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# Dust Formation in Very Massive Primordial Supernovae

## 1 Introduction

In the recent years, dust has been recognized to have an increasingly important role in our understanding of the near and distant Universe. The dramatic effect of dust at low and moderate redshifts has been immediately recognized when a recostruction of the cosmic star formation history from rest-frame UV/visible emission was first attempted: dust grains absorb stellar light and re-emit it in the FIR. Thus, even a tiny amount of dust extinction can lead to a severe underestimate of the actual star formation rate (Pettini et al. 1998; Steidel et al. 1999). New IR, FIR and submm facilities have revealed the existence of populations of sources, such as SCUBA $`z>1`$ sources, that are thought to be dust-enshrouded star forming galaxies or AGNs (Smail et al. 1997; Hughes et al. 1998) or the Extremely Red Objects, which are at least partly populated by dusty star-forming systems at $`z1`$ (Cimatti et al. 2002). Finally, dust plays a critical role in galaxy evolution, accelerating the formation of molecular hydrogen (H2), dominating the heating of gas through emission of photoelectrons in regions where UV fields are present and contributing to gas cooling through IR emission (see Draine 2003 for a recent thorough review).

These observational evidences have motivated a series of studies aimed at including a treatment of dust formation within galaxy evolution models (Granato et al. 2000; Hirashita & Ferrara 2002; Morgan & Edmunds 2003). Since dust formation in the interstellar medium (ISM) is extremely inefficient (Tielens 1998), the preferential sites of formation are considered to be the atmospheres of evolved low-mass ($`M<8M_{}`$) stars, from where it is transported into the ISM through stellar winds (Whittet 1992). However, this mechanism can not explain the presence of dust at redshifts $`>5`$ because at these high redshifts the evolutionary timescales of low-mass stars (0.1 – 1 Gyr) start to be comparable with the age of the Universe.

Evidences for the presence of dust at high redshifts come from observations of damped Ly$`\alpha `$ systems (Pettini et al. 1994; Prochaska & Wolfe 2002; Ledoux, Bergeron & Petitjean 2002) and from the detection of dust thermal emission from high redshift QSOs selected from the SDSS survey out to redshift 5.5 and re-observed at mm wavelengths (Omont et al. 2001; Carilli et al. 2001; Bertoldi & Cox 2002). Very recently, Bertoldi et al. (2003) have reported the observations of three $`z>6`$ SDSS QSOs at 1.2 mm, detecting thermal dust radiation. From the IR luminosities, the estimated dust masses are huge ($`>10^8M_{}`$) implying a high abundance of heavy elements and dust at redshifts as high as 6.4 that can not be accounted by low-mass stars. Thus, dust enrichment must have occurred primarily on considerably shorter timescales in the ejecta of supernova explosions (Dwek & Scalo 1980; Kozasa, Hasegawa & Nomoto 1989; Todini & Ferrara 2001; Nozawa et al. 2003).

The strongest evidence for dust formation in supernova explosions was seen in SN 1987A (Moseley et al. 1989; Wooden 1997). In this event, the increased IR emission was accompanied by a a corresponding decrease in the optical emission and the emission-line profiles were observed to shift toward the blue (McCray 1993 and references therein). In another supernova explosion, SN 1998S, the observed evolution of the hydrogen and helium line profiles argues in favor of dust formation within the ejecta as the redshifted side of the profile steadily faded while the blueshifted side remained constant (Gerardy et al. 2000). Dust emission has been seen in the supernova remnant Cassiopea A: similarly to SN 1987A, the total dust mass derived from IR luminosities is less than expected from theory, suggesting that a colder population of dust grains may be present that emit at longer wavelengths and it is not detectable in the IR (Morgan & Edmunds 2003; Dunne et al. 2003). Finally, in a considerable number of cases, supernovae have shown IR emission that was stronger toward longer wavelengths (see Gerardy et al. 2002 and references therein). This IR excess has been generally interpreted as due to thermal emission from dust forming in the ejecta but alternative explanations exist; in particular, new IR observations of five Type II SNe have shown late-time emission that remains bright many years after the maximum and that it is hard to reconcile with emission from newly formed dust; IR echos from pre-existing dust in the circumstellar medium heated by the supernova flash might represent an alternative interpretation (Gerardy et al. 2002).

Theoretical studies have started to investigate the process of dust formation in expanding SN ejecta. Most of the available models are based on classical nucleation theory and grain growth (Kozasa & Hasegawa 1987; Todini & Ferrara 2001) with the exception of the computations recently performed by Nozawa et al. 2003, who have made an extensive analysis of dust grain properties forming in zero-metallicity SNe of various masses. The model developed by Todini & Ferrara (2001) is able to predict the dust mass and properties as a function of the initial stellar progenitor mass and metallicity. In spite of the many uncertainties and approximations, this model has been shown to satisfactorily reproduce the observed properties of SN 1987A and of the young dwarf galaxy SBS 0335-052 (Hirashita, Hunt & Ferrara 2002).

In this paper, we investigate the formation of dust grains in the ejecta of very massive primordial supernovae, which are commonly known as pair-creation or pair instability SNe (PISN). These violent explosions are thought to terminate the life of metal-free stars with initial mass in the range $`140M_{}M260M_{}`$ (Heger & Woosley 2002). Indeed, detailed theoretical modelling of the nucleosynthesis and internal structure of these very massive stars has shown that after central helium burning electron/positron pairs are created, converting a large fraction of internal energy into rest mass of the pairs; as a consequence, the stars rapidly contract until explosive oxygen and silicon burning is able to revert the collapse and the stars are completely disrupted in giant explosions (Fryer, Woosley & Heger 2001). Below and above the mass range of PISN, the most likely outcome of the evolution of metal-free stars appears to be black hole formation, cleanly separating the contribution to metal and eventually dust production of such very massive stars from that of other mass ranges.

We base our analysis on the model developed by Todini & Ferrara (2001) and apply it to PISN. We therefore change the initial chemical composition of the ejecta and also the thermodynamical/dynamical properties which determine the ejecta evolution. A larger amount of dust is expected to form in the ejecta of PISN with respect to Type II SNe, because of the larger amount of metals released and the absence of fallback of material onto the compact remnant (no remnant is expected to survive PISN explosions).

The motivation for the present study comes from the increasing number of evidences which seem to indicate that the first stars that were able to form in the early Universe from the collapse of metal-free gas clouds were indeed very massive, with characteristic masses of a few 100 $`M_{}`$. These include detailed numerical simulations (Abel, Bryan & Norman 2000, 2002; Bromm, Coppi & Larson 1999, 2002; Bromm et al. 2001; Ripamonti et al. 2002), semi-analytic models (Omukai & Nishi 1998; Nakamura & Umemura 2001, 2002; Schneider et al. 2002) and several pieces of observations (Hernandez & Ferrara 2001; Oh et al. 2001; Salvaterra & Ferrara 2002; Schneider et al. 2003). In particular, some of these studies have pointed out that because of the reduced gas cooling efficiency, low-mass star formation is strongly inhibited before a minimum level of metal enrichment of the collapsing gas cloud has been reached (Bromm et al. 2001, Schneider et al. 2002). The value of this minimum level, $`Z_{\mathrm{cr}}`$ is very uncertain, but likely to be between $`10^6`$ and $`10^4Z_{}`$ (Schneider et al. 2002; 2004). Within this critical range of metallicities, the presence of dust appears to have a major role, providing an additional pathway for cooling the gas, that fragments into lower mass clumps enabling the formation of second-generation low-mass stars (Schneider et al. 2003). Thus, to estimate the efficiency of this dust-regulated low-mass star formation channel in very metal-poor gas clouds, it is crucial to develop a model which is able to predict the amount of dust formed in the ejecta of PISN.

