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# Simple Physical Picture of the Overhauser Screened Electron-Electron Interaction

## Abstract

As shown by Overhauser and others, the pair-distribution function $`g(r)`$ of a many-electron system may be found by solving a two-electron scattering problem with an effective screened electron-electron repulsion $`V(r)`$. We propose a simple physical picture in which this screened repulsion is the “dressed-dressed” interaction between two neutral objects, each an electron surrounded by its full-coupling exchange-correlation hole. For the effective interaction between two electrons of antiparallel spin in a high-density uniform electron gas of arbitrary spin polarization, we confirm that this picture is qualitatively correct. In contrast, the “bare-dressed” interaction is too repulsive, and does not have the expected symmetry $`V_{}(r)=V_{}(r)`$. The simple original Overhauser model interaction, independent of the relative spin polarization $`\zeta `$, does not capture the $`\zeta `$-dependence of the correlation contribution to $`g(r=0)`$.

The quantum mechanical many-electron problem is notoriously hard if all its degrees of freedom are taken into account. For both practical computational and conceptual purposes, however, it can often be replaced by a one- or two-electron problem with an effective external potential or electron-electron interaction, respectively. The effective potential that shapes the orbitals of the one-electron problem in Kohn-Sham density functional theoryKS ; PK  has been intensively explored, but the effective screened interaction that shapes the geminals of the two-electron problemKO ; VS ; Z ; RA ; Ov ; GS  has received less attention. Here we propose and provide some support for a physically-appealing “dressed-dressed” picture based upon the interaction between two neutral objects, each being an electron dressed by its surrounding exchange-correlation hole. In this picture, the “bare-bare” Coulomb repulsion $`1/r`$ is strongly screened out over the Wigner-Seitz radius $`r_s`$.

OverhauserOv  showed that the singlet geminals of an effective two-electron scattering problem can be used to estimate the on-top pair-distribution function $`g(0)`$ in a spin-unpolarized ($`\zeta =0`$) three-dimensional electron gas of uniform density

$$\overline{n}=3/4\pi r_s^3.$$
(1)
(We use Hartree atomic units where $`\mathrm{}=m=e^2=1`$.) Overhauser used an effective “bare-dressed” interaction between a bare electron and a neutral object composed of another electron and a concentric sphere of positive background charge of density $`\overline{n}`$ and radius $`r_s`$. Gori-Giorgi and PerdewGP1 ; GP2  used the same effective interaction, but solved the Overhauser model exactly and found a pair-distribution function $`g(r)`$ in close agreement with that of Quantum Monte Carlo calculations over the whole short-range region $`rr_s`$, for the physical density regime $`1r_s10`$. For the high-density ($`r_s0`$) limit, they found good agreement with the exactrassolov ; Geldart  $`g(r)`$ to order $`r_s`$. Since then, there have been many related studies for the three- or two-dimensional electron gas,ADPT ; DPAT1 ; APDT ; MM ; nagy  sometimes using constructions of self-consistent effective interactions following the general “bare-dressed” picture of Overhauser.KO ; Ov  Sum rules for the scattering phase shifts have also been derived.Z2

In this work, we consider a three-dimensional uniform electron gas with relative spin polarization

$$\zeta =(\overline{n}_{}\overline{n}_{})/\overline{n},$$
(2)
where $`\overline{n}=\overline{n}_{}+\overline{n}_{}`$ is the total density of Eq. (1). The pair-distribution function is then

$$g(r)=\left(\frac{1+\zeta }{2}\right)^2g_{}(r)+\left(\frac{1\zeta }{2}\right)^2g_{}(r)+\frac{(1\zeta ^2)}{2}g_{}(r),$$
(3)
where only $`g_{}`$ contributes at $`r=0`$ because of the Pauli principle. $`\overline{n}g(r)`$ is the average density of electrons at $`r`$ when an electron is at the origin, and $`\overline{n}[g(r)1]`$ is the density of the exchange-correlation hole at full coupling strength, which carries a charge equal and opposite to that of the electron it surrounds:GP2

$$_0^{\mathrm{}}𝑑r\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}4}\pi r^2\overline{n}[g(r)1]=1,$$
(4)
with the same equation for $`\overline{n}_{}[g_{}(r)1]`$ and $`\overline{n}_{}[g_{}(r)1]`$. We focus on the effective interaction $`V_{}(r)`$ between two electrons of opposite spin in the high-density ($`r_s0`$) limit, since in this case correlation can be neglected and the interaction is purely electrostatic. Thus we can evaluate the “bare-dressed” and “dressed-dressed” models exactly and compare the predictions of both to the exact pair-distribution functionrassolov ; Geldart ; BPE  whose short-ranged part is dominated by $`V_{}(r)`$. We do not explicitly discuss the electron-electron scattering effects on transport properties, which are a second important application of the effective two-electron problem.KO ; VS ; RA ; nagy  We note however that the expected symmetry $`V_{}=V_{}`$ of the effective interaction for $`\zeta 0`$ is only achieved by the “dressed-dressed” picture, not by the “bare-dressed” one.

Spin-unpolarized gas– In the Overhauser approachOv ; GP1  to electronic correlation in the unpolarized ($`\zeta =0`$) uniform gas, the many-electron problem is reduced to a scattering event between two electrons in a suitable effective potential $`V(r,r_s)`$, with a corresponding radial Schrödinger equation:

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{d^2}{dr^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)}{r^2}}V(r,r_s)+k^2\right]u_{\mathrm{}}=0,`$
$`u_{\mathrm{}}=krR_{\mathrm{}}(r,k,r_s).`$ (5)
The presence of the other electrons is taken into account in two ways: (i) via $`V(r,r_s)`$, (ii) via an average over the possible relative momentum $`k=\frac{1}{2}|𝐤_1𝐤_2|`$ of the scattering event. The exchange symmetry between the two electrons is ensured via a proper summation over the partial waves $`\mathrm{}`$; the resulting spin-resolved pair-distribution functions are thenGP1

$`g_{}(r,r_s)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{\mathrm{}=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2\mathrm{}+1)R_{\mathrm{}}^2(r,k,r_s),`$ (6)
$`g_{}(r,r_s)`$ $`=`$ $`2{\displaystyle \underset{\stackrel{\mathrm{}=1}{\mathrm{odd}\mathrm{}}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}(2\mathrm{}+1)R_{\mathrm{}}^2(r,k,r_s),`$ (7)
where the symbol $`\mathrm{}`$ denotes the average over the probability $`p(k)`$ (obtained from the momentum distribution of the ideal Fermi gasGP1 ). Overhauser’s original choiceOv  for $`V(r,r_s)`$ was the potential of an electron surrounded by a Wigner-Seitz sphere of uniformly distributed positive charge:

$`V(r,r_s)=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{r_s}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{s}}+{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{2}}{\displaystyle \frac{3}{2}}\right)`$ $`(rr_s)`$ (8)
$`0`$ $`(r>r_s),`$
where

$$s=r/r_s$$
(9)
is a scaled variable. As said, this simple potential gave surprisingly accurate resultsGP1  for the short-range ($`rr_s`$) part of the unpolarized-gas $`g(r)`$, at metallic and lower electron densities. The result for the high-density ($`r_s0`$) limit was also quite accurate: the form of the screened Overhauser potential ensures that the correction to the noninteracting gas for $`r_s0`$ is of first order in $`r_s`$, as in the exact perturbative result:rassolov

$$g_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}(s,r_s0)=g_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}^{(0)}(s)+r_sg_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}^{(1)}(s)+o(r_s),$$
(10)
where $`g^{(0)}`$ is the pair-distribution function of the noninteracting gas. (Eq. (10) is valid for $`r\sqrt{r_s}`$.) In particular, for the value of the $``$ pair-correlation function at contact ($`r=0`$), the solution of the Overhauser model givesGP1  $`g_{}(r=0,r_s0)=10.694r_s+o(r_s)`$, in reasonable agreement with the exact resultGeldart  $`10.732r_s+o(r_s)`$. Nagy et al.nagy  have shown that the high-density form $`g_{}(r=0,r_s0)=1\lambda r_s+o(r_s)`$ is guaranteed when Eqs. (5)-(7) employ a screened potential with screening length $`r_s`$. For finite $`r`$, the $`r_s0`$ form of Eq. (10) is satisfied, within the Overhauser approach, if the potential $`V(r,r_s)`$ is such that

$$V(r,r_s0)=\frac{1}{r_s}U(s).$$
(11)
The Overhauser potential of Eq. (8) fulfills Eq. (11) at all $`r_s`$.

Spin-polarized gas – In the original formulation of the Overhauser model,Ov  information on the spin polarization state of the electron gas only enters through the probability distribution for the relative momentum $`k`$. The potential, purely based on classical electrostatic arguments, is independent of $`\zeta `$. The probability functions $`p_\zeta ^{\sigma \sigma ^{}}(k)`$ are given in Eqs. (42)-(44) of Ref. GP1, , where, however, the calculations for the Overhauser model with $`\zeta 0`$ have not been carried out. Instead, a scaling relation has been proposed.

Here, we carry out the calculations for the high-density limit with the correct $`p_\zeta ^{}(k)`$, and we find a very weak $`\zeta `$ dependence of the first-order correction $`\lambda (\zeta )`$ to the on-top value,

$$g_{}(r=0,r_s0,\zeta )=1\lambda (\zeta )r_s+o(r_s),$$
(12)
as shown in Fig. 1. This is due to the weakOv  $`k`$ dependence of the short-range part of the $`s`$-wave radial wavefunction $`R_0(r0,k,r_s)`$ of Eq. (5). An explicit dependence on $`\zeta `$ in the effective potential is thus needed in order to reproduce the correct behaviorrassolov ; BPE  of the short-range part of $`g(r)`$ in the spin-polarized electron gas. Moreno and MarinescuMM  have recently applied the Overhauser model to the two-dimensional electron gas, finding an extremely weak $`\zeta `$ dependence of the on-top value. Our Fig. 1 suggests that their result could be an artifact of their $`\zeta `$-independent effective interaction.

Effective interaction for opposite-spin electrons – In the high-density limit, a simple physically-motivated effective potential for antiparallel-spin interactions, which depends on $`\zeta `$ and has the symmetry $`=`$, can be obtained in the following way. Consider two electrons of opposite spin in a uniform electron gas in the high-density limit. Each electron induces around itself an exchange hole, forming a neutral object. The effective potential can be approximated with the electrostatic interaction between two neutral or “dressed” objects. When $`\zeta =0`$, each electron is surrounded by a compact exchange hole, leading to effective screening of the Coulomb repulsion. But as $`\zeta `$ approaches 1, the exchange hole around the minority spin will become shallow and broad, so the Coulomb repulsion will be less well screened.

