs. An outstanding example is the sample of $`29`$ 4C sources (Baldwin & Scott 1973), whose counterparts were searched on the $`38`$MHz survey of Williams et al. (1966) by imposing the criterium $`\alpha _{38}^{178}<1.2`$. Twelve out of $`29`$ sources were found to be associated with Abell clusters with median redshift $`z=0.095`$. These low-frequency USS sources are almost exclusively found in rich clusters, and are often associated with extended radio haloes or relic structures. Syncrotron losses of an ageing population of emitting electrons, confined by the dense intra-cluster medium, may explain the unusual steepeness of their spectrum. On the other hand, radio spectra of the high-z USS sources do steepen at high frequencies due to a combination of syncrotron/inverse compton losses and the redshift. At low frequencies, a flattening of their spectrum may result from syncrotron-self absorption occurring in the sources hot-spots.

Though most of the USS sources samples from the literature have almost complete radio data, their optical follow-up programmes are often far from being completed. Deriving statistical results from these samples is not straightforward, as different selection criteria (e.g. spectral index, sources LAS, optical magnitude) were often mixed together to maximize the searching efficiency but the net effect on the final samples is not well understood. Moreover, the biases introduced by these criteria are almost impossible to disentangle as we usually deal with small samples spanning small ranges in radio luminosity. This is the reason why very few quantitative claims do exist on the real effectiveness of the USS tecnique in selecting high-z galaxies up to date. In Tables 1 and 2, we summarize radio and optical data of the most representative USS sources samples available from the literature.

From Table 2 it results that the existing USS samples are very effective in selecting very distant galaxies with roughly half of the objects being indeed radiogalaxies with redshift $`z>2`$. It should be noted, however, that apart the 6C$``$ sample which has complete optical information, the above statistics are derived from subsamples which represent only a small fraction of the original samples. In addition, some ’hidden’ selection criteria (e.g. a K-band magnitude lower-limit), sometimes adopted to better discard foreground objects (e.g. De Breuck et al 2000), make it difficult to assess the real efficiency of such a radio tecnique.

With the only exception of the 3CR, no other unbiased radio samples are available with complete radio and optical data as well. Nevertheless it is interesting to compare the properties of some unbiased samples with those of poorly biased samples such as the B3-VLA.

From Table 3, it results that the radio steepness bias, eventually coupled with an angular-size bias, increases the efficiency of selecting radio galaxies at redshifts $`z>2`$. Excluding the 3CR that contains only one RG with $`z>2`$, the other low-frequency radio surveys contain typically no more than $`10\%`$ of HzRGs. One of the most studied samples is the B2/1Jy (Allington-Smith 1982) which contains $`59`$ radio sources with $`1S_{408}2`$Jy. Out of $`50`$ radiogalaxies, $`42`$ have redshift information. This subsample has a median redshift $`z=0.798_{0.21}^{+0.22}`$ and median spectral index $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}=0.73_{0.02}^{+0.05}`$. It contains only $`2`$ USS sources with $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}<1`$, of which one is a radiogalaxy with $`z=0.79`$ and the other is unidentified. This sample includes $`12`$ RGs with $`1z<2`$, five with $`2z<3`$ and one with $`z>3`$; thus $`6`$ out of $`42`$ ($`14\%`$) B2/1Jy sources are indeed high redshift galaxies, though none of them would have been selected on the basis of the radio spectral index criterium. In the case of the B2/1Jy sample, the radio steepness criterium clearly fails to select the high-z radiogalaxies but, interestingly, if an angular-size cut like $`\theta <15^{\prime \prime }`$ is introduced, a total of $`30`$ objects are selected, including $`6`$ RGs with $`z>2`$. Thus, the angular-size bias itself would select all the B2/1Jy HzRGs with a global efficiency of $`0.2`$.