## 2 Dust Formation Model

The process of dust formation and the resulting dust grain properties depend on the physical conditions at the site of formation. In particular, several studies (see Kozasa, Hasegawa & Nomoto 1989 and references therein) have shown that the time of onset of grain formation depends on the temperature structure in the supernova ejecta whereas the grain composition mainly reflects its chemical composition, which depends on the nucleosynthesis occurring during stellar lifetime (i.e. on the progenitor mass) and explosion.

Thus, models of dust formation in supernova ejecta are based on specific prescriptions for the chemical composition and thermodynamics of the expanding gas. At the onset of shock generation, which occurs at the boundary of the innermost Fe-Ni core, the progenitor star is characterized by the standard stratified (onion-skin) structure. During shock propagation through the star, the gas undergoes a new phase of (explosive) nucleosynthesis and mixing of the internal layers is thought to occur at least up to the outer edge of the helium layer, as suggested by observations of early emergence of $`\gamma `$ and X-rays in SN 1987A (Kumagai et al. 1988 and references therein). These observations confirm that macroscopic mixing of the ejecta occurs through Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities but it is still very debated whether mixing is extended at molecular level (Clayton et al. 1999; 2001).

The model of Todini & Ferrara (2001) (but see also Kozasa et al. 1989) is based on the assumption that materials are uniformly mixed from the center to the helium outer edge. As a consequence, the temperature and density within this metal-rich volume are assumed to be constant. When the shock reaches the surface of the progenitor, the star starts to expand and the expansion becomes homologous. Thus, the velocity of gas at a given layer is constant in time and proportional to the radius from the center, i.e. $`v=R/t`$, where $`t`$ is the time from the explosion and the expansion velocity is assumed to be

$$v=\left(\frac{E_{\mathrm{kin}}}{M_{\mathrm{tot}}}\right)^{1/2}$$
(1)
where $`E_{\mathrm{kin}}`$ and $`M_{\mathrm{tot}}`$ are the kinetic energy and total mass ejected by the supernova. The temperature of the expanding ejecta is determined by various heating and cooling mechanisms. Todini & Ferrara (2001) following Kozasa et al. (1989) assumed that when the gas reaches the photosphere, the gas temperature is equal to the photospheric temperature and thereafter the temperature evolution follows from the assumptions of adiabatic expansion for a perfect-gas, so that

$$T=T_i\left(1+\frac{v}{R_i}t\right)^{3(1\gamma )}.$$
(2)
where $`\gamma `$ is the adiabatic index and the quantities $`T_i`$ and $`R_i`$ are the photospheric temperature and radius obtained from the observational results of SN 1987A (Catchpole et al. 1987).

The lack of observational constraints for PISN forces us to model the thermal evolution of the expanding ejecta on the basis of theoretical considerations. In particular, the evolution and internal structure of PISN have been studied in great detail through numerical simulations (Fryer, Woosley & Heger 2001; Heger & Woosley 2002). Zero-metallicity progenitor stars with masses between 140 $`M_{}`$ and $`260M_{}`$ evolve without significant mass loss until central helium burning. These stars, after central helium depletion, have enough central entropy that they enter a temperature and density regime in which electron/positron pairs are created in abundance, converting internal gas energy into rest mass of the pairs, without contributing much to the pressure. When this instability is encountered, the stars contract rapidly until explosive oxygen and silicon burning produce enough energy to revert the collapse and the stars are completely disrupted in a giant explosion. The maximum central temperature and density during the bounce as a function of the PISN progenitor mass together with the elemental composition of the emerging ejecta are shown in Fig. 1. The dominant metal yields show that nucleosynthesis in pair-creation supernovae produce a total mass of O, Si, Mg and Al which is roughly independent of the initial progenitor mass but an Fe mass which varies greatly with the mass of the progenitor, being almost negligible for initial stellar masses $`<200M_{}`$. It is important to stress that this should be interpreted as the iron mass only after all unstable isotopes have decayed. Indeed, unlike Type II SN progenitors, PISN progenitors do not build up an iron core before the explosion and the final Fe mass is generated through the decay of 56Co. We will consider this process in detail as this decay provides the relevant destruction process of CO molecules.

The internal structure of the star at this maximum central density appears to have an approximately constant density, $`\rho _c`$, and temperature, $`T_c`$, up to the outer edge of the helium core (Fryer et al. 2001). We can adopt these values as the initial density and temperature of the volume where the metals are uniformly mixed at shock generation. Indeed, the time it takes the shocks to propagate through the low-density hydrogen envelope and reach the surface of the progenitor, starting the stellar expansion, is negligible. Adopting this normalization in Eq. 2, we can follow the evolution of the supernova ejecta. The results are shown in Fig. 2. In the top and medium panels we show the evolution of radius and number density of the ejecta of a 195 $`M_{}`$ pair-creation supernova as a function of the time elapsed from the explosion. In the bottom panel, we show the corresponding evolution of the temperature. Two different regimes can be identified: in the initial phase of the evolution, the ejecta is radiation-dominated and we assume an adiabatic index $`\gamma =4/3`$. This appears to be consistent with the internal structure of the 250 $`M_{}`$ star at maximum central density in the simulation of Fryer et al. (2001), which shows a density and temperature profile in the outer H-envelope compatible with $`\gamma 4/3`$. However, for $`t>111.26`$ days (where 111.26 days is 56Co e-folding time) energy deposition from decaying radioactive elements is negligible and the gas cools adiabatically with $`\gamma =5/3`$. A comparable thermal history is found by Nozawa et al. (2003) solving the radiative transfer equation and taking into account the energy deposition by radioactive elements. For the same PISN progenitor mass, however, their normalization is slightly higher (by a factor $`3`$) because of the different input stellar models (Umeda & Nomoto 2002).

## 3 Model Results

In the model of Todini & Ferrara (2001), the formation of dust grains from a gaseous metal-rich medium is described as a two step process: (i) the formation of “critical clusters” at the corresponding condensation barrier and (ii)the subsequent growth of these clusters into macroscopic dust grains through mass accretion. A thorough description of the model, which follows the classic theory of nucleation, can be found in the paper of Todini & Ferrara (2001) to which we refer interested readers.

In the present study, we follow the formation of seven solid compounds, namely, Al2O3 (corundum), iron, Fe3O4 (magnetite), MgSiO3 (enstatite), Mg2SiO4 (forsterite), SiO2 and amorphous carbon (AC) grains. The corresponding chemical reactions are listed in Table 1. Numerical constants can be found in Table 1 of Todini & Ferrara (2001) except for SiO2, for whom we have adopted the values used by Nozawa et al. (2003).