The two charge distributions are then

$`\rho _1(𝐱)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta (𝐱)+\overline{n}_{}[g_x^{}(𝐱)1]`$ (13)
$`\rho _2(𝐱)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta (𝐱𝐫)+\overline{n}_{}[g_x^{}(𝐱𝐫)1],`$ (14)
and the corresponding electrostatic potential is given by

$$V(r,r_s,\zeta )=𝑑𝐱𝑑𝐱^{}\frac{\rho _1(𝐱)\rho _2(𝐱^{})}{|𝐱𝐱^{}|}.$$
(15)
$`V(r,r_s,\zeta )`$ can be computed analytically: its Fourier transform $`\stackrel{~}{V}(k,r_s,\zeta )`$ is equal to

$$\stackrel{~}{V}(k,r_s,\zeta )=\frac{4\pi }{k^2}+v_1(k,r_s,\zeta )+v_2(k,r_s,\zeta )+v_3(k,r_s,\zeta ),$$

with

$`v_1`$ $`=`$ $`[S_x^{}(k,r_s,\zeta )1]{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k^2}}`$ (16)
$`v_2`$ $`=`$ $`[S_x^{}(k,r_s,\zeta )1]{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k^2}}`$ (17)
$`v_3`$ $`=`$ $`[S_x^{}(k,r_s,\zeta )1][S_x^{}(k,r_s,\zeta )1]{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi }{k^2}},`$ (18)
where $`S_x^{\sigma \sigma }`$ are the exchange-only static structure factors,

$`S_x^{\sigma \sigma }=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{3}{4}}{\displaystyle \frac{k}{k_F^\sigma }}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{k}{k_F^\sigma }}\right)^3`$ $`(k2k_F^\sigma )`$ (19)
$`1`$ $`(k>2k_F^\sigma ),`$
with $`k_F^\sigma =(1+\mathrm{sgn}(\sigma )\zeta )^{1/3}k_F`$, $`k_F=(\frac{9\pi }{4})^{1/3}r_s^1`$, and $`\mathrm{sgn}(\sigma )=+1`$ for spin-$``$ and $`1`$ for spin-$``$ electrons. The exchange-only pair-distribution function $`g_x`$ only depends on $`r_s`$ through the scaled variable $`s=r/r_s`$. This ensures that $`V(r,r_s,\zeta )=\frac{1}{r_s}U(s,\zeta )`$, as required by Eq. (11). The dimensionless potential $`U(s,\zeta )`$ is screened for $`s1`$, and goes to zero, when $`s\mathrm{}`$, as $`s^4`$. Its $`\zeta `$ dependence is the one expected from the qualitative arguments given above, as shown in Fig. 2: when $`\zeta 1`$ the potential is less and less screened; for $`\zeta `$ exactly equal to 1 (but only in this case) $`U(s\mathrm{},\zeta =1)`$ goes to zero as $`s^2`$.

Using the effective potential $`U(s,\zeta )`$ in the Overhauser scheme, we calculated the $``$ high-density pair-correlation functions, $`g_{}^{(1)}`$, for different values of the spin-polarization $`\zeta `$. They are shown in Fig. 3: the qualitative behavior is very similar to the exact one of Fig. 1 of Rassolov et al.rassolov  This is more evident in our Fig. 1, where the function $`\lambda (\zeta )/\lambda (0)`$ is compared with the exact result.

While the $`\zeta `$ dependence of $`g_{}^{(1)}(s,\zeta )`$ obtained from the simple potential $`U(s,\zeta )`$ is rather good, the quantitative agreement with the exact result when $`\zeta =0`$ is less accurate than the result obtained with the original Overhauser potential. This is shown in Fig. 4: we see that for small $`s`$, $`g_{}^{(1)}`$ obtained with $`U(s,\zeta )`$ of Eq. (15) is too deep, while the original Overhauser potential of Eq. (8) gives a result which is slightly less deep than the exact one. This means that the original Overhauser potential of Eq. (8) is slightly too screened in the $`r_s0`$ limit, while $`U(s,\zeta =0)`$ of Eq. (15) is not screened enough in the same limit. The “exact” effective potential for the high-density limit should thus lie in between the two curves “Overhauser” and “dressed-dressed” of Fig. 5. In the same figure we also show the bare Coulomb potential, and the “bare-dressed” potential (obtained from the interaction of a “bare” electron with a “dressed” electron, i.e., surrounded by its exchange hole), whose Fourier transform $`\stackrel{~}{V}_1(k,r_s,\zeta )`$ is

$$\stackrel{~}{V}_1(k,r_s,\zeta )=\frac{4\pi }{k^2}+v_1(k,r_s,\zeta ),$$
(20)
where $`v_1`$ is given in Eq. (16). The “bare-dressed” potential is “philosophically” closer to the original picture of OverhauserKO ; Ov  and to the high-density limit of the self-consistent Hartree approximation of Davoudi et al.DPAT1  We see that the “bare-dressed” potential is much less screened that the “dressed-dressed” one and thus corresponds to a a deeper (i.e., further from the exact result) $`g_{}^{(1)}`$, as shown in Fig. 4.

The “bare-dressed” potential encounters severe problems for the calculation of $`\lambda (\zeta )/\lambda (0)`$ of Fig. 1. When $`\zeta 1`$, each majority $``$ electron dresses itself in an exchange hole deeper and more short-ranged than for $`\zeta =0`$, while each minority $``$ electron undresses. So the interaction between a bare $``$ and a dressed $``$ becomes less repulsive as $`\zeta `$ increases from 0, reducing $`\lambda (\zeta )/\lambda (0)`$. If we try to symmetrize using the interaction of a hypothetical bare $``$ with a dressed $``$, we find that this interaction tends to the unscreened $`1/r`$ as $`\zeta 1`$.

Conclusions – We have proposed a simple “dressed-dressed” picture for the effective screened electron-electron interaction that shapes the geminals and thus the pair distribution function of a many-electron system. In this picture, the interaction is between two neutral objects, each an electron dressed by its exchange-correlation hole. For two electrons of opposite spin in a high-density electron gas of arbitrary spin polarization, where the “dressed-dressed” and “bare-dressed” interactions can be evaluated exactly, we have shown that the “dressed-dressed” picture is qualitatively correct. In future work, it may be possible to construct the “dressed-dressed” $`V_{\sigma \sigma ^{}}(r)`$ for all $`r_s`$ and $`\zeta `$, using density functional theoryKS ; PK  to describe the additional exchange-correlation terms that arise when $`\sigma ^{}=\sigma `$ or $`r_s0`$.

MC and PG-G acknowledge discussions with G.B. Bachelet and S. Caprara, and financial support from MIUR through COFIN2001. JPP acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation under grant DMR 01-35678.


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# Direct Test of the Time-Independence of Fundamental Nuclear Constants Using the Oklo Natural Reactor 11footnote 1Lecture given at ATOMKI, 18 November, 1982. This document was re-entered manually; scanned original is available at http://alexonline.info . This document was uploaded to arXiv.org by Ilya Shlyakhter (contact info at http://ilya.cc) after the death of its author.

## 1 Introduction

The following eight quantities enter the basic laws of physics and are generally regarded as the “fundamental constants” (I follow Dyson’s review  in this section).

1. $`c=310^{10}cmsec^1`$, velocity of light
2. $`\mathrm{}=1.0510^{27}ergsec`$, Planck’s constant
3. $`e=4.810^{10}erg^{1/2}cm^{1/2}`$, elementary charge
4. $`m_p=1.610^{24}gram`$, mass of the proton
5. $`g=1.410^{49}ergcm^3`$, Fermi’s constant of weak interactions
6. $`G=6.710^8ergcmgram^2`$, constant of gravitation
7. $`H=1.610^{18}sec^1`$, Hubble’s constant ($`1/H210^{10}`$ years gives the “age” of the Universe)
8. $`\rho =10^{31}gramcm^3`$, mean density of mass in the Universe

This list is not exhaustive, of course. In particular, the constants of strong interactions could be added to it.

The “cosmological” quantities $`H`$ and $`\rho `$, which refer to the Universe as a whole, vary as it expands: they are decreasing at the rate of about $`510^{11}yr^1`$. On the other hand, the “laboratory” quantities 1)-6) are generally believed to be exactly constant. Milne  and Dirac  were the first to notice that this is no more than a hypothesis, requiring experimental confirmation.

I’d like to emphasize that only those variations of fundamental constants which change at least one dimensionless ratio of the dimensional quantities have physical meaning. The reason is that only such ratios do not depend on the choice of units and standards.

From the dimensional quantities 1) - 8) five dimensionless ratios can be formed:

1. $`\alpha =e^2/\mathrm{}c1/137`$
2. $`\beta =(gm_p^2c)/\mathrm{}^3=910^6`$
3. $`\gamma =(Gm_p^2)/(\mathrm{}c)=510^{39}`$
4. $`\delta =(H\mathrm{})/(m_pc^2)=10^{42}`$
5. $`ϵ=(G\rho )/H^2=210^3`$

Note that the inverse of $`\delta `$ gives $`\delta ^1=10^{42}`$ which is the age of the Universe measured in “tempons” (atomic units of time).

According to the conventional view the ratios of the “laboratory” quantities $`\alpha `$, $`\beta `$, and $`\gamma `$ did not change their numerical values during the 20 billion years since the “Big Bang”.

The Conventional View: $`\alpha ,\beta ,\gamma =const;\beta t^1,\gamma t^1`$.

Dirac  introduced the “Numerological Principle” (or “The Large Numbers Hypothesis” (LNH) which states that “all very large dimensionless numbers which can be constructed from the important natural constants of cosmology and atomic theory are connected by simple mathematical relations involving coefficients of the order of magnitude unity” \[3b\]. For example, the large value of $`\gamma ^1`$ could prove compatible with the numerological principle if it was proportional to $`\delta ^1`$ and thus was time-dependent.

The majority of the proposed versions of the possible variation of constants is based on similar arguments. Three of them are listed below (see ).

* Dirac (1937): $`\alpha ,\beta ,ϵ=const;\gamma t^1,\delta t^1`$
* Teller (1948): $`\beta ,ϵ=const,\alpha ^1\mathrm{ln}(\gamma ^{}1),\gamma t^1,\delta t^1`$
* Gamow (1967): $`\beta ,\gamma ,ϵ=const,\alpha t,\delta t^1`$

These versions predict the rate of variation of constants at the present epoch about $`10^{10}10^{12}yr^1`$.

## 2 Experimental Limits on the Rate of Variation of “Nuclear” Constants

(The limits of the possible change of the constant of gravitation are discussed in ).