The B3-VLA sample (Vigotti et al. 2003; in preparation) has a mild spectral index bias, coupled with a relatively strong angular-size bias; for this reason it may be considered half way between the usual USS samples and the unbiased samples. For a typical low-frequency radio sample, a spectral index cut like $`\alpha <0.8`$ roughly implies half of the sources to be filtered out, while an angular-size bias such as $`\theta <20^{\prime \prime }`$ only implies $`20\%`$ of the sources to be excluded (see also Table 1). Since low-frequency radio samples all have small median sizes ($`10^{\prime \prime }`$), we can argue that the angular-size bias adopted for the B3-VLA sample has little influence on the final content of HzRGs. This result suggests that the expected increase of the fraction of $`z>2`$ galaxies is not seen in the B3-VLA sample mainly because of the mild spectral index cut adopted.

## 3 Testing the effectiveness of the USS tecnique

At present there are no radio surveys with complete radio and optical data that can be used to assess the validity of the USS searching technique (see Tables 2 and 3). The ideal sample to test the real effectiveness of this tecnique would be that with complete radio and optical information. Unfortunately, apart the well known 3CR and B2/1Jy samples, no other survey has a follow-up programme that reached such a degree of completion. While for the 3CR sample the very high limiting flux density virtually prevents any HzRG to be selected, in the case of the B2/1Jy sample the poor number statistics prevents any statistically significant result to be derived.

### 3.1 The MRC/1Jy sample - radio and optical data

Actually, the only available low-frequency sample, free of selection biases and with a reasonably complete radio/optical dataset is the MRC/1Jy sample selected by McCarthy et al.(1996) from the Molonglo Reference Catalogue (Large et al. 1981). In the following it will be shown that, despite a substantial redshift incompleteness toward the faintest magnitudes, this sample can provide a dataset five times larger than the B2/1Jy sample, well suited for statistical studies. VLA maps at $`6`$cm with typical resolution of $`13^{\prime \prime }`$ exist for all the MRC galaxies which allow a precise morphological classification. Kapahi et al. (1998) listed the flux densities at $`408`$MHz and $`4.86`$GHz for $`446`$ radio galaxies drawn from the MRC/1Jy sample. When the flux density at $`4.86`$GHz was not available, the value at $`1.4`$GHz was reported. To build-up a homogenous sample, essential for the present study, it was decided to get NVSS (Condon et al. 1998) flux densities for all the MRC radiogalaxies in order to re-define the spectral indices as $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}`$. This criterium closely resembles the original one adopted to select the MRC USS sample ($`\alpha _{408}^{843}`$, see Table 1). As the median spectral index for the $`446`$ MRC galaxies resulted to be $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}=0.85\pm 0.01`$, a ’canonical’ spectral index bias $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}<1`$ has been chosen to select this newly defined MRC USS sample. McCarthy et al. (1996) reported a $`96\%`$ identification fraction of the MRC radio sources down to the $`r=25`$ magnitude. To date, r-band magnitudes are available for $`334`$ of these $`446`$ MRC galaxies and redshift information is available for $`225`$ of these $`334`$ galaxies (McCarthy et al. 1996, Kapahi et al. 1998 and references therein). Thus, complete radio and optical data actually exist for a subsample of $`225`$ MRC radiogalaxies. Hereinafter the two samples of $`334`$ and $`225`$ RGs will be referred to as MRCB and MRCC respectively.

The r-band magnitude distribution for the MRCB sample has a median value $`r=21.3\pm 0.1`$ and it is shown in Figure 1. For comparison the median magnitude of the MRCC sample is $`r=20.7\pm 0.2`$. A redshift incompleteness toward the faint end is evident from Figure 1 as the $`109`$ sources lacking of redshift data preferentially lie close to the MRC optical identification limit, as confirmed by their significantly higher-than-average median magnitude ($`r=22.7_{0.2}^{+0.1}`$).