It is important to note that, as we will see, AC grains can form also if the ejecta composition is richer in oxygen than in carbon (O $`>`$ C) as Clayton, Liu & Dalgarno (1999) have shown. The formation of CO and SiO molecules in SN ejecta can be very important for dust formation, because carbon atoms bound in CO molecules are not available to form AC grains and SiO molecules take part in the reactions which lead to the formation of MgSiO3, Mg2SiO4 and SiO2 (see Table 1). Thus, the process of molecule formation in the expanding ejecta is followed at temperatures $`T2\times 10^4`$ K together with the $`{}_{}{}^{56}\mathrm{Co}`$ $`{}_{}{}^{56}\mathrm{Fe}`$ radioactive decay as the impact with energetic electrons produced during this decay represents the main destruction process of CO molecules.

The formation of dust grains is followed until the temperature of the ejecta has decreased to about $`500`$ K, because at this stage condensation processes are terminated for all solid compounds.

The time evolution of the dust mass synthetized in different compounds is shown in Fig. 3 for three representative PISN progenitor masses, $`149M_{}`$, $`195M_{}`$ and $`250M_{}`$. Dust grains start to condensate when the temperature of the expanding gas has dropped below 2000 K, about 150-200 days after the explosion (see dotted lines). During this time interval, a fraction of the $`{}_{}{}^{56}\mathrm{Co}`$ initially present in the ejecta has decayed to Fe. Thus, at the onset of grain condensation, some C atoms are bound in CO molecules and others are available to form amorphous carbon grains. The resulting dust mass is mainly composed by silicates and magnetite grains. Amorphous carbon grains are the first to form, followed by corundum, forsterite, magnetite and ultimately SiO2. This evolutionary sequence simply reflects the different condensation temperatures. The relative abundances of the different grain species depend on the progenitor mass: the $`149M_{}`$ star ejects less iron ($`{}_{}{}^{56}\mathrm{Co}`$) than higher mass PISN and thus its final dust composition is characterized by a lower concentration of magnetite and carbon grains (the latter because most of the initial carbon grains are locked in CO molecules).

### 3.1 Final dust masses

The total dust mass formed in different solid compounds and the total mass of CO molecules synthetized in the ejecta as a function of the progenitor stellar mass are shown in Fig. 4. For all but the smallest progenitor star, silicate grains appear to be the dominant dust compounds. Indeed, all SiO molecules initially present in the ejecta take part in the reactions leading to the formation of forsterite and SiO2 grains and only CO molecules are left at the end of dust condensation. At the lowest mass bin, $`140M_{}`$, the initial $`{}_{}{}^{56}\mathrm{Co}`$ mass is not large enough to favour the formation of magnetite and amorphous carbon grains and only Al2O3 and Mg2SiO4 grains are formed. At higher initial stellar masses, the larger $`{}_{}{}^{56}\mathrm{Co}`$ mass ejected by the PISN favours the formation of carbon and magnetite grains and the final mass of CO molecules is correspondingly reduced. Note that MgSiO3 grains are never formed because of the highest condensation temperature and largest nucleation current of Mg2SiO4 grains, which lock all the Mg initially present in the ejecta. Similarly, Fe(s) are never formed because all the Fe which is produced by radioactive decays is locked into magnetite grains. Note that we do not consider the formation of MgO grains which, however, can occur only in the ejecta of the $`140M_{}`$ PISN where Si is less abundant than Mg, and only 40% of the initial Mg mass is depleted onto Mg2SiO4 grains.

### 3.2 Grain size distribution

The final grain size distributions are shown in Fig. 5 for 149 $`M_{}`$, 195 $`M_{}`$ and 250 $`M_{}`$ PISN. The characteristic grain sizes range between $`10^3`$ and a few 0.1 $`\mu `$m, depending on the grain species and on the mass of the progenitor star. Each dust grain grows by accretion to a final size which depends on the density regime when condensation occurs (higher densities favoring higher accretion rates) and on the abundance of the key species. Indeed, being the first to condense, amorphous carbon grains tend to have characteristic sizes larger than silicates and magnetite grains. Al2O3 grains are typically small because of the rather low-abundance of Al in the ejecta. Larger mass progenitor systems tend to have larger magnetite grains and smaller amorphous carbon grains. However, the properties of grain size distributions for different progenitor masses depend on the different thermodynamics of the expanding ejecta which affects the relative amplitude of cooling and nucleation rates. The model predicts that, for all progenitor masses, PISN lead to the formation of grains with radii smaller than 1 $`\mu `$m but systematically larger than the typical sizes of grains formed in SNII explosions (Todini & Ferrara 2001) with a reduced scatter among different grain species.

### 3.3 Depletion factors

The cosmological relevance of dust synthetized in PISN explosions will depend mainly on the global properties of dust rather than on the nature and size of different compounds. In Fig. 6 we show the total dust depletion factor, defined as the dust-to-metal mass ratio released in the explosions, $`f_{\mathrm{dep}}=M_{\mathrm{dust}}/M_{\mathrm{met}}`$ as a function of PISN progenitor mass. With the exception of the smallest mass bin, $`f_{\mathrm{dep}}`$ ranges between 0.3 and 0.7 and tends to increase with increasing progenitor mass. In the bottom panel of the same figure, we show the ratio of the total dust mass and the initial progenitor stellar mass. For all but the smallest mass bin, the amount of dust formed is between 15 % and 30 % of the initial stellar mass. The peculiar behaviour of the 140 $`M_{}`$ progenitor is due to the original elemental composition of its ejecta, which is highly underabundant in Fe and Si and therefore only corundum is synthetized in the final ejecta (see also Fig. 4).

For comparison, in Fig. 7 we show the same quantities but for SNII. Following Todini & Ferrara (2001), we show two cases corresponding to two different values of the total kinetic energy released in the explosion: case A corresponds to the low kinetic energy model ($`1.2\times 10^{51}\mathrm{erg}`$) and case B refers to the high kinetic energy model ($`1.9\times 10^{51}\mathrm{erg}`$) (see also the original paper of Woosley & Weaver 1995). We also assume two different values for the initial metallicity of the progenitor stars, $`Z=0`$ (dots) and $`Z=Z_{}`$ (squares).

The moderate metal yields in SNII and the effect of fallback of material after the explosion onto the compact remnant lead to depletion factors which are comparable to PISN, with values ranging from 20 % up to 70 % for $`Z=0`$ progenitors with masses $`<22M_{}`$. For larger masses, the depletion factor decreases in case B scenarios (higher kinetic energy) because of the larger amount of metals released. For case A scenarios (lower kinetic energy), instead, 25 $`M_{}`$ and $`30M_{}`$ SNII are predicted to have an $`f_{\mathrm{dep}}=1`$. This is due to the fact that because of fallback, these stars eject only a rather small amount of metals, mostly in the form of carbon, which is completely depleted into AC grains. If the stellar progenitors have solar metallicities, the depletion factor ranges between $`10\%`$ and $`50\%`$ with a much reduced scatter between case A and B.

In spite of these large depletion factors, the total mass of dust synthetized by PISN is significantly higher than that produced by SNII. Indeed, as already discussed in Todini & Ferrara (2001), in case A scenarios, $`Z=0`$ SNII synthetize a total dust mass which corresponds to a fraction between 0.3 and 3% of the original stellar progenitor mass (thus, $`0.10.6M_{}`$ of dust per SN). These values are slightly larger if case B models are considered. When the initial stellar progenitors have solar metallicity, the resulting dust mass is typically a factor $`3`$ larger than for the metal-free case but it is always less than 6 % of the initial stellar mass.