Direct experimental evidence comes either from astrophysics or from geophysics. Astrophysical data allow judgement on the large-scale uniformity of physical laws in space (at distances up to 15 billion light years). Geophysical ones provide evidence on the absence of variation of constants along the world-line of the Earth since its crust became solid ($``$ 4.5 billion years ago).

The data on the absorption spectra of the distant quasars show that the numerical value of the dimensionless quantity $`|\alpha ^2g_pm_e/m_p|`$ is the same throughout the observable Universe with the accuracy of about $`10^4`$ . If one assumes the Friedman model, this limit restricts the possible rate of variation of $`\alpha `$ by $`10^{14}yr^1`$.

The decay rate $`\lambda `$ of radioactive nuclide depends on nuclear constants. For example, in the case of high $`Z`$ and small decay energy $`\delta `$ the $`\beta `$-decay rate $`\lambda _\beta `$ is highly sensitive to the value of $`\alpha `$. The estimate of the “sensitivity” $`s`$ gives

$$s\frac{\delta \lambda _\beta }{\lambda _\beta }/\frac{\delta \alpha }{\alpha }=(2Z+1)(2+\sqrt{1\alpha ^2Z^2})A^{1/3}0.6[MeV/\mathrm{\Delta }]$$

For the transition $`{}_{75}{}^{187}\text{Re}_{76}^{187}\text{Os}`$ ($`\text{T}_{1/2}40`$ billion years, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=2.5`$ keV), this estimate gives $`s=210^4`$. Using the data on the abundances of rhenium and osmium isotopes, Dyson  obtained the following upper limit on the rates of variation of $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$:

$$\text{Dyson (1972): }\left|\frac{\dot{\alpha }}{\alpha }\right|210^{14}yr^1,\left|\frac{\dot{\beta }}{\beta }\right|10^{10}yr^1$$

If one assumes that $`\beta `$ does not change with time, the limit for $`\alpha `$ is:

$$|\dot{\alpha }/\alpha |510^{15}yr^1$$

.

## 3 Neutron Resonances as the Sensitive Indicators of the Variation of Nuclear Constants

Several years ago I noticed that because of the sharp resonances in its absorption cross-section, the heavy nucleus is a highly tuned detector of neutrons. Resonances will shift along the energy scale if there is a change in the nuclear potential, by analogy with the shift in the reception frequency in an ordinary radio receiver when there is a change in the parameters of the resonance circuit .

For the incident neutron, the nucleus presents a potential well with the depth of about $`V_0=50`$ MeV. At low neutron energy the cross-section exhibits sharp resonances (Fig. 1). Their positions are measured with the accuracy $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}10^2`$ eV. Thus, there are two energy scales: $`V_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}`$. Any change of $`V_0`$ by $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_0`$ would cause the shift of all nuclear levels including the levels of compound nucleus, i.e. neutron resonances (Fig. 2).

The dimensionless quantity entering this problem is the ratio of the depth of the potential well $`V_0`$ to the uncertainty in the resonance energy $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}`$. This suggests that variations of the basic nuclear parameters are amplified in the shift of resonances by an enormous factor $`s10^{10}`$.

Unfortunately, it seems very difficult to calculate consistently the shift of a given neutron resonance caused by the variation of the fundamental nuclear constants. Here I shall use the simplest assumption that neutron resonances are shifted by $`\mathrm{\Delta }V_0`$ like single-particle levels in a potential well. Then the experimental evidence showing that the shift of the resonances during the time period $`T`$ has not exceeded $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}`$ imposes the following limits on the possible variation of the interaction constants:

* strong: $`|\dot{V_0}/V_0|\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}/(V_0T)=210^8\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}(eV)/T(yrs)`$
* electromagnetic: $`|\dot{\alpha }/\alpha |20|\dot{V_0}/V_0|`$
* weak: $`|\dot{\beta }/\beta |510^6|\dot{V_0}/V_0|`$

I follow Gamow \[5b\] in assuming that the variation of the strong interaction constants is adequately reproduced by the change in the depth of the nuclear potential well. The estimate for $`|\dot{\alpha }/\alpha |`$ is based on the equation of nuclear compressibility . For nuclei with $`A150`$ the change in the radius appears to be 40 times less than the change in $`\alpha `$ and the corresponding shift of the levels is 20 times less. The limit for $`|\dot{\beta }/\beta |`$ is obtained assuming that the contribution of weak interactions to the nuclear binding energy is of the order of $`210^7`$ .

These estimates demonstrate that if there existed a Precambrian physicist who could measure the energies of the neutron resonances about a billion years ago with an accuracy about $`10^2`$ eV then the limits of the possible variation of the fundamental nuclear constants could be improved by several orders of magnitude. The striking discovery of the “Oklo natural nuclear reactor” proves that such seemingly improbable experiment has been actually performed nearly 2 billion years ago and the results have been reliably “recorded” in the isotopic composition of the elements in the reactor core.

## 4 The Oklo Phenomenon

Oklo is the name of a locality in the Gabon Republic (West Africa) where the open-pit uranium mine is situated. About 1.8 billion years ago within a rich vein of uranium ore “the natural reactor” went critical, consumed a portion of its fuel and then shut down. The total amount of energy produced by the reactor is estimated as $`1.510^4`$ megawatt years which seems to be enough for a city like Budapest for about a year. You now may have a question: how could it appear that even in the design of nuclear reactors, which is generally considered to be one of the most impressive achievements of science and technology of our century, “the man was not an innovator but an unwitting imitator of nature” .

In fact, no natural reactor could operate today with uranium containing only 0.72 percent of the fissile isotope $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$. The ratio of $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ to $`{}_{}{}^{238}\text{U}`$, however, has not been constant throughout the history of the Earth. The half-life of $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ is about 700 million years, that of $`{}_{}{}^{238}\text{U}`$ about 4.6 billion years. Thus, 2 billion years ago the abundance of $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ was about 3 percent (note that in the contemporary power-producing reactors uranium is enriched up to the same value). In 1956 Kuroda  showed that at that epoch under favourable conditions (i.e. concentration of water must be high enough and that of the strong absorbers of neutrons low enough) the spontaneous nuclear chain reaction could take place in rich uranium deposits. However, until 1972 no traces of a natural reactor have been found.

In June 1972 the uranium slightly depleted in $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ was first detected at a French uranium-enrichment plant. The anomaly was traced through the numerous stages of the manufacturing process right back to the ore-enriching plant at Mounana near Franceville in Gabon. The original ore with mean $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ abundance of 0.4-0.5% was mined at Oklo. The French Atomic Energy Comission (CEA) then initiated the investigation of this “Oklo Phenomenon”. The analysis of the numerous samples obtained by drilling revealed the distribution of isotopic anomalies in detail. The results were discussed at the IAEA symposiums  and reviewed in .

Altogether 6 reaction zones (Fig. 3) were found over a distance of a few dozen meters. The spectrum of fission products (especially of the rare-earths) gives the quantitative evidence that a natural reactor once operated there. Both the absolute amounts of these elements and their isotopic composition can be explained only by their origin in fission (Table 1). The fluence (the flux integrated over time) of thermal neutrons, which can be determined e.g. from the $`{}_{}{}^{144}\text{Nd}`$/$`{}_{}{}^{143}\text{Nd}`$ ratio, reaches the value of $`1.510^{21}n/cm^2`$ (Fig. 4). This means that the strong absorbers of thermal neutrons (having capture cross sections $`\sigma _\gamma 210^3`$ barn) must become heavily depleted. At the same time the concentration of the next (in A) isotope will increase. This phenomenon has been observed experimentally (Fig. 5). This in itself shows immediately that a chain reaction initiated by thermal neutrons has taken place.

## 5 The “Measurement” of the Energies of Neutron Resonances 2 Billion Years Ago Using the Oklo Data

In the strong absorbers of thermal neutrons their large capture cross sections are determined in each case by a single resonance which is occasionally located near zero neutron energy. The cross section is given by the Breit-Wigner formula

$$\sigma _\gamma =g\pi \lambda ^2\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }_n\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma }{(EE_r)^2+(\mathrm{\Gamma }/2)^2}$$

Here $`g`$ is the statistical factor, $`E`$ is the neutron energy and $`\lambda `$ is the corresponding wavelength, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_n`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\gamma `$ are the partial elastic and capture widths, and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the total width of the resonance. The cross section changes sharply when the resonance is shifted along the energy scale. Fig. 6 shows this effect for the maxwellian-averaged (at kT=0.025 eV) capture cross section of $`{}_{}{}^{149}\text{Sm}`$. From the relative concentrations of samarium isotopes and the neutron fluence independently determined at the same points of the reactor one can extract the value of the capture cross section at the epoch of chain reaction. For example, R. Naudet et al  have measured the isotopic composition of uranium, neodymium and samarium in 50 samples and have managed to determine the fluence $`\psi `$ from U and Nd data reliably for 36 of them. Then the cross section of $`{}_{}{}^{149}\text{Sm}`$ is given by the following equation

$$\frac{N_{147}+N_{148}}{N_{149}}=\frac{\gamma _{147}}{\gamma _{149}}\frac{\overline{N}_{235}}{N_{235}}\sigma _{149}$$

Here $`N_i`$ denotes the final concentrations of samarium isotopes, $`\overline{N}_{235}/N_{235}`$ is the ratio of the average $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ concentration during the period of the reaction to its final value, $`\gamma _i`$ are the yields of $`{}_{}{}^{147,149}\text{Sm}`$ from the fission of $`{}_{}{}^{235}\text{U}`$ ($`\gamma _{148}`$ is negligible).

The analysis of samarium data for the same 36 samples where $`\psi `$ is known gives the value of $`\sigma _{149}^{Oklo}`$ “measured” 2 billion years ago

$$\sigma _{149}^{Oklo}=(55\pm 8)10^3\text{ barn}$$

the contemporary value being $`6010^3`$ barn (this value depends on the spectrum of thermal neutrons, here I use the maxwellian spectrum at $`T=300^{}K`$). Taking into account two standard erros, we obtain \[9a\]

$$|\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}|2010^3eV$$

If one takes into account also the data for europium (which are less precise) with three standard errors the result is \[9b\]

$$|\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}|5010^3eV$$

Note that the effect of such a small shift of resonances upon the capture cross sections of uranium and neodimium is negligible, so the fluence $`\psi `$ is determined reliably.

Yu.V.Petrov  has pointed out that one could avoid determining $`\psi `$ if the relative concentrations of two strong absorbers were available. In this case the absence of a shift in the resonance of one absorber relative to the other can be verified directly.