The redshift incompleteness of the MRCB sample can be assessed as follows. After dividing the sample into two subsamples, respectively fainter and brighter than the median magnitude, for each subsample the ratio between the number of RGs with and without redshift is calculated. In the bright sample, only $`16\%`$ of the RGs have no measured redshift but the fraction increases to $`51\%`$ for the faint sample, indicating a substantial incompleteness. The MRCC sample redshift distribution is shown in Figure 2. The median redshift is $`z=0.600_{0.017}^{+0.034}`$, but the objects fainter than the median magnitude $`r=20.7`$, have a significantly higher redshift $`z=1.03_{0.1}^{+0.09}`$.

A crucial point for our analysis is that the redshift incompleteness of the MRCB sample at faint levels could imply the MRCC sample has a lower-than-average content of USS sources. The fact that the median magnitude of the $`109`$ RGs with no redshift data is similar to that of the known USS samples ($`R23`$) could favour the above hypothesis. Nevertheless it can be demonstrated that this is not the case. According to our criterium, $`24`$ out of the $`109`$ RGs are also USS sources ($`22\%`$). A direct comparison between the USS content of the MRCB and the smaller MRCC sample gives respectively the values of $`18\%`$ and $`16\%`$; thus, the redshift incompletenss of the MRCB sample is unlikely to affect the MRCC sample, since only $`2\%`$ of USS sources are lost.

### 3.2 HzRGs and USS sources in the MRCC sample

The MRCC sample contains $`19`$ RGs with redshift $`z2`$ ($`8.4\%`$ of the total), $`12`$ of which are USS sources. As the sample contains $`36`$ USS sources, if no other selection criterium than the spectral index bias is applied, the efficiency would be $`0.33`$. This relatively high efficiency of the USS tecnique has the drawback that a significant fraction of genuine targets are lost; in this case, $`7`$ out of $`19`$ HzRGs ($`37\%`$).

### 3.3 The optical magnitude - radio spectral index plane

As the digitized POSS-I or POSS-II plates are normally used for the first step of any optical identification programme, let us assume that all the optical counterparts have been identified down to $`R20.5`$. In the case of the MRCC sample, this implies a reduction of the number of HzRGs candidates by a factor of $`1.7`$, with a consequent increase of the searching efficiency (now $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.14`$ instead of $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.08`$). At the same time, the efficiency of the USS technique also increases, reaching the considerable value of $`ϵ_{USS}=0.48`$. Thus, at least in the case of the MRCC sample, we conclude that by simply selecting the USS sources fainter than $`R20.5`$ one is guaranteed that half of the candidates will be HzRGs. To study the effect of different radio and optical biases on the MRCC sample, the radio spectral indices $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}`$ were plotted against the r-band magnitudes (see Figure 3). For comparison, data for the $`109`$ MRC galaxies without redshift are also plotted.

Since all the MRCC HzRGs are fainter than $`r=21`$, this value may be taken as a good starting point for our analysis. If the RGs with $`r21`$ are considered, a total of $`101`$ objects are selected; their spectral indices distribution is shown in Figure 4.

If only the USS sources would be targeted at optical, $`12`$ out of $`23`$ objects would result to be HzRGs, with a net searching efficiency $`ϵ_{USS}=0.52`$. Note however that $`7`$ HzRGs ($`37\%`$ of the total) would be lost as they are not USS sources. In contrast, if no radio spectrum criterium is adopted, there would be $`101`$ sources to observe at optical ($`4`$ times more telescope time); all the $`19`$ HzRGs would be selected, resulting in a final selection efficiency $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.19`$. Thus, when the search is limited to targets fainter than $`r=21`$ magnitude, the USS searching technique is about $`2.5`$ times more efficient with respect to the optical search. As expected, the overall telescope time investment is largely in favour of the radio selection technique. To increase the efficiency of the optical search, the number of candidates to be imaged could be reduced by adopting a more drastic bias in magnitude.Lowering the optical threshold down to $`r=22`$ reduces the sample to $`53`$ objects (see Figure 5).