## 4 Summary and Discussion

We have investigated the process of dust formation in the ejecta of first stellar explosions, assuming that the first stars form with characteristic masses of a few 100 $`M_{}`$ and explode as pair-creation SNe. The study is based on an extension of the model developed by Todini & Ferrara (2001) for Type II SNe, which accounts for the different initial chemical compositions of the ejecta and dynamical/thermodynamical properties of the ejecta evolution.

The main results of our analysis can be summarized as follows:

1. During pair-creation SN explosions, a significant amount of dust is synthetized out of the heavy elements produced in the progenitor stellar interiors during the main sequence lifetime and at the onset of the explosion due to explosive nucleosynthetic processes. The fraction of the original stellar mass which is converted into dust depends on the progenitor mass, with typical values ranging between 15% and 30%, resulting in $`30M_{}`$ \- $`60M_{}`$ of dust produced per SN. These values are much larger than those found for $`Z=0`$ Type II SNe resulting from stars with masses between 12 $`M_{}`$ and 40 $`M_{}`$ ($`0.1M_{}`$ \- $`0.6M_{}`$), even if these stars are assumed to be of solar metallicity ($`0.1M_{}`$ \- $`1.8M_{}`$).
2. Because of the large amount of metals released in PISN explosions, dust depletion factors, defined as the dust-to-metal mass ratios, range between 30% and 70% depending on the progenitor mass.
3. The composition of the dust compounds depends critically on the thermodynamics and initial composition of the ejecta, i.e. on the progenitor mass. For the assumed temperature evolution, grain condensation starts 150-200 days after the explosion and silicates, magnetite and AC grains are formed. The dominant compounds for all progenitor masses are SiO2 and Mg2SiO4 while the contribution of amorphous carbon and magnetite grains grows with progenitor mass.
4. PISN explosions lead to the formation of grains with typical sizes which range between $`10^3`$ and a few 0.1$`\mu `$m; for all progenitors, grains radii are always smaller than 1 $`\mu `$m but the relative grain size distribution change depending on the thermodynamics and abundance of the relevant key species. As a general trend, corundum represents the smallest-size compound, amorphous carbon grains tend to form with the largest radii and silicates and magnetite grains have intermediate sizes.

The above results have been obtained under the assumption that the heavy elements present in the ejecta at the onset of the explosion are uniformly mixed up to the outer edge of the helium core. In previous dust formation models (Kozasa et al. 1989; Todini & Ferrara 2001) this approximation was motivated by the early emergence of X-rays and $`\gamma `$-rays in SN 1987A, which suggested mixing in the ejecta at least up to the helium core edge (Kumagai et al. 1988). The use of multi-dimensional hydrodynamic codes to model the observed light curves has made clear that mixing occurs on macroscopic scales through the development of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities: these instabilities arise at the interface between elemental zones and grow non-linearly to produce (i) fingers of heavy elements projected outwards with high velocities and (ii) mixing of lighter elements down to regions that have lower velocities (Wooden 1997). As a result, the gas in the ejecta is mixed into regions which are still chemically homogeneous and which cool with different timescales, whereas only small clumps in the ejecta are microscopically mixed. Such a structure affects the process of dust formation, changing both the total amount of dust formed and the relative abundance of different solid compounds, as recently shown by Nozawa et al. (2004).

A related aspect of the model which requires deeper investigation is the assumed temperature structure of the gas within the ejecta. The adopted thermal evolution of the expanding ejecta is motivated by the results of numerical simulations of the internal structure of PISN progenitors (Fryer, Woosley & Heger 2001; Heger & Woosley 2002) and models the impact of the decays of radioactive elements through the change of the adiabatic index from $`\gamma =4/3`$ to $`\gamma =5/3`$ assumed to occurr at 56Co e-folding time (111.26 days after the explosion). A comparable thermal history is found by Nozawa et al. (2003) solving the radiative transfer equation and taking into account the energy deposition by radioactive elements. For the same PISN progenitor mass, however, their normalization is slightly higher (by a factor $`3`$) because of the different input stellar models (Umeda & Nomoto 2002).

Finally, to quantify the cosmic relevance of dust formation in the early Universe, we should restrict the analysis to the fraction of the newly formed dust which is able to survive the impact of the reverse shock, following thereafter the fate of the surrounding metal-enriched gas. The process of dust sputtering dissociates the grains into their metal components and might have an important role in cosmic metal enrichment (Bianchi & Ferrara 2004). However, new theoretical models seem to indicate that the post-shock temperature enters the regime suitable for dust condensation inside the oxygen layer, because of the high cooling efficiency of this element, but remains substantially higher in the outer He and H layers. If this is the case, then the reverse shock might lead to an increase in the total amount of dust formed rather than decreasing it.

## 5 Cosmological Implications

Our analysis shows that if the first stars formed according to a top-heavy IMF and a fraction of them exploded as pair-creation supernovae, a large amount of dust is produced in the early Universe. In this section, we discuss some of the main cosmological implications of this result, with particular emphasis on its role in the thermodynamics of the gas that will be later incorporated into subsequent generations of objects.

Recent numerical and semi-analytical models for the collapse of star-forming gas clouds in the early Universe have shown that because of the absence of metals and the reduced cooling ability of the gas, the formation of low-mass stars is strongly inhibited. In particular, below a critical threshold level of metallicity of $`Z_{\mathrm{cr}}=10^{5\pm 1}Z_{}`$ cooling and fragmentation of the gas clouds stop when the temperature reaches a few hundreds K (minimum temperature for H2 cooling) and the corresponding Jeans mass is of the order of $`10^310^4M_{}`$ (Schneider et al. 2002). Gas clouds with mass comparable to the Jeans mass start to gravitationally collapse without further fragmentation, until a central protostellar core is formed which rapidly grows in mass through gas accretion from the surrounding envelope. The absence of metals and dust in the accretion flow and the high gas temperature favour very high accretion efficiencies and the resulting stars can be as massive as 600 $`M_{}`$ (Omukai & Palla 2003).

As the gas becomes more and more enriched with heavy elements, the cooling rate increases because of metal (especially C and O) line emission. More importantly, if a fraction of the available metals is depleted onto dust grains, dust-gas thermal exchages activate a new phase of cooling and fragmentation which enables the formation of gas clumps with low-mass (Schneider et al. 2003). In particular, if the metallicity of the star forming gas clouds exceeds $`10^4Z_{}`$, this dust-driven cooling pathway is irrelevant because cooling via metal-line emission by itself is able to fragment the gas down to characteristic Jeans masses in the range $`10^21M_{}`$. At the same time, if the metallicity of the gas is below $`10^6Z_{}`$, even if all the available metals are assumed to be depleted onto dust grains, the resulting cooling efficiency is too low to activate fragmentation and the resulting Jeans masses are as large as in the metal-free case ($`10^310^4M_{}`$). Thus, we can conclude that the presence of dust is crucial to determine the final mass of stars forming out of gas clouds with metallicities in the critical range $`Z_{\mathrm{cr}}=10^{5\pm 1}Z_{}`$. As a reference value, for a metallicity of $`Z=10^{5.1}Z_{}`$, if 20% of the metals are depleted onto dust grains ($`f_{\mathrm{dep}}=0.2`$) the resulting mass of the collapsing clouds is reduced to $`10^210^1M_{}`$ and can lead to low-mass stars. This is fully consistent with the predicted dust mass formed from PISN progenitors (see Fig. 6).