The absence of an appreciable shift of near-threshold resonances also follows qualitatively from the fact that all the contemporary strong absorbers were strongly burnt up in the Oklo reactor, whereas the weak absorbers were weakly burnt up . In addition to the cadmium data (Fig. 5) the results of the measurements of the conentration of rare-earth elements relative to $`{}_{}{}^{143}\text{Nd}`$ in one of the Oklo samples  are reproduced in Fig. 7. The dips in the distribution correspond to strong absorbers: $`{}_{}{}^{149}\text{Sm}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{151}\text{Eu}`$, $`{}_{}{}^{155}\text{Gd}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{157}\text{Gd}`$. The burn-up depth, calculated using the contemporary values of absorption cross section is in excellent agreement with experiment, especially if we recall that the neutron spectrum over which the cross section has to be averaged is now known well enough.

We therefore conclude once again that, over the 1.8 billion years since the operation of the Oklo reactor, the resonances or, in other words, the compound-nucleus levels, have shifted by less than $`\mathrm{\Gamma }/25010^3`$ eV, i.e. the mean rate of the shift did not exceed $`310^{11}`$ eV / year. This is by three orders of magnitude less than the experimental limit on the rate of change in the transition energy in the decay of $`{}_{}{}^{187}\text{Re}`$. Unfortunately, at present there are no consistent calculations that would have connected the position of each neutron resonance with the nuclear potential parameters reliably. However, even the preliminary estimates of Sec. 3 can be used to improve the limits obtained by other authors substantially (Table 2). These estimates evidently rule out a power law or a logarithmic asymptotic dependence of the strong and electromagnetic interaction constants on the lifetime of the Universe.

## 6 The Probability of an Occasional Coincidence

I have assumed above that the variation of nuclear constants (if any) has been very small so that the shift of resonances would have appeared much less than their average separation. One could imagine, however, a case in which even after a considerable variation of the constants all the strong absorbers would have remained strong. This could occur if some other resonance appeared near the threshold and dominated in the capture cross section. In this section I shall estimate the probability of such a coincidence using the recently developed statistical approach to estimating unknown thermal cross sections .

For each nuclide one calculates the “expected” capture cross section $`\sigma _\gamma ^{}`$ using the average values of its resonance parameters. The universal distribution function $`S_\gamma (z)`$ has been calculated using the generally accepted distribution laws for these parameters. It gives the probability for the ratio of the actual cross section $`\sigma _\gamma `$ to its expected value $`\sigma _\gamma /\sigma _\gamma ^{}`$ not to exceed $`z`$.

Table 3 which is taken from  gives the probability for each strong absorber to remain strong after a large variation of constants. I assumed that its new cross section will be at least half of its old value. Those nuclides for which this probability is small appear to be sensitive “indicators” of the variation of constants (e.g. $`{}_{}{}^{113}\text{Cd}`$ and $`{}_{}{}^{157}\text{Gd}`$). On the other hand, $`{}_{}{}^{151}\text{Eu}`$ will remain a strong absorber with the probability of about 0.3, thus being rather useless in this respect. The product of the values $`1S_\gamma (z)`$ for all nuclides gives the probability of a simultaneous coincidence the estimate $`P410^7`$. Note that this estimate is rather conservative since if the resonances have shifted considerably some weak absorbers could have been strong ones 2 billion years ago, giving rise to some mysterious isotopic anomalies at Oklo none of which have been seen.

## 7 Conclusions

The analysis of the Oklo data provides very strong evidence in favour of the invariability of nuclear constants. The shift of neutron resonances during the last 2 billion years does not exceed $`5010^3eV`$ or $`310^{11}eV/yr`$. This is so far the most precise limit and simple estimates of the rate of variation of the interaction constants shown in Table 2 were cited on several occasions (see e.g. ). I must note, however, that these estimates should not be taken too seriously. More accurate theoretical calculations of the influence of the fundamental constants on the parameters of the neutron resonances are required.

On the other hand, Oklo is the only place on Earth where the variability of nuclear constants (if any) could be detected. For this reason it would be very interesting to cary out special measurements in order to improve the limit $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{exp}`$.

However, at present all the available data support the conventional view, according to which the values of constants have not changed since the “Big Bang”. How could then the “Large Numbers” coincidences be explained? Zel’dovich  has noted that within modern quantum field theory, spontaneous topology change can readily give rise to large numbers which are comparable to those considered by Dirac. An alternative answer is suggested by the so-called “anthropic principle”  which states that only those universes can ever become observable where the “observers” can survive. The very possibility of life appears remarkably sensitive to the numerical values of physical constants. Following this line of argument all “Large Numbers” can be derived without any appeal to the variation of constants.

It was a great honor for me to win the international competition of young scientists in 1979 and to be invited to ATOMKI. I would like to express here my deep gratitude to V.A.Nazarenko and Yu.V.Petrov for their interest and support.


text:
# Holomorphic maps onto varieties of non-negative Kodaira dimension

## 1. Introduction and Statement of Results

A classical result in complex geometry says that the automorphism group of a manifold of general type is discrete \[Mat63\]. It is more generally true that there are only finitely many surjective morphisms between two fixed projective manifolds $`X`$ and $`Y`$ of general type \[KO75\].

Rigidity of surjective morphisms, and the failure of a morphism to be rigid have been studied by a number of authors, the most general results being those of Borel and Narasimhan \[BN67\]. For target manifolds $`Y`$ with Chern numbers $`c_1(Y)=0`$ and $`c_{dimY}(Y)0`$, rigidity has been shown by Kalka, Shiffman and Wong \[KSW81\]. These results have recently been generalized by Hwang \[Hwa03\] to the case where $`Y`$ is a compact Kähler manifold with $`c_1(Y)=0`$. Although in Hwang’s setup deformations need not be rigid, he is able to give a good description of the space of surjective morphisms.

In this paper we give a complete description of the space of surjective morphisms in the general setup where $`Y`$ is a normal projective variety that is not covered by rational curves. Our main result, Theorem 1.2, states that surjective morphisms are rigid, unless there is a clear geometric reason for it.

* Deformations of surjective morphisms between normal projective varieties are unobstructed unless the target variety is covered by rational curves.
* If the target is not covered by rational curves, then surjective morphisms are infinitesimally rigid, except for those morphisms that factor via a variety with positive-dimensional automorphism group.

###### Notation 1.1.

If $`X`$ and $`Y`$ are normal compact complex varieties, $`\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)`$ denotes the space of holomorphic maps $`XY`$ and $`\mathrm{Hom}_s(X,Y)`$ the space of surjective holomorphic maps. Given a morphism $`f\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)`$, let $`\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)`$ be the connected component of $`\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)`$ that contains $`f`$.

###### Theorem 1.2.

Let $`X`$ be a normal compact complex variety and $`Y`$ be a projective normal variety which is not covered by rational curves. If $`f:XY`$ is a surjective morphism, then there exists a factorization

where

1. $`\beta `$ is a finite morphism which is étale outside of the singular set of $`Y`$
2. if $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$ is the maximal connected subgroup of the automorphism group of $`Z`$, then $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$ is an Abelian variety, and the natural morphism

$$\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)/\mathrm{Aut}(Z/Y)\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)$$

is isomorphic.

In particular, all deformations of surjective morphisms $`XY`$ are unobstructed, and the associated components of $`\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)`$ are smooth Abelian varieties.

###### Corollary 1.3.

In the setup of Theorem 1.2, if $`Y`$ is smooth, then $`Y`$ has a finite étale cover of the form $`T\times W`$, where $`T`$ is an Abelian variety of dimension $`h^0(X,f^{}(T_Y))`$ and

$$dim\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)dimY\kappa (Y),$$

where $`\kappa (Y)`$ is the Kodaira dimension.

###### Remark 1.4.

We conjecture that Theorem 1.2 and Corollary 1.3 are true when $`Y`$ is a compact Kähler manifold of nonnegative Kodaira dimension. Our proof needs the projectivity assumption because it employs Miyaoka’s charactierzation of unirueledness.

The following corollaries are immediate consequences of Corollary 1.3.

###### Corollary 1.5.

Let $`Y`$ be a projective manifold which is not uniruled. If $`\pi _1(Y)`$ is finite, then for each connected normal compact complex variety $`X`$ the space $`\mathrm{Hom}_s(X,Y)`$ is discrete .

###### Corollary 1.6.

Let $`Y`$ be a projective $`n`$dimensional manifold which is not uniruled. If $`c_n(Y)0,`$ then for each connected normal compact complex variety $`X`$ the space $`\mathrm{Hom}_s(X,Y)`$ is discrete.

## 2. Proof of Theorem 1.2

### 2.1. Step 1: Setup

Let $`X`$ be a normal variety. Then the tangent sheaf $`T_X`$ is by definition the dual of the sheaf $`\mathrm{\Omega }_X^1`$ of differentials. If $`f:XY`$ is holomorphic, we consider $`\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)`$, the connected component of $`\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)`$ that contains $`f`$. If $`f`$ is additionally surjective, since $`X`$ is reduced, it is then well-known that

$$T_{\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)}|_f\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X).$$

See e.g. \[Kol96, I, Thm. 2.16\] for a proof in the algebraic case. We note that if $`Y`$ is smooth, then $`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)H^0(X,f^{}(T_Y))`$.

If in the set-up of Theorem 1.2, there are no infinitesimal deformations of the morphism $`f`$, i.e. if $`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)=\{0\}`$, there is nothing to prove. We will therefore assume throughout that $`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)\{0\}`$.

### 2.2. Step 2: Reduction to a finite morphism

In this section we reduce the proof of Theorem 1.2 to the case that the morphism $`f`$ is finite. To this end, we will consider the Stein factorization of $`f`$,

(2.1)
assume that Theorem 1.2 holds for the finite morphism $`h`$, and show that $`\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)`$ and $`\mathrm{Hom}_h(W,Y)`$ are then naturally isomorphic. The argumentation is based on the following elementary observation whose proof we leave to the reader.

###### Fact 2.1.

Let $`h:SB`$ be a morphism of complex spaces. Assume that $`S`$ is smooth and compact, $`B`$ is connected and that the associated morphism between the Zariski tangent spaces is everywhere isomorphic. Then $`h`$ is surjective and étale.

In particular, $`h`$ is an isomorphism if it is injective.