With respect to the original MRCC sample, the number of objects is now reduced by a factor of four. Observing all these objects at optical ensures that $`16`$ out of the $`19`$ HzRGs contained in the MRCC sample are selected, with a net efficiency $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.30`$ ($`3`$ HzRGs are lost because of the magnitude limit). On the other hand, this subsample contains only $`17`$ USS sources, out of which $`10`$ are HzRGs. The USS technique thus has a remarkable efficiency $`ϵ_{USS}=0.59`$ but $`6`$ HzRGs ($`37\%`$ of the total) are lost as they are not USS sources.

Note that while $`ϵ_{OPT}`$ tends to increase when going to fainter magnitudes, $`ϵ_{USS}`$ remains almost constant around the value $`ϵ_{USS}0.55`$. Pushing the optical magnitude limit toward fainter values is not recommended as the size of the resulting sample (and its statistical strenght) drastically reduces and the fraction of HzRGs that are lost rapidly increases. For example, going to $`r23`$ implies that only $`23`$ RGs are retained. The optical search reaches its peak efficiency $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.43`$ with $`10`$ HzRGs being selected. However $`9`$ out of $`19`$ HzRGs ($`50\%`$) are lost as they are brighter than $`r=23`$. At the same time, the USS technique selects $`6`$ HzRGs from a total of $`11`$ sources, with an efficiency $`ϵ_{USS}=0.54`$. In this case $`13`$ out of $`19`$ HzRGs ($`70\%`$ of the total) are lost. Despite the expected loss of some HzRGs, the USS technique is again more efficient with respect to the optical search by about $`25`$ percent.

### 3.4 The role of the angular-size bias

Most of the existing USS samples were derived without imposing any angular-size bias (see Table 1). Nevertheless, even choosing unresolved sources in low-frequencies surveys such as Texas or WENSS, automatically implies an intrinsic angular cut-off of $`2^{}`$ and $`1^{}`$ respectively. The samples completeness may be affected by other factors. In the case of the Texas survey, the complicate behaviour of the beam of the interferometer (Douglas et al. 1996) implies that the resulting TN sample is only $`40\%`$ complete down to the survey nominal flux density limit (De Breuck et al. 2000).

To increase the efficiency of the USS tecnique some authors introduced a angular-size criterium to filter-out most of the foreground objects. Since the most distant objects should be among the faintest and the smallest ones, an angular size bias should increase the efficiency of finding HzRGs. The choice of the optimal cut-off value is quite arbitrary; though there are very few cases of known HzRGs with large angular sizes (4C 23.56 at $`z=2.483`$ has $`\theta =53^{\prime \prime }`$), most of them have $`\theta <35^{\prime \prime }`$ (Carilli et al. 1997). Adopting more drastic criteria such as $`\theta <15^{\prime \prime }`$, implies a reduction by $`30\%`$ of the total number of sources but it can lead to the exclusion of several good candidates. It can be demonstrated that the angular-size bias alone is effective to filter-out relatively bright and thus nearby objects. In fact, if all the MRCC objects are considered without any magnitude and size limit (see Fig.6), the optical search efficiency is only $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.08`$, while the USS efficiency is $`ϵ_{USS}=0.33`$, four times higher. If a $`\theta <15^{\prime \prime }`$ bias is introduced, we found that $`ϵ_{OPT}`$ and $`ϵ_{USS}`$ become almost twice as large (respectively $`0.15`$ and $`0.53`$).

On the other hand, the angular-size bias seems to have little or no effect when an optical bias has been formerly introduced. Let us consider the previously discussed case when the MRCC objects fainter than $`r=22`$ were selected. Again, if the above angular-size bias is applied, the efficiency of the optical and USS searches remains almost unchanged, being respectively $`ϵ_{OPT}=0.31`$ and $`ϵ_{USS}=0.57`$. This is somewhat expected since an optical bias like $`r>22.0`$ already selects those objects wich are, in principle, more distant and thus smaller.