Also, we can not neglect that our models predict the formation of a significant amount of CO molecules, which can contribute to gas cooling. This aspect needs to be investigated further though we expect that the presence of CO molecules will be complementary to that of dust in the critical range of metallicities.

Therefore, in the emerging picture of galaxy evolution, the first episodes of star formation were characterized by very massive stars forming according to a top-heavy IMF. It is only when the metals and dust ejected by the first pair-creation supernovae are able to pollute a substantial fraction of the IGM, that an overall transition to a normal IMF forming stars with masses comparable to those that we presently observe in the nearby Universe occurs. The epoch of this transition depends crucially on the process of metal enrichment through the so-called chemical feedback: within metal-enriched regions, if the metallicity lies within the critical range, the presence of dust becomes critical and can no longer be neglected in the thermodynamics of the star forming gas. It is very likely that the transition will not occur at a single redshift because of the highly inhomogeneous process of metal enrichment (Scannapieco, Schneider & Ferrara 2003) and that there will be epochs when the two modes of star formation will be coeval in different regions of the Universe.

This in turns might be very important for the reionization history of the IGM. Indeed, very massive metal-free stars are powerful sources of ionizing photons and an early epoch of star formation with a top-heavy IMF can easily match the required high optical depth to electron scattering measured by WMAP (Kogut et al. 2003; Spergel et al. 2003; for a general discussion see Ciardi, Ferrara & White 2003). However, an early epoch of reionization is difficult to reconcile with the observed Gunn-Peterson effect in the spectra of $`z>6`$ quasars (Fan et al. 2002) which implies a mass averaged neutral fraction of $`1`$%. These two observational constraints seem to indicate that the reionization history of the Universe might have been more complex than previously thought, with probably two distinct epochs of reionization separated by a relatively small redshift interval in which the Universe might have recombined again. This intermediate epoch of recombination could be the result of a decrease in the ionizing power of luminous sources, probably due to their metal-enrichment and consequent IMF transition.

An early epoch of reionization, as required by WMAP data, poses another critical issue: after reionization, the temperature of the IGM starts to decline as a consequence of cosmic expansion. By the time it reaches the observable range of redshifts $`z<6`$ the temperature of the IGM might be too low to match the observed thermal history (Schaye et al. 2000). The presence of a significant amount of dust synthetized by the first very massive supernovae might be extremely important to raise the IGM temperature through dust photoelectric heating. To estimate the amount of dust in the IGM required to match the observed thermal history, it is necessary to make specific assumptions about the UV background radiation, the reionization history of the IGM and the grain composition and size distribution (Inoue & Kamaya 2003). Furthermore, the properties of dust grains in the IGM may differ from those directly predicted by dust formation models as a consequence of specific selection rules in the transfer of grains from the host galaxies to the IGM (see Bianchi & Ferrara 2004, who find that only grains larger than $`0.06\mu `$m are preferentially ejected in the IGM). These complications are beyond the scope of the present analysis.

Finally, it is well known that the presence of dust at high redshifts offers an alternative formation channel for molecular hydrogen, the dominant coolant in the early Universe, which, in the absence of dust, can form only from the gas phase. In small protogalaxies, the H2 formation rate on grain surface becomes dominant with respect to the formation rate from the gas phase, when the dust-to-gas ratio exceeds roughly 5% of the galactic value (Todini & Ferrara 2001). From this order of magnitude estimate, we can derive the number of pair-creation supernovae required to enrich a small protogalaxy to this level. The results are shown in Fig. 8, where we have assumed the host galaxy to correspond to a halo with virial temperature of 1000 K and we have considered the dust mass synthetized by a 195 $`M_{}`$ progenitor (see Fig. 4) as representative of dust formation efficiencies in PISN. This simple estimate shows that in the redshift range relevant to these small protogalactic systems ($`z>1015`$), one PISN is required to pollute the gas with enough dust that H2 formation on grain surface starts to be important. This, in turns, might have very important consequences for the star formation activity at high redshift (Hirashita & Ferrara 2002).

## Acknowledgements

This work was based on the code developed by P. Todini, whose support we wish to gratefully acknowledge. We also thank A. Heger and T. Kozasa for fruitful information and the anonymous referee for valuable suggestions and careful reading of the paper. We acknowledge support from the CNR/JSPS Italy-Japan Seminar Program.


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# Single-Particle Spectrum in the Electron-Doped Cuprates

## Abstract

We study the evolution of the single-particle spectrum with electron doping in a scheme which adds multiple exchange of transverse spin excitations to the mean-field antiferromagnetic insulator. Away from half-filling small Fermi surface pockets appear first around the X-points, and simultaneously new spectral weight grows in the insulating gap. With further doping the in-gap states develop the character of a renormalized quasiparticle band near the chemical potential. The essential features in momentum-energy space agree well with recent studies using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy on electron-doped cuprates. We interpret the origins and the nature of the in-gap states using a simple variational wavefunction.

Recent angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) experiments have determined the evolution of the Fermi surface in electron-doped cuprates, Nd2-xCexCuO4±δ Armitage02 . In contrast to the hole-doped case, small Fermi surface pockets appear first near the X-points and then with further doping still in the presence of antiferromagnetic (AF) order, in-gap states appear around the zone diagonals with the character of renormalized band pockets. A further increase in doping leads to the formation of a single large Fermi surface. Note that ARPES for electron doping is more informative than for hole doping since the evolution of the charge-transfer gap in the single-particle spectrum can be directly observed. In this Letter we present a systematic investigation of the single-particle properties of electron-doped antiferromagnets using parameters appropriate for the cuprates, and discuss the physical origins of the in-gap states.

The ARPES experiments give clear evidence for electron-hole asymmetry, in agreement with the significantly different behavior of electron- and hole-doped cuprates Armitage02 ; Damascelli03 . Similar contrasting behavior was found in recent one-loop renormalization-group studies Honerkamp01 . A clear separation in energy scale between AF and superconducting fluctuations appears for electron-doping Honerkamp01 ; Manske00 ; Kobayashi02 . This explains the robustness of the AF phase Chubukov95  and the small doping range of the superconducting phase. For this reason, electron-doped cuprates can be treated as doped antiferromagnets within a coupling weak to moderate scheme, in contrast to hole-doped cuprates, where the AF fluctuations compete with the superconducting fluctuations leading to a crossover at relatively high energy scale to a strong coupling phase where all play a role Honerkamp01 ; Furukawa98 ; Honerkamp01a ; Yanase01 ; Kobayashi01 . Strong coupling approaches give strong asymmetry Lee03  but the narrow region of the AF order upon hole doping greatly limits the approach we use here which starts from the AF mean-field (MF) state.