In order to apply Fact 2.1, observe that the Stein factorization (2.1) yields a canonical morphism of complex spaces

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill A:& \mathrm{Hom}_h(W,Y)& & \mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)\\ & \gamma & & \gamma g\end{array}$$

which is injective because $`g`$ is surjective. If $`\gamma \mathrm{Hom}_h(W,Y)`$ is any morphism, it is known that associated morphism between the Zariski tangent spaces at $`\gamma `$ and $`\gamma g`$

$$TA:\underset{\mathrm{Hom}(\gamma ^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_W)}{\underset{}{T_{\mathrm{Hom}(W,Y)}|_\gamma }}\underset{\mathrm{Hom}(g^{}\gamma ^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)}{\underset{}{T_{\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)}|_{\gamma g}}}$$

is the pull-back via $`g`$. Since $`g`$ has connected fibers, $`g_{}(𝒪_X)=𝒪_W`$, and since $`g_{}`$ and $`g^{}`$ are adjoint functors, \[Har77, p. 110\], this map is isomorphic.

If Theorem 1.2 holds for the finite morphism $`h`$, $`\mathrm{Hom}_h(W,Y)`$ will be a projective manifold. By Fact 2.1, the morphism $`A`$ will then be isomorphic, and Theorem 1.2 will hold for $`f`$, too. We are therefore reduced to showing Theorem 1.2 under the additional assumption that $`f`$ is finite. We maintain this assumption throughout the rest of the proof.

###### Remark 2.2.

If $`f`$ is finite and $`H\mathrm{Pic}(Y)`$ ample, then $`f^{}(H)`$ will again be ample. Thus, the assumption that $`f`$ is finite implies that $`X`$ is projective. We can therefore argue in the algebraic category for the remainder of the proof.

### 2.3. Step 3: Further setup

In the sequel we will use the following notation:

ample bundle: $`H`$ $`\mathrm{}\text{an ample line bundle on }Y`$
exceptional sets: $`X_s`$ $`\mathrm{}\text{singular locus of }X`$
$`Y_s`$ $`:=f(X_s)\{\text{singular locus of }Y\}`$
open sets: $`Y_0`$ $`:=YY_s`$
$`X_0`$ $`:=f^1(Y_0)`$
$`f_0`$ $`:=f|_{X_0}:X_0Y_0`$
It is well-known that the finite morphism $`f_0`$ defines a vector bundle on the quasi-projective target manifold $`Y_0`$.

###### Fact 2.3.

The trace map gives a splitting

$$(f_0)_{}𝒪_{X_0}𝒪_{Y_0}_0^{}$$

where $`_0^{}`$ is a vector bundle on $`Y_0`$. In particular, the projection formula gives

$$(f_0)_{}(f_0)^{}T_{Y_0}T_{Y_0}(_0^{}T_{Y_0}).$$

###### Remark 2.4.

The exceptional set $`Y_s`$ is of codimension $`2`$. Thus, if $`m`$ is sufficiently large and $`H_1,\mathrm{},H_{dimY1}|mH|`$ are general members, then the general complete intersection curve

$$C:=H_1\mathrm{}H_{dimY1}$$

does not intersect $`Y_s`$. In particular, the vector bundle $`_0^{}`$ is defined all along $`C`$.

### 2.4. Step 4: Construction of the étale cover

In this section we construct a factorization of the morphism $`f`$, which we assume to be finite, via an étale cover of $`Y`$. The important properties of the construction are summarized in the following proposition.

###### Proposition 2.5.

In the setup of Theorem 1.2, there exists a canonical factorization of $`f`$ via a finite morphism $`\beta `$ that is étale outside of the singular set of $`Y`$,

such that all infinitesimal deformations of $`f`$ come from pull-backs of vector fields on $`Z`$, i.e. that the natural injective morphism

$$\underset{\text{vector fields}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{Hom}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1,𝒪_Z)}}\mathrm{Hom}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1,\alpha _{}(𝒪_X))\mathrm{Hom}(\alpha ^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1),𝒪_X)\underset{\text{infinit. deformations}}{\underset{}{\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)}}$$

is isomorphic.

###### Remark 2.6.

In the formulation of Proposition 2.5 we have identified $`\mathrm{Hom}(\alpha ^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1),𝒪_X)`$ and $`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)`$. For this, we use the assumptions that $`f`$ is finite and that $`\beta `$ is étale outside of a set of codimension 2: the (reflexive) sheafs $`(\alpha ^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1))^{}`$ and $`(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1))^{}`$ agree in codimension 1. Since $`X`$ is normal, they must be isomorphic.

If $`Y`$ is smooth, then $`Z`$ must also be smooth and the natural morphism discussed in Proposition 2.5 is simply the pull-back map

$$\alpha ^{}:H^0(Z,T_Z)H^0(X,\alpha ^{}(T_Z))H^0(X,f^{}(T_Y)).$$

We start the proof of Proposition 2.5 with the following lemma which links the existence of elements in $`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)`$ that do not come from vector fields to the structure of the bundle $`_0`$.

###### Lemma 2.7.

Assume that there exists an infinitesimal deformation $`\sigma \mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)`$ which does *not* come from the pull-back of a vector field on $`Y`$. Then, if $`C`$ is a general complete intersection curve and $`_0`$ the dual of $`_0^{}`$, the restriction $`_0|_C`$ is nef, but not ample.

###### Proof.

Since $`C`$ is not contained in the branch locus, the fact that $`_0|_C`$ is nef is shown in \[PS00, Thm. A of the appendix by R. Lazarsfeld\] —as we need only the nefness on a general curve, we could also use the general semi-positivity theorem of Viehweg for images of relative dualizing sheaves.

Recall that $`\mathrm{codim}_XXX_02`$. Sections in a reflexive sheaf which are defined on $`X_0`$ therefore extend uniquely to all of $`X`$. This yields identifications

$`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)`$ $`=H^0(X_0,(f_0)^{}(T_{Y_0}))`$
$`=H^0(Y_0,T_{Y_0}(_0^{}T_{Y_0}))`$
$`=H^0(Y,T_Y)H^0(Y_0,_0^{}T_{Y_0}).`$
Since we assume that the infinitesimal deformation $`\sigma `$ does not come from the pull-back of a vector field, we obtain a section $`\stackrel{~}{\sigma }H^0(Y_0,_0^{}T_{Y_0})`$, i.e., a morphism of vector bundles

$$\stackrel{~}{\sigma }:_0T_{Y_0}.$$

After removing further sets of codimension 2, if necessary, we may assume without loss of generality that

$$:=\mathrm{Image}(\stackrel{~}{\sigma })T_{Y_0}$$

is a locally free subsheaf of $`T_{Y_0}`$. The restriction of its dual to a general complete intersection curve, $`^{}|_C`$, is then a torsion-free quotient of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{Y_0}^1|_C`$, which, by Miyaoka’s celebrated theorem \[Miy87, cor. 6.4\] (see also Theorem 9.0.1 of Shepherd-Barron’s article in \[Kol92\]) has non-negative degree. Equivalently, we can say that $`|_C`$ has non-positive degree. But $`|_C`$ is a quotient of $`_0|_C`$ and should therefore have positive degree if $`_0|_C`$ was ample. We conclude that $`_0|_C`$ is not ample. ∎

The existence of a factorization of $`f`$ via a cover of $`Y_0`$ now follows from the argumentation of \[PS03, proof of Prop. 3.8\]. For the reader’s convenience, we reproduce the proof here.

###### Lemma 2.8.

In the setup of lemma 2.7, after perhaps removing further subsets of codimension two, if necessary, the morphism $`f_0`$ factors via an étale cover $`Y_0^{(1)}Y_0`$, which is not an isomorphism.

###### Proof.

To factorize the morphism $`f_0`$, it suffices to find a coherent subsheaf $`_0^{}`$ such that $`𝒪_{Y_0}𝒪_{Y_0}_0^{}(f_0)_{}𝒪_{X_0}`$ is a sheaf of $`𝒪_{Y_0}`$-algebras, i.e. closed under the multiplication map

$$\mu :(𝒪_{Y_0}_0^{})(𝒪_{Y_0}_0^{})𝒪_{Y_0}_0^{}$$

We can then set $`Y_0^{(1)}:=\mathrm{Spec}`$. If $`_0^{}`$ is a sub-vectorbundle that has degree zero on the general complete intersection curve, then it follows that the natural morphism $`Y_0^{(1)}Y_0`$ is étale.

As a first step towards the construction of $``$, we fix a complete intersection curve $`CY_0`$ and construct $`Y_0^{(1)}`$ only over $`C`$. Since the restriction $`_0|_C`$ is nef, but not ample, it follows from \[PS00, Lem. 2.3\] that there exists a unique maximal ample subbundle $`V_C_0|_C`$ such that the quotient $`_0|_C/V_C`$ has degree zero. Let $`_C_0^{}`$ be the kernel of the associated map $`_0^{}|_CV_C^{}`$ which is a sub-vectorbundle of degree zero. It is then clear that $`𝒪_C_C𝒪_C_0^{}|_C`$ is closed under multiplication, as the map

$$\mu ^{}:\underset{\text{degree zero}}{\underset{}{(𝒪_C_C)(𝒪_C_C)}}\underset{\text{negative degree}}{\underset{}{𝒪_C_0^{}|_C/𝒪_C_C}}$$

is necessarily zero.

To end the proof of Lemma 2.8, we need to extend the sub-vectorbundle $`V_C_0|_C`$ to all of $`Y_0`$, i.e. we need to find a sub-vectorbundle $`T_0`$ such that for a general complete intersection curve $`C^{}Y_0`$, the restriction $`T|_C^{}_0|_C^{}`$ is the unique maximal ample subbundle. For this, consider the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of $`_0|_C`$,

$$0=_0|_C^{(0)}_0|_C^{(1)}\mathrm{}_0|_C^{(\mathrm{})}=_0|_C.$$

It is an elementary computation to see that there exists a number $`k`$ such that $`V_C=_0|_C^{(k)}`$. In this setup, after removing further subsets of codimension two, if necessary, the theorem of Mehta-Ramanathan \[Kol92, Thm. 9.1.1.7\] (see also \[MR82\]) guarantees that $`V_C`$ extends to all of $`Y_0`$, as required. ∎

###### Remark 2.9.

János Kollár pointed out to us that the proof of Lemma 2.8 really shows that if an antinef vector bundle on a curve has a section after pull back, then it has a section after an étale pull back

It is a classical result that the cover $`Y_0^{(1)}Y_0`$ can be extended to $`Y`$.

###### Corollary 2.10.

In the setup of Lemma 2.7, the morphism $`f`$ factors via a normal variety $`Y^{(1)}`$,

where $`b`$ is a finite morphism of degree $`>1`$, étale outside of the singular locus of $`Y`$.

###### Proof.

The factorization for $`f_0:X_0Y_0`$ via an unbranched cover $`b_0:Y_0^{(1)}Y_0`$ is shown in Lemma 2.8. Since $`Y`$ is normal, \[DG94, Thm. 3.5\] says that there exists a unique normal compactification $`Y^{(1)}Y_0^{(1)}`$ with a finite morphism $`b:Y^{(1)}Y`$ that extends $`b_0`$ and is étale outside of the singular set.