To conclude, the introduction of a strong angular size bias such as $`\theta <15^{\prime \prime }`$, increases the efficiency in selecting HzRGs by a factor of two, independently on what searching technique is adopted (optical or radio). Note that the same increase of efficiency is obtained by selecting only those objects with $`r20`$, irrespectively of their angular size. The relative efficiencies of the optical and radio searching techniques as a function of different cuts in the magnitude and angular size distribution are summarized in Table 4.

## 4 Conclusions

In this paper the real efficiency of the Ultra Steep Spectrum tecnique in finding HzRGs is quantitatively demonstrated for the first time since this radio tecnique was introduced. Moreover, an updated view is given of the radio/optical properties of the most representative USS sources samples and the role of the spectral index and angular-size biases is discussed. A new sample of USS sources was selected from the MRC/1Jy sample (McCarthy et al. 1996; Kapahi et al. 1998). Since the available radio dataset is not homogeneous, the radio flux densities from the NVSS were used to re-calculate the spectral indices as $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}`$ and a conservative radio-spectrum bias $`\alpha _{408}^{1400}<1.0`$ was adopted to select the USS sources. Our USS sample thus consists of $`225`$ MRC radiogalaxies with complete optical and radio data and it was used as a benchmark to study how different radio and optical biases do affect a homogeneous population of radio galaxies. It was found that the USS searching technique is much more efficient in finding HzRGs than a conventional search based on the optical magnitudes of the RGs. If no restrictions are applied to the optical magnitudes distribution, the USS technique may be up to $`4`$ times more efficient than the optical one. The obvious drawback is that a substantial fraction of the HzRGs population may be lost because of the introduced radio spectrum bias. When considering galaxies fainter than magnitude $`r=20`$, the radio-steepness criterium guarantees that $`50\%`$ of the candidates are indeed HzRGs; this has to be compared with a mere $`15\%`$ of the optical search. Going to fainter magnitudes leads to a progressive increase of the efficiency of the optical search, that reaches its peak at $`r23`$ with a notable efficiency $`ϵ_{opt}=0.43`$ (see Table 4). Note, however, that half of the HzRGs of the sample are lost when applying such a strong optical bias. Interestingly, the efficiency of the USS tecnique $`ϵ_{USS}`$ remains stable around $`0.50÷0.55`$ irrespectively of the applied optical magnitude bias; going to fainter magnitudes only increases the fraction of genuine HzRGs that are lost (up to $`70\%`$ at $`r23`$). To conclude, even at the faintest optical magnitudes here studied, the USS tecnique is $`25\%`$ more efficient of an optical search in selecting HzRGs, with the remarkable difference that the radio tecnique already reaches a $`0.5`$ efficiency at the $`r20`$ magnitude limit. The advantage of the optical search is that, at least up to $`r=22`$, a much smaller fraction of HzRGs is lost with respect to the radio tecnique ($`15\%`$ instead of $`40\%`$). The introduction of an angular-size bias to the MRCC sample, such as $`\theta <15^{\prime \prime }`$, increases the searching efficiency by a factor of two, irrespectively of the searching tecnique adopted. However this additional bias has little or no effect when a magnitude bias such as $`r>20`$ is applied first to the sample, as it is the case when the first step of the optical identification program is done on the digitized POSS-I or POSS-II plates. This evidence suggests that the angular-size bias, sometimes used as an additional criterium, plays a secondary role with respect to the spectral index bias. This is also suggested by the finding that the USS samples actually adopting the steepest spectral index criterium and no angular-size bias (TN and WN samples; $`\alpha <1.3`$) are those with the highest efficiencies in finding HzRGs.

## 5 Acknoledgements

The author wants to thank the anonymous referee and the NA editor, Prof. G. Setti, for their useful comments and suggestions on the manuscript.