Since the AF Mott insulating state may be adiabatically connected to the MF-AF state at $`T=0`$, the MF-AF state can be a good starting point for our purpose Kusko02 ; Schrieffer89 ; Bulut94 . In order to take account of the collective spin-wave excitations (and also the particle-hole continuum), we calculate the single-particle self-energy including multiple exchange of RPA-type transverse spin excitations, i.e., so-called self-consistent Born approximation (SCBA) Altmann95 ; Brenig95 . Within this approach we can demonstrate the following. Away from half-filling small Fermi surface pockets occur first around the X-points, and simultaneously new spectral weight appears in the insulating gap. With further doping the in-gap states acquire the features of a renormalized quasiparticle band showing clear resemblance to that in the paramagnetic phase. To explain the physical origin of the in-gap state we introduce a simple variational wavefunction for the in-gap state, in which the quasihole MF state in the lower band admixes strongly with the hole state accompanied by particle-hole spin excitations in the upper band.

We work with the $`t`$-$`t^{}`$-$`U`$ Hubbard model,

$$H=\underset{𝒌\sigma }{}ϵ_𝒌c_{𝒌\sigma }^{}c_{𝒌\sigma }+U\underset{i}{}n_in_i,$$
(1)
with a next-nearest-neighbor tight-binding dispersion $`ϵ_𝒌=2t(\mathrm{cos}k_x+\mathrm{cos}k_y)4t^{}\mathrm{cos}k_x\mathrm{cos}k_y`$, where the lattice spacing $`a=1`$. Throughout this paper, we set $`t^{}/t=0.3`$ and $`U/t=8`$. The outline of the SCBA calculation is as follows. First, we solve the AF-MF equation to determine the MF gap $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and the MF chemical potential $`\mu _0`$ for a given electron density $`n`$:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{U}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝒌}{\overset{\mathrm{MBZ}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m}{\overset{\pm }{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{\overset{,}{}}}\theta (\mu _0E_{𝒌m}){\displaystyle \frac{m}{2E_𝒌^0}},`$ (2)
$`n={\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle \underset{𝒌}{\overset{\mathrm{MBZ}}{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{m}{\overset{\pm }{}}}{\displaystyle \underset{\sigma }{\overset{,}{}}}\theta (\mu _0E_{𝒌m}),`$ (3)
where the MF-quasiparticle energy in the upper (lower) band, $`m=+1(1)`$, is given by $`E_{𝒌m}=\xi _𝒌^++mE_𝒌^0`$, where $`\xi _𝒌^\pm =(ϵ_{𝒌+𝑸}\pm ϵ_𝒌)/2`$ and $`E_𝒌^0=\sqrt{(\xi _𝒌^{})^2+\mathrm{\Delta }_0^2}`$. Here $`N`$ is the number of sites and the summation of $`𝒌`$ is taken over the magnetic Brillouin zone (MBZ). Note that the AF long-range order is always present in the doping range we study in this paper. We set up the RPA transverse susceptibilities (for normal and umklapp processes) using $`\mathrm{\Delta }_0`$ and $`\mu _0`$, and solve the Dyson equation for the retarded Green’s functions at $`T=0`$ putting these RPA susceptibilities into the one-loop self-energy. The true chemical potential, $`\mu `$, is determined by $`n=2_{\mathrm{}}^\mu 𝑑\omega \rho (\omega )`$, where $`\rho (\omega )`$ is the single-particle density of states (DOS) calculated from the resultant Green’s function. We discretize the momentum by $`32\times 32`$ mesh in the first quadrant and the energy by $`1024`$ mesh in the interval $`(20t,20t)`$. Due to the omission of vertex corrections, the coupling constant in the self energy is too strong, which overestimates renormalization of the indirect gap Altmann95 ; Brenig95 . As shown by Bulut et al. Bulut93 , a reduction of the coupling constant $`U`$ mimics the effect of vertex corrections. We obtain a reasonable value of the indirect gap at half-filling with the reduced coupling constant, $`0.7U`$, in the self energy.

Figure 1 shows the doping dependence of the DOS. At half-filling $`n=1.00^+`$ (with appropriate shift of the chemical potential to the bottom of the upper band), the multiple scattering by spin fluctuations redistributes the MF-quasiparticle weight into the incoherent background in an energy range $`8t`$ accompanied by sharp quasiparticle peaks at the edges of the insulating gap. Based on the argument similar to Kane et al. for the $`t`$-$`J`$ model Kane89 , we can conclude that the quasiparticle residue and its width are the order of $`t/U`$ and $`4t^2/U`$, respectively. The intensity of the incoherent background is considerably enhanced at $`\omega \mu 7t`$ and $`3t`$, which results from the coupling of the quasiparticle to interband particle-hole excitations across the gap Altmann95 ; Preuss95 .

With increasing electron doping, the position of the lower band moves down to lower energy with considerable reduction of the spectral weight. The reduction of the spectral weight, particularly in the lower band, leads to a transfer into the insulating gap giving rise to the in-gap states at $`\omega \mu t`$. As the doping increases further the in-gap states gain more spectral weight. Note that the chemical potential lies in the upper quasiparticle band.

Figure 2 shows the contour plot for the spectral intensity $`A(𝒌,\omega )`$ along the high-symmetry lines of the Brillouin zone (BZ). At $`T=0`$, the relevant scattering process creates spin excitations, which disturb of the AF background. Since a coherent motion of a particle in the disturbed background feels an effectively smaller ordered moment, its excitation energy is smaller than that of the MF-states. Hence we expect well-defined quasiparticle states at the edges of the renormalized gap unless the long-range order itself is broken. For states with larger excitation energy, multiple scattering creating spin excitations dominates, and broad spectrum of incoherent states appears at energies far from the chemical potential. For $`n=1.00^+`$ the spectrum that emerges has sharp quasiparticle bands at the edges of broad multiple spin excitation backgrounds as shown in Fig. 2. The lower quasiparticle band, which would correspond to the charge-transfer band in the cuprates, has its highest energy and strongest intensity at the M-points. These features are confirmed by the ARPES experiment Armitage02 . The qualitative form of weight redistribution in $`A(𝒌,\omega )`$ is consistent with the results of extensive quantum Monte Carlo simulation for the $`t`$-$`U`$ Hubbard model Bulut94a ; Preuss95 .

Upon doping the chemical potential moves higher in the upper quasiparticle band, and small Fermi surface pockets appear close to the X-points as also found in the strong coupling calculations of Ref. Lee03 . These small pockets provide new decay channels through the creation of the particle-hole spin excitations in the upper quasiparticle band. Then, a redistribution of the spectral weight again takes place particularly in the lower band, leading to a considerable reduction as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, which must be compensated by the appearance of spectral weight elsewhere, i.e., in the in-gap state that appears at $`\omega \mu t`$. With further doping, the in-gap states become more visible in wide regions of the BZ, while the shadow bands become less visible except close to the chemical potential. As a result, the in-gap states together with the upper quasiparticle band exhibit clear resemblance to a renormalized quasiparticle band in the paramagnetic phase with the pseudogap due to strong AF fluctuations (so-called hot spots) Armitage01 ; Kampf90 ; Monthoux93 ; Kontani99 ; Moriya00 . This is seen more clearly in Fig. 3, in which the in-gap states develop and become dispersive with doping.