The proof is finished if we show that the associated rational map $`a:XY^{(1)}`$ is a morphism. That, however, follows from that fact that $`f=ba`$ is a morphism and that $`b`$ is finite. ∎

###### Proof of Proposition 2.5.

If all infinitesimal deformations of $`f`$ come from pull-backs of vector fields on $`Z`$, i.e. if $`\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)H^0(Z,T_Z)`$, there is nothing to prove: set $`Z=Y`$.

If there exists an infinitesimal deformation $`\sigma _1\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)`$ that is not a pull-back of a vector field on $`Y`$, apply Corollary 2.10 and obtain a factorization of $`f`$ via a cover $`b:Y^{(1)}Y`$. If there is a section $`\sigma _2\mathrm{Hom}(f^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)=\mathrm{Hom}(a^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_{Y^{(1)}}^1),𝒪_X)`$, which is not the pull-back of a vector field on $`Y^{(1)}`$, apply Corollary 2.10 again to the morphism $`a:XY^{(1)}`$. Proceed inductively, creating a sequence of covers

The process terminates because the degree of $`f`$ is finite. Let $`Z:=Y^{(d)}`$ be the terminal variety. ∎

### 2.5. Step 5: end of proof

The factorization of $`f`$ given in Proposition 2.5 yields a natural morphism

$$\begin{array}{cccc}\hfill \iota :& \mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)& & \mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)\\ & g& & \beta g\alpha \end{array}$$

Note that the proof of Theorem 1.2 is finished if we show that $`\iota `$ is étale. This will be guaranteed by Fact 2.1 as soon as the following two prerequisites are verified.

By assumption, the variety $`Y`$ is not uniruled. Thus, the variety $`Z`$ is also not uniruled, and it follows from \[Ros56\] that the automorphism group $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$ does not contain an algebraic subgroup which is isomorphic to $``$ or to $`^{}`$. The group $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$ must therefore be an Abelian variety, $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)^m/\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. In particular, $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$ is proper.

It is known that for any automorphism $`g\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$, the morphism $`T\iota `$ between Zariski tangent spaces,

$$T\iota :\underset{H^0(Z,g^{}(T_Z))}{\underset{}{T_{\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)}|_g}}\underset{\mathrm{Hom}((\beta g\alpha )^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)}{\underset{}{T_{\mathrm{Hom}(X,Y)}|_{\beta g\alpha }}}$$

is given by the natural injective morphism of sheaves

$$\underset{H^0(Z,g^{}(T_Z))}{\underset{}{\mathrm{Hom}(g^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1),𝒪_Z)}}\mathrm{Hom}(g^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1),\alpha _{}(𝒪_X))\underset{\mathrm{Hom}((\beta g\alpha )^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Y^1),𝒪_X)}{\underset{}{\mathrm{Hom}(\alpha ^{}g^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1),𝒪_X)}}$$

Since $`g`$ is an automorphism, $`g^{}(\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1)\mathrm{\Omega }_Z^1`$, and Proposition 2.5 asserts that this morphism is indeed isomorphic.

This ends the proof of Theorem 1.2. ∎

## 3. Proof of Corollary 1.3

In the setup of Corollary 1.3, the varieties $`Y`$ and $`Z`$ are smooth. If $`\mathrm{Aut}^0(Z)`$ is trivial, i.e. $`H^0(Z,T_Z)=0`$, there is nothing to prove. Otherwise, since $`Z`$ is not uniruled, the fact that $`Z`$ is a Torus-Seifert fibration follows from \[Lie78, Thm. 4.9\]. By \[Lie78, Thm. 4.10\], we have that

$$\underset{=dim\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)}{\underset{}{dimH^0(Z,T_Z)}}+\kappa (Z)\underset{=dimY}{\underset{}{dimZ}}$$

and therefore

$$dim\mathrm{Hom}_f(X,Y)dimY\kappa (Z)dimY\kappa (Y).$$


text:
# Integral-field spectrophotometry of the quadruple QSO HE 0435-1223: Evidence for microlensing

## 1 Introduction

HE 0435$``$1223 was first discovered in the course of the Hamburg/ESO survey for bright QSOs (Wisotzki et al. 2000), and recently found to be a rather spectacular example of a quadruply imaged QSO (Wisotzki et al. 2002; hereafter Paper I). The quasar is at a redshift of $`z=1.689`$ and had a total magnitude $`g=17.8`$ at the epoch of discovery, with evidence for significant variability. The conspicuous geometry of four blue point sources of similar brightness arranged with nearly perfect symmetry around a red elliptical galaxy left no doubt about the nature of this object as being gravitationally lensed. However, Paper I featured only a blended spectrum of all components, and a formal verification based on individual spectroscopy of each component is still pending. In this paper we present the first set of spatially resolved spectra of this quadruple QSO, obtained by integral field spectrophotometry.

## 2 Observations and data reduction

We targeted HE 0435$``$1223 during the first regular (i.e. non-comissioning) observing run of the *Potsdam Multi-Aperture Spectrophotometer* PMAS, mounted at the Calar-Alto 3.5 m telescope for several nights between 2–7 September, 2002. Details of this new instrument are given elsewhere (Roth et al. 2000); here we only summarise its capabilities. PMAS currently consists of a $`16\times 16`$ elements microlens array (an upgrade to $`32\times 32`$ elements is planned) coupled by optical fibres to a purpose-designed spectrograph. The image scale is $`0\stackrel{}{.}5`$ per spatial pixel (*‘spaxel’*), thus the total field of view is $`8^{\prime \prime }\times 8^{\prime \prime }`$. We used the V300 grating, giving a spectral resolution of $`6`$ Å FWHM and a spectral range of $`3300`$ Å, from 3950 to 7250 Å in our preferred setting. The data were recorded by a SITe $`2048\times 4096`$ pixels CCD detector, read out in $`2\times 2`$ binned mode. PMAS also features an independent on-axis imaging camera with a $`3\stackrel{}{.}4\times 3\stackrel{}{.}4`$ field of view and a $`1024\times 1024`$ pixels detector, mainly used for acquisition and guiding (termed the *AG camera* henceforth).

At the observing date in early September, HE 0435$``$1223 became visible only very shortly before morning twilight, and only at airmasses of around 2. We revisited the object repeatedly and could record useful data at the end of three different nights, with exposure times of altogether $`3\times 1800`$ s and $`1\times 1200`$ s. The external (DIMM) seeing was usually around or slightly below $`1^{\prime \prime }`$, which translated into an effective seeing in our PMAS data of between $`1\stackrel{}{.}1`$ and $`1\stackrel{}{.}3`$. Wavelength calibration and tracing of the 256 fibre spectra were facilitated through exposures using an internal calibration unit before or after each science spectrum.

Observations of the spectrophotometric standard star Hz 4 in the morning twilight provided the data needed for flux calibration. Since the AG camera was equipped with a Johnson $`V`$ filter, we could also exploit the acquisition exposures to check and improve the spectrophotometric calibration accuracy. Despite the high airmass of HE 0435$``$1223 during the observations, the flux level measurements of corresponding quasar spectra taken in different nights were remarkably consistent, with deviations of the order of 1 %. This indicates both photometric observing conditions and a stable system. Notice that since the PMAS microlens array reimages the exit pupil of the telescope, there are no geometrical losses due to incomplete filling of the focal plane (as with some other integral-field instruments). PMAS is thus certainly suitable for accurate spectrophotometry, and we shall use this capability below.

The data were reduced using our own IDL-based software package P3d (Becker 2002). The reduction consists of standard steps such as debiasing and flatfielding using twilight exposures, and dedicated routines such as tracing and extracting the spectra of individual fibres and reassembling the data in form of a three-dimensional data cube. Wavelength calibration and rebinning to a constant spectral increment is also part of the reduction procedure. The top row of Fig. 1 shows as examples some quasi-monochromatic and synthetic broad-band images, giving a good representation of the image quality, in particular S/N level and angular resolution. In fact, the S/N measured in our PMAS data is fully consistent with expectations from pure shot noise.

## 3 Deblending of the QSO components

### 3.1 Procedure

Starting with the data cubes produced on output by the P3d package, we developed a simple but powerful scheme to extract all four QSO spectra simultaneously. The following considerations guided our strategy:

* Because of the small field of view, the point-spread function was not known a-priori, but had to be determined within the QSO data.111In the future it will be possible to use the guide star data recorded by the AG camera during a PMAS exposure to establish a simultaneous PSF reference, but this mode was not yet operational at the time of observing. Non-simultaneous observations of PSF calibrator stars were not considered an option, because of the significant temporal PSF variability at the site.
* Due to differential atmospheric refraction, the source centroids vary with wavelength relative to the grid of $`16\times 16`$ spatial pixels. This effect is particularly grave for our high-airmass data, leading to a shift of more than four pixels (i.e. $`>2^{\prime \prime }`$) over the spectral range covered (see Figs. 1 and 2).
* Over the substantial spectral range covered, the width of the PSF can not assumed to be constant. This effect turned out to be less relevant than expected in our data, cf. Fig. 3, but significantly affected other data taken in the same campaign.

Our adopted algorithm is conceptually similar, albeit somewhat more complex, to procedures already used by us and others for the simultaneous extraction of double QSO spectra in long-slit data (e.g., Smette et al. 1995).

In essence, the routine performs a multi-component fit of $`n`$ two-dimensional Gaussians plus a spatially constant background value to the data in each quasi-monochromatic image, using a modified Levenberg-Marquard minimisation scheme (Press et al. 1992). In the case of HE 0435$``$1223, we adopted $`n=4`$ for the four QSO components. At the chosen spectral range, it was not strictly necessary to include also the lensing galaxy; as discussed in Sect. 7 below, we have marginally detected the galaxy, although on a level not much above the PSF mismatch residuals.

On output, the procedure provides the fitted parameters and their standard errors in a table. Each Gaussian is basically characterised by six parameters per spectral element: centroids in $`x`$ and $`y`$, FWHM along major and minor axis, position angle, and amplitude. By including some prior knowledge we can reduce the number of free parameters: First, the values of FWHM are assumed to be the same for all four point sources. The process is then iterated: In an initial pass, all parameters are fitted freely. In subsequent passes, the centroids, FWHM values and position angles are replaced by smoothly varying polynomial functions of $`\lambda `$, as exemplified by Figs. 2 and 3. Once fitted, these parameters are held fixed and do not participate in the fitting process, leaving only the 4 amplitudes to be fitted in the final pass. Model and residual data cubes are constructed along for inspection (see Fig. 1). The procedure turned out to be robust and efficient, simultaneously providing deblended spectra and a reasonable PSF, as demonstrated by the small residuals in the bottom row of Fig. 1.