Figure 4 shows the contour plot of $`A(𝒌,0)`$ at the chemical potential. The shape of the strongest intensity corresponds to Fermi surfaces. Upon doping the small Fermi surface pockets appear first around the X-points. As the doping increases these Fermi surface pockets deform and become pieces of the paramagnetic-like Fermi surface. The dashed line in Fig 4 for $`n=1.12`$ denotes the Fermi surface of the non-interacting tight-binding dispersion in the paramagnetic phase. The form of the Fermi surface deformation with doping agrees qualitatively with the ARPES measurement Armitage02 .

In order to elucidate the origin and the nature of the in-gap state, we consider a simple variational wavefunction Weng90 . The MF ground state is expressed by filling up the states below the chemical potential,

$$|0=\underset{𝒌}{\overset{\mathrm{MBZ}}{}}\underset{m}{\overset{\pm }{}}\underset{\sigma }{\overset{}{}}\theta (\mu _0E_{𝒌m})\gamma _{𝒌\sigma m}^{}|\mathrm{vac},$$
(4)
where the MF-quasiparticle $`\gamma `$-operator is related to the $`c`$-operator by $`c_{𝒌\sigma }=_m^\pm v_{𝒌m}\gamma _{𝒌\sigma m}`$ with $`v_{𝒌m}=\sqrt{(1m\xi _𝒌^{}/E_𝒌^0)/2}`$. The quasihole MF state in the lower band is described by $`|𝒑\sigma =\gamma _{𝒑\sigma }|0`$, which couples with multiple spin exchange states via the residual Hubbard interaction, $`H_{\mathrm{int}}`$.

Consider the variational wavefunction defined by

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝒑\sigma }=\mathrm{sin}\theta _𝒑|𝒑\sigma \mathrm{cos}\theta _𝒑|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma },$$
(5)
where $`|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }`$ contains multiple spin excitations and $`\theta _𝒑`$ is a variational parameter. A basic component of the $`|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }`$ is then given by applying $`H_{\mathrm{int}}`$ on $`|𝒑\sigma `$, which generates states with a particle-hole spin excitation. Among these states, the state involving a particle-hole spin excitation within the upper band makes the dominant contribution which lowers the energy of the $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝒑\sigma }`$, i.e.,

$$|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }=\frac{1}{\sqrt{A_𝒑}N}\underset{𝒌,𝒒}{\overset{\mathrm{MBZ}}{}}f(𝒑,𝒌;𝒒)\gamma _{𝒑+𝒒\sigma +}\gamma _{𝒌𝒒\overline{\sigma }+}\gamma _{𝒌\overline{\sigma }+}^{}|0,$$
(6)
where

$$f(𝒑,𝒌;𝒒)=p_{}(𝒑+𝒒,𝒑)p_+(𝒌𝒒,𝒌)[𝒒𝒒+𝑸],$$
(7)
with the coherent factor $`p_\pm (𝒌,𝒌^{})=v_{𝒌+}v_{𝒌^{}\pm }\pm v_𝒌v_𝒌^{}`$. Here $`A_𝒑`$ is the appropriate normalization factor.

Minimizing the total energy $`E_𝒑^{\mathrm{tot}}=\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝒑\sigma }|H|\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝒑\sigma }`$ with respect to $`\theta _𝒑`$, we obtain the renormalized quasihole energy, $`\stackrel{~}{E}_𝒑=(E_𝒑^{\mathrm{tot}}E_0)`$, where $`E_0=0|H|0`$. For small doping two holes in the $`|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }`$ have a momentum close to the X-points, i.e., $`𝒑+𝒒𝒌𝒒\mathrm{X}`$. Due to the momentum conservation the momentum of the particle is $`𝒌𝒑`$. Since the kinetic energy of the $`|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }`$ is the order of $`E_{𝒑+}\mu _0`$ and the average of the Coulomb interaction is negligible, the average of the total energy of the $`|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }`$ is the order of $`E_{𝒑+}\mu _0`$, which is the order of $`U`$ smaller than that of the hole in the lower band, $`|𝒑\sigma `$. Therefore, the most of the weight in the $`|\mathrm{\Psi }_{𝒑\sigma }`$ comes from the $`|\varphi _{𝒑\sigma }`$ and we obtain an energy $`\stackrel{~}{E}_𝒑(E_{𝒑+}\mu _0)`$.

In Fig. 5 we compare the quasihole energies for $`n=1.12`$ (a) evaluated by the variational wavefunction with (b) the results of the SCBA calculation in the quasiparticle $`\gamma `$-representation. The green (red) line in Fig. 5(a) represents the renormalized (MF) quasihole band. The dispersion of the renormalized quasihole band in Fig. 5(a) follows the curve $`E_{𝒑+}`$. The variational evaluation of the quasihole energy agrees reasonably closely with the SCBA results except for region close to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point. Since the states near the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$-point are far from $`\mu _0`$, the simple variational wavefunction would be poor. Note that a similar variational argument could be hold for hole dopings, where small hole pockets around the zone diagonals are involved instead (see Fig. 2).

Since the renormalization of the order parameter is neglected in this work, the AF phase survives up to a larger doping than the actual value ($`n_\mathrm{c}1.12`$). However in reality, there exist well developed short-range order and strong AF fluctuations. As the ARPES experiment is insensitive against the difference between a short-range order and true long-range order, our treatment with an unrenormalized MF order parameter mimics the presence of short-range order. Nevertheless, the renormalization could be important for the smooth evolution of the Fermi surface near $`n_\mathrm{c}`$ accompanied by the appearance of spectral weight around the zone diagonals Armitage02 ; Damascelli03 . These features are reproduced by MF approaches with renormalization of the ordered momentKusko02 . A more sophisticated theoretical treatment is needed to describe this smooth evolution of the spectra as the AF order changes rapidly from long to short range.

In summary, we have studied systematically the evolution of the single-particle spectrum in the doped antiferromagnetic insulator. Starting from the MF antiferromagnetic insulator, we take into account multiple exchange of transverse spin excitations in the self energy. Away from half-filling we observe small Fermi surface pockets near the X-points and simultaneously the in-gap quasiparticle states, which eventually evolve into a renormalized quasiparticle band similar to that in the paramagnetic phase. We have proposed the simple variational wavefunction for the in-gap state, where the lower quasihole state admixes strongly with the upper quasihole state accompanied by a particle-hole excitation in the upper quasiparticle band. We have demonstrated that the weak-coupling treatment starting from the AF insulator gives a good description of the single-particle spectrum of the electron-doped cuprates.

We would like to thank W. Brenig, Z.-X. Shen, K. Ueda, M. Sigrist and H. Monien for fruitful discussions. This work is supported by the MaNEP program of the Swiss National Fund.


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# References

Nonlocal Properties and Local Invariants

for Bipartite Systems

Sergio Albeverioa 111 SFB 611; BiBoS; IZKS; CERFIM(Locarno); Acc. Arch.; USI(Mendriso) e-mail: albeverio@uni-bonn.de, Shao-Ming Feia,b 222e-mail: fei@uni-bonn.de, Preeti Parasharc 333e-mail: parashar@isical.ac.in, Wen-Li Yangd,e 444e-mail: wlyang@yukawa.kyoto-u.ac.jp

$`^a`$ Institut für Angewandte Mathematik, Universität Bonn, D-53115

$`^b`$ Department of Mathematics, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100037

$`^c`$ Physics and Applied Mathematics Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata 700108

$`^d`$ Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502

$`^e`$ Institute of Modern Physics, Northwest University, Xian 710069

Abstract

The nonlocal properties for a kind of generic $`N`$-dimensional bipartite quantum systems are investigated. A complete set of invariants under local unitary transformations is presented. It is shown that two generic density matrices are locally equivalent if and only if all these invariants have equal values in these density matrices.