After the final pass, the product of fitted amplitudes and (FWHM)2 gave the extracted number of counts per spectral element for each QSO component. A similar extraction performed for the spectrophotometric standard star Hz 4 provided a formal flux calibration. We note that the efficiency of PMAS at 4000 Å is still 30 % of its peak value at 6000–7000 Å, which is remarkably high for an integral field spectrograph.

### 3.2 Results

Visual inspection of the images confirms that the four components are well separated, with little or no significant mutual contamination (see Fig. 1). The extracted spectra from the four exposures of HE 0435$``$1223, obtained during three different nights, were combined using an inverse variance weighting scheme, which was also used to eliminate bad data values contaminated by cosmics or other spurious signals. Figure 4 shows the four final spectra together with the associated error vectors. The S/N in the continuum around $`\lambda =5000`$ Å is about 60 for component A and $`40`$ for the three fainter components B, C, and D.

Apparently, all four components show very similar and typical quasar spectra. While this is not really a surprise given the configuration of the system and the colours measured in Paper 1, it is nevertheless the first time that individual spectra of the components of HE 0435$``$1223 are published. The redshifts derived from the C iv and C iii\] lines are identical to within the measurement accuracy: $`z=1.6895\pm 0.0005`$; the redshift scatter between the components is $`\mathrm{\Delta }z0.0015`$ (rms), corresponding to less than one spectral pixel.

## 4 Spectrophotometric Analysis

### 4.1 Broad-band fluxes

Our broad-band data from Paper 1 were taken with the Magellan telescope in SDSS filters $`g`$, $`r`$, and $`i`$ at two epochs, 14 Dec 2001 and 12 Feb 2002. In order to facilitate a straightforward comparison between these and our new PMAS data, we list synthetic broad-band magnitudes in Table 1, obtained by integrating over the $`g`$ and $`r`$ filter curves (our spectra do not cover the $`i`$ band). At the high S/N of our data, the formal errors of the synthesised broad-band values are far below 0.1 % and presumably outweighed by unknown systematics. The overall flux level in the $`g`$ band increased by 0.5 mag between Dec 2001 and Sep 2002. Already in Paper 1 we noted that HE 0435$``$1223 was variable, having brightened by almost 0.2 mag between Dec 2001 and Feb 2002. We did not detect variability on timescales of days: The fluxes measured in the three consecutive observing nights during this run are constant to within $`1`$ %.

The magnitude differences between the components are largely consistent with the values quoted in Paper 1, with one exception: Component D has brightened by 0.07 mag, from being the faintest component in the Magellan data to now at the same level as component B. We argue below that this is most likely due to microlensing.

We can also provide the first reliable colour measurements. The colours listed in Paper 1 were based on a very crude calibration scheme, tied to just one star with rather inaccurately known intrinsic colours. We find that the colours for all four components are basically identical, $`(gr)_{ABCD}=0.35`$ with an rms scatter of 0.02 mag. In Paper 1 we found component C to be just slightly redder than the mean by 0.03 mag; although this is clearly at the edge of our measurement accuracy, we find that $`(gr)_C=0.38`$, and the colour deviation is exactly reproduced in our new spectra. However, these results do not necessarily imply differences in continuum slope, as broad-band colours may well be influenced, at this accuracy level, by the different emission line equivalent widths discussed in the next section.

### 4.2 Emission lines

An important spectrophotometric diagnostic for gravitationally lensed QSOs is the comparison of emission line properties between components. While ideally the spectra of lensed quasar components should look identical, microlensing and other contaminating effects may lead to differences. In order to derive the emission line properties, we had to define the underlying continuum. Since we were not interested in a global continuum level, we defined two *ad hoc* continuum windows left and right of each line and connected these by straight lines (see Fig. 4). The windows were located at \[3980 Å, 4020 Å\] and \[4530 Å, 4630 Å\] for the C iv $`\lambda `$1550 line, and at \[4890 Å, 4950 Å\] and \[5380 Å, 5440 Å\] for the Al iii/C iii\] $`\lambda `$1909 blend. The local continua thus derived are indicated by the dashed line segments in Fig. 4. This simple procedure worked quite well, although the continuum level at the blue side of the C iv line is poorly constrained due to the short wavelength cutoff of the spectra.

We then integrated the continuum-subtracted spectra within narrow windows centred on the emission line cores. The selection of these windows was to some extent arbitrary and mainly guided by the wish to avoid the low S/N wings which are most strongly affected by errors in the continuum estimate. The finally adopted integration windows were \[4020 Å, 4300 Å\] for C iv and \[5075 Å, 5180 Å\] for C iii\]. Table 2 lists the results for all four components. We do not quote formal statistical errors because, as before, these are very small, typically $`1`$ % for the line fluxes, and almost certainly dominated by unknown systematical errors.

With high significance, the equivalent widths of the lines are not identical in the four components. This is already apparent from visual inspection of the spectra in Fig. 4. In other words: The flux ratios between the QSO components are different in the continuum and in the broad emission lines. We discuss this phenomenon in the next sections.

Finally, we also compared the emission line profiles. To this purpose we rescaled all continuum-subtracted lines to a common line integral and superimposed them pairwise. This is documented in Fig. 5, where the normalised C iv and C iii\] lines of each of the components B, C, and D are plotted over A. As expected for a gravitationally lensed QSO, the individual line profiles are very similar and consistent with the assumption that they originate in the same object.

## 5 Spectral differences: Evidence for Microlensing

In the previous section we documented that despite the certain nature of HE 0435$``$1223 as a lensed QSO, the spectra of individual components are not strictly identical. Several effects can be invoked to explain spectral differences between lensed images: Foreground extinction, intrinsic variability, or microlensing. We discuss each of these in turn.

Extinction is probably not important in this object. The nearly identical (and typically quasar-like) colours of the four components imply that there is no significant differential extinction between these lines of sight. Although it is conceivable that all lines of sight suffer from the same amount of extinction, this would be an extreme coincidence if the dust column density were high. Furthermore, the lensing galaxy is a large elliptical (cf. Paper 1), not expected to contain large quantities of smoothly distributed dust in its outskirts. And of course the different equivalent widths of the emission lines cannot be explained by dust extinction at all, so there has to be at least one additional effect.

Intrinsic flux variability is certainly an issue in HE 0435$``$1223, as already discussed in Sect. 4.1. However, it is unlikely that variability is the explanation for the differences. From the lensing geometry, the light travel time delay between the images is predicted to be of the order of a few days (Paper 1). This means that very rapid and drastic intrinsic spectral changes would be needed in order to create differences between the images; we see no evidence at all for such violent variability. Even if there were such changes, escaping our attention, these would have to appear in each of the components consecutively within days. The fact that the spectra taken at three different nights look identical within the error bars (i.e. with an uncertainty of no more than a few per cent) speaks against significant short-time spectral variability.

Gravitational microlensing remains as the most straightforward explanation for the observed spectral differences between the four images. Within that scenario, microlensing affects the continuum and not the emission lines because of the sizes involved: The broad-line region in quasars is believed to be much larger than the typical cross-section of stellar mass lenses, and any magnification patterns are thus completely smeared out. On the other hand, the continuum-emitting region is orders of magnitude smaller than the BLR and certainly prone to microlensing (de)magnification, as most dramatically seen in the ‘Einstein Cross’ (e.g., Woźniak et al. 2000). Spectroscopy of that quasar (Lewis et al. 1998) showed also differences in the emission line equivalent widths very similar to the case discussed here. The most extreme known case of selective continuum amplification by microlensing is the ‘Double Hamburger’ HE 1104$``$1805 (Wisotzki et al. 1993), where there is even a strong chromatic effect, i.e. a wavelength-dependent amplification of the continuum (the spectrum gets bluer because the continuum region is smaller at shorter than at longer wavelengths and hence is more magnified; cf. Wambsganss & Paczynski 1991).

For all these objects as well as for HE 0435$``$1223, the emission line *profiles* are identical in all components. The spectral differences can then be interpreted as being entirely due to additional continuum contributions on top of the intrinsic ‘macrolensed’ spectra. Since microlensing is time-variable as a result of non-negligible effective transversal motions, this additional contribution is expected to vary. Interestingly, it is component D for which we find evidence for a relative brightening between Dec 2001 and Sep 2002; that component has the lowest equivalent widths and thus, in the microlensing picture, the highest continuum amplification. We conclude that microlensing is the only plausible explanation for the observed differences in line-to-continuum ratios. On the other hand, there is currently no indication of significant differential *chromatic* continuum amplification, since all components have so similar colours.

At this point it is useful to reconsider briefly the question whether the emission lines might also be affected by microlensing. The broad-line region in quasars (BLR) is generally held to be much bigger than the continuum region; for a quasar of the intrinsic (de-lensed) luminosity of HE 0435$``$1223, a BLR radius of the order of 100 light-days can be expected (Kaspi et al. (Kaspi et al. 2000)), two orders of magnitude larger than the Einstein radius of a solar-mass star at $`z0.4`$. Any microlensing would therefore act on a small region of the BLR only, possibly causing some variations of the line profile as an observable signature, but certainly no significant overall amplification (cf. also Schneider & Wambsganss 1990). Even that effect cannot be strong in HE 0435$``$1223, since the line profiles are so similar (cf. Fig. 5). We therefore assume in the following that a clean distinction between the two domains exists: While the continuum source is very likely significantly amplified by microlensing, the emission lines remain more or less unaffected.

## 6 Flux ratios

One interesting consequence of the microlensing interpretation is the expectation that the emission line fluxes should mirror the ‘true’ flux ratios of the four components, i.e. those given by macrolensing of the smooth galaxy potential alone. This is important for the construction of mass models for the lens: While flux ratios from broad-band photometry are notoriously unreliable because of the ever present possibility of microlensing, we suggest that emission line flux ratios can be directly used as additional model constraints. In Table 3 we provide the pairwise emission line flux ratios between the components. As a kind of ‘sanity check’, we also determined the corresponding continuum flux ratios, listed in the second column of Table 3. Since the spectral slopes are so similar, these values do not change significantly over the spectral range covered.

In Paper 1 it was found that a simple model involving a singular isothermal sphere plus external shear could reproduce the positions of the QSO components and of the lensing galaxy well within the error bars. However, the model (which was based on astrometric constraints only) predicted components B and C to be substantially brighter, by more than 0.5 mag relative to A and D, than observed in broad-band colours (cf. the last two columns in Table 3). Such disagreement between models and data has been seen in several other lensed QSOs as well, and two hypotheses have recently been proposed to account for these anomalies. On the one hand, they may indicate the presence of substructure in the lensing potential (e.g., Metcalf & Zhao 2002); or they could be due to microlensing at large optical depths, especially by suppressing the flux of saddle point images (Schechter & Wambsganss 2002). These two explanations differ significantly in their prediction of the flux ratios of *extended* source components. While the flux ratios should not depend strongly on source size in the case of a lens with substructure, a necessary consequence of the microlensing hypothesis is that the flux ratios should approach the ‘macrolens’ values as soon as the source is too extended to be affected by the microlens caustic network. This implies that if the size of the QSO broad-line region is already in this domain, emission-line flux ratios should be much closer to the model values if the model is realistic. There is at least one known quadruple QSO where this seems to be the case, namely B 1422$`+`$231 (cf. Impey et al. 1996).

This test can be performed with our spectrophotometric measurements of HE 0435$``$1223. Table 3 shows that the agreement between measured flux ratios and the model predictions is indeed much better if one uses the emission line values than with either broad band or continuum data. Components B and C are brighter in the emission lines than in the continuum, relative to A and D, while the ratios A/D and B/C do not change significantly. These changes are precisely in the direction approaching the model, just as predicted in the microlensing scenario by Schechter & Wambsganss.

However, the agreement is anything but good, and especially component A is still much brighter than is expected. As this could be due to shortcomings of the simple model which did not even take flux ratio constraints into account, we attempted to compute a new model. We used C. Keeton’s software tool lensmodel (Keeton 2001) to explore the consequences of adding measured flux ratios as additional constraints. For consistency, we stayed within the singular isothermal sphere plus external shear model (although we also tried some elliptical models). To our surprise, it was extremely difficult to make the predicted flux ratios approach the measured ones; the predictions tended to stay close to the Paper 1 values, which were based on the astrometry of the four QSO components alone (the position of the lensing galaxy was not considered to be sufficiently constrained, and therefore it was always left to float, as in Paper 1). This would only change when the flux ratio constraints were taken to be *much* tighter than the astrometric constraints. For example, we could roughly fit the flux ratios when allowing for several tenths of arc seconds of positional shifts, corresponding to a formal deviation of the order of more than $`50\sigma `$, which is totally unacceptable given the excellent astrometric quality of the Magellan data. Thus, even using the emission line measurements we failed to build a consistent model for the lensing potential that correctly reproduces both positions and flux ratios. But we recognise that a more sophisticated model of the lens mass distribution might well prove this statement premature. We have deliberately limited ourselves to explore only a narrow range of plausible configurations and now invite the experts in the field to follow up on us. Until then, we conclude that our measurements give some support to the microlensing hypothesis by Schechter & Wambsganss (2002), but that no wholly satisfying explanation for the flux ratios in HE 0435$``$1223 can yet be given.

## 7 The lensing galaxy

The Magellan $`i`$ band image presented in Paper I shows the lensing galaxy prominently, close to the geometric centre between the four QSO images. A similarly clean detection in our new PMAS data was not to be expected, for two reasons: (i) The much coarser pixel grid (0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$5 for PMAS vs. 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$07 for Magellan+MagIC); (ii) the inferior effective seeing ($`1\stackrel{}{.}1`$ here vs. 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$6 for Paper I). Furthermore, the nonavailability of a simultaneously obtained PSF reference made a clean PSF subtraction difficult. We have nevertheless attempted to detect the lensing galaxy, both in ‘imaging’ and in ‘spectroscopy’ mode. In our search we made use of some pieces of information available from Paper I. Firstly, we know the location of the galaxy relative to the QSO point sources. Secondly, we assume that its redshift is located within $`0.3z0.5`$, to be in accordance with the photometric redshift estimate in Paper I. Notice that the narrowing of the range to $`0.3z0.4`$ in Paper I using a luminosity-mass argument should be disregarded, as there was an error in computing the rest-frame absolute magnitude.

In order to partly overcome the coarse pixel grid limitation, we have exploited the fact that due to atmospheric refraction, the QSO centroid gradually shifts as a function of wavelength. In a way, this can be seen as almost equivalent to extensive dithering with respect to a broad-band image. The image is shifted by several pixels over the entire wavelength range, a fortuitous byproduct of the high airmass during observation. Within a band of just $`1000`$ Å, the displacement is already a good fraction of a pixel. Furthermore the number of samples taken is huge, roughly 300 for a 1000 Å bandpass. The information volume required for substantial subsampling therefore certainly exists. We have written a small application to coadd monochromatic data planes into a broad-band image, including a $`4\times 4`$ subsampling and applying the polynomial approximation to the centroid shifts described in Sect. 3.1.

Guided by the redshift prior on the lensing galaxy, we selected only the red part of the spectrum, $`5500\text{Å}<\lambda <7200\text{Å}`$. In addition, pieces of the spectrum heavily contaminated by night sky lines were left out. Both the original and the residual data cubes were run through this procedure. The result is shown in Fig. 6. The left panel shows that the four point sources are now much better defined than in the original coarse pixel data. In the right panel we find significant PSF residuals, featuring indications of positive central elevations and negative anullus-like patterns which document the limits of our simple assumption to model the PSF as a Gaussian. But we also find that the strongest residual is always positive and occurs very close to the expected position of the lensing galaxy. Relative to the position of component A, the difference from the value quoted in Paper 1 is only $`0\stackrel{}{.}1`$ in right ascension and $`0\stackrel{}{.}2`$ in declination. Going through the same exercise with a $`\lambda <5500\text{Å}`$ image does not yield any discernible signal at that location. We therefore conclude that the detection is real and significant.

Thus encouraged, we looked whether spectral information, possibly even the lens redshift could be derived. We therefore extracted and coadded the spectra of a $`2\times 2`$ pixel block ($`1^{\prime \prime }\times 1^{\prime \prime }`$) at the expected location from each residual data cube. The result was an extremely noisy spectrum, with a signal that was on average positive above 6000 Å (S/N of $`2`$, for the original 3.3 Å wavelength steps) and zero or slightly negative below that. No QSO emission lines were present, indicating that cross-talk from the QSO point sources was negligible. Since it was hopeless to detect stellar absorption lines from the lensing galaxy in such low S/N data, we degraded the spectral resolution by summing the data into bins of 300 Å width, with the intention to use the overall spectral energy distribution for a redshift estimate. This is documented in Fig. 7. We assumed an old stellar population to dominate the SED of the lens (which has elliptical morphology, cf. Paper I), and cross-correlated the data with a solar metallicity, age of 10 Gyrs model galaxy spectrum from (Jimenez et al. 2000), kindly provided by R. Jimenez.

The left panel of Fig. 7 shows that $`\chi ^2(z)`$ has a strong but flat-bottomed minimum between $`z=0.43`$ and $`z=0.45`$, and a turnover at $`z=0.58`$ towards another local minimum at much higher $`z`$. A lens redshift $`z>0.5`$ is not compatible with our prior assumptions; apart from its incompatibility with the colour measurement of Paper I, such a redshift would make the lens extremely massive. We therefore settle at a redshift estimate of $`z_{\mathrm{lens}}=0.44\pm 0.02`$, for which we show our best fit model overplotted over the binned residual spectrum. Note that we obtain consistent results (within the quoted error range) when analysing the individual exposures taken in different nights.

The model roughly reproduces the main feature of the data, its steep rising towards the red, but otherwise the fit is not good, and the error bars are probably underestimated. Selecting a younger stellar population would further degrade the fit quality, since already now our data are too red compared to the 10 Gyrs model (which is already the age of the universe at $`z=0.44`$). We conclude that our new lens redshift is a significant improvement over the rough colour estimate of Paper I, but the value is nevertheless tentative. A measurement of $`z_{\mathrm{lens}}`$ involving the detection of stellar absorption lines in the lensing galaxy is still indispensable.

## 8 Conclusions

We have presented the first spatially resolved spectra of the new quadruple QSO HE 0435$``$1223. The choice of an integral field spectrograph, and in particular the design of PMAS, enabled us to obtain high signal-to-noise data of spectrophotometric quality for all four quasar images simultaneously. The increasing availability of such instruments at many major telescopes opens a new window of opportunity to very efficiently observe gravitationally lensed QSOs – especially quadruple systems which are very hard to observe with traditional slit spectroscopy. Yet, two limitations need to be overcome to make integral field systems fully superior to other spectrographs, as far as gravitationally lensed quasars are concerned.

Firstly, resolving close systems requires an accurate knowledge of the point spread function. This is easily supplied by modern imaging cameras and multi-slit spectrographs, but the field of view of existing integral field units is generally much too small to simultaneously capture an isolated PSF reference star. One possible way out would be to use a second imaging device in parallel, such as is planned with the AG camera of PMAS. Another option might be to implement clever ‘PSF self-calibration’ algorithms, alleviating the need for an external PSF reference. Our simple approach involving just an analytic expression could be no more than a preparatory study to such techniques.

Secondly, there is usually a difficult trade-off between reaching a maximum field of view and the effective pixel size in the resulting images. Under excellent seeing conditions, a critical sampling of the PSF requires pixels no bigger than 0$`\stackrel{}{.}`$2, while most integral field spectrographs, including PMAS, have *spaxels* at least twice that size. As we have shown in this paper, image enhancement by supersampling to a finer pixel grid may be possible as a positive byproduct of differential atmospheric dispersion effects. But of course, the gain thus obtained will always be limited by the unavoidable convolution with the true pixel size.

With these provisions, a new quality level in the astrophysical study of microlensing in QSOs can be reached. Without major losses in observing time, simple broad band imaging can be replaced by a detailed spectrophotometric investigation. In this paper we have presented two pieces of evidence that microlensing is important in HE 0435$``$1223: spectral differences and variability. Future monitoring of microlensing-induced spectral variations in this object, and in similar targets, will constrain the structural properties of quasars on angular scales of sub-microarcseconds. Integral field spectroscopy is likely to become a tool of choice for this type of research.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank P. Schechter and J. Wambsganss for illuminating discussions on the issue of flux ratio anomalies, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. PMAS was partly financed by BMBF/Verbundforschung unter 053PA414/1 and 05AL9BA1/9. TB, LC, and AK acknowledge support from the ULTROS project through grant 05AE2BAA/4, also Verbundforschung. SFS acknowledges support through a Euro3D Research Training Network on Integral Field Spectroscopy, funded by the European Commission under contract No. HPRN-CT-2002-00305. AH is supported by the DFG under grant Wa 1047/6-1 and -3. KJ, AH and LW acknowledge a DFG travel grant under Wi 1369/12-1.