PACS numbers: 03.67.-a, 02.20.Hj, 03.65.-w

As a fundamental phenomenon in quantum mechanics, nonlocality has been given a lot of attention in foundational considerations, in the discussion of Bell type inequalities  and hidden variable models, see e.g. . Nonlocality turns out to be also very important in quantum information processing such as quantum computation , quantum teleportation , dense coding  and quantum cryptographic schemes . Nonlocal correlations in quantum systems imply a kind of entanglement among the quantum subsystems. The nonlocal properties as well as the entanglement of two parts of a quantum system remain invariant under local transformations of these parts.

The method developed in , in principle, allows one to compute all the invariants of local unitary transformations, though it is not easy to perform it operationally. In , the invariants for general two-qubit systems are studied and a complete set of 18 polynomial invariants is presented. It is proven that two qubit mixed states are locally equivalent if and only if all these 18 invariants have equal values in these states. Therefore any nonlocal characteristics of entanglement is a function of these invariants. In  three qubits states are also discussed in detail from a similar point of view.

In the present paper we discuss the locally invariant properties of arbitrary dimensional bipartite quantum systems. We present a complete set of invariants and show that two generic density matrices with full rank are locally equivalent if and only if all these invariants have equal values in these density matrices.

We first consider the case of pure states. Let $`H`$ be an $`N`$-dimensional complex Hilbert space, with $`|i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$, as an orthonormal basis. A general pure state on $`HH`$ is of the form

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}a_{ij}|i|j,a_{ij}\text{ }C$$
(1)
with the normalization $`{\displaystyle \underset{i,j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}a_{ij}a_{ij}^{}=1`$ ($``$ denoting complex conjugation).

A quantity is called an invariant associated with the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ if it is invariant under all local unitary transformations, i.e. all maps of the form $`UU`$ from $`HH`$ to itself, where $`U`$ is a unitary transformation on the Hilbert space $`H`$. Let $`A`$ denote the matrix given by $`(A)_{ij}=a_{ij}`$. The following quantities are known to be invariants associated with the state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ given by (1), see :

$$I_\alpha =Tr(AA^{})^\alpha ,\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N;$$
(2)
(with $`A^{}`$ the adjoint of the matrix $`A`$).

In terms of the Schmidt decomposition, a given $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ can always be written in the following form, using two suitable orthonormal basis $`\left\{|i^{}\right\}`$, $`\left\{|i^{\prime \prime }\right\}`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$:

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }=\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\sqrt{\mathrm{\Lambda }_i}|i^{}|i^{\prime \prime },$$

where $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}\mathrm{\Lambda }_i=1`$, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_i0`$. The $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N`$, are the eigenvalues of the matrix $`AA^{}`$. As $`AA^{}`$ is self-adjoint, there always exists a unitary matrix $`V`$, $`VV^{}=V^{}V=1`$, such that $`VAA^{}V^{}=diag\{\mathrm{\Lambda }_1,\mathrm{},\mathrm{\Lambda }_N\}`$. The invariants (2) can then be written in the form:

$$I_\alpha =\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{\Lambda }_i^\alpha ,\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N.$$

As the eigenvalues of the matrix $`AA^{}`$ are given by the invariants under local unitary transformations, two pure states (on $`HH`$) are equivalent under locally unitary transformations if and only if they have the same values of the invariants $`I_\alpha `$, $`\alpha =1,\mathrm{},N`$ . Moreover two Hermitian $`m\times m`$ matrices $`A`$ and $`B`$ are unitary equivalent (i.e., there exists a unitary matrix $`u`$ on an $`m`$-dimensional complex vector space satisfying $`A=uBu^{}`$) if and only if

$$Tr(A^\alpha )=Tr(B^\alpha ),\mathrm{for}\alpha =1,\mathrm{},m.$$
(3)
We consider now mixed states on $`HH`$. Let $`\rho `$ be a density matrix defined on $`HH`$ with $`rank(\rho )=nN^2`$. $`\rho `$ can be decomposed according to its eigenvalues and eigenvectors:

$$\rho =\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i|\nu _i\nu _i|,$$

where $`\lambda _i`$ and $`|\nu _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$, are the nonzero eigenvalues and eigenvectors respectively of the density matrix $`\rho `$. $`|\nu _i`$ has the form

$$|\nu _i=\underset{k,l=1}{\overset{N}{}}a_{kl}^i|k|l,a_{kl}^i\text{ }C,\underset{k,l=1}{\overset{N}{}}a_{kl}^ia_{kl}^i=1,i=1,\mathrm{},n.$$

Let $`A_i`$ denote the matrix given by $`(A_i)_{kl}=a_{kl}^i`$. We introduce $`\left\{\rho _i\right\}`$, $`\left\{\theta _i\right\}`$,

$$\rho _i=Tr_2|\nu _i\nu _i|=A_iA_i^{},\theta _i=(Tr_1|\nu _i\nu _i|)^{}=A_i^{}A_i,i,j=1,\mathrm{},n,$$
(4)
$`Tr_1`$ and $`Tr_2`$ stand for the traces over the first and second Hilbert spaces respectively, and therefore, $`\rho _i`$ and $`\theta _i`$ can be regarded as reduced density matrices. Let $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )`$ and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )`$ be two “metric tensor” matrices, with entries given by

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )_{ij}=Tr(\rho _i\rho _j),\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )_{ij}=Tr(\theta _i\theta _j),\mathrm{for}i,j=1,\mathrm{},n,$$
(5)
and

$$\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )_{ij}=\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )_{ij}=0,\mathrm{for}N^2i,j>n.$$

We call a mixed state $`\rho `$ a generic one 555These states are all the ones but a set of measure zero: $`\{\rho |det(\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ))=0,det(\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ))=0\}`$. if the corresponding “metric tensor” matrices $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ satisfy

$$det(\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ))0,\mathrm{and}det(\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ))0.$$
(6)
Obviously, a generic state implies $`n=N^2`$ or $`det(\rho )0`$, namely, a state with full rank. Nevertheless a fully ranked density matrix may be not generic in the sense of (6).

Similarly we also introduce $`X(\rho )`$ and $`Y(\rho )`$ as

$$X(\rho )_{ijk}=Tr(\rho _i\rho _j\rho _k),Y(\rho )_{ijk}=Tr(\theta _i\theta _j\theta _k),i,j,k=1,\mathrm{},n.$$
(7)
\[Theorem\]. Two generic density matrices with full rank are equivalent under local unitary transformations if and only if there exists a ordering of the corresponding eigenstates such that the following invariants have the same values for both density matrices:

$$\begin{array}{c}J^s(\rho )=Tr_2(Tr_1\rho ^s),s=1,\mathrm{},N^2;\hfill \\ \mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ),\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ),X(\rho ),Y(\rho ).\hfill \end{array}$$
(8)
Remark 1. It is well-known that the set of eigenvalues and corresponding eigenstates is uniquely defined, but not the labelling of them. However, from the proof below, one can see that two generic density matrices would have the same set of eigenvalues if they share the same values $`\{J^s(\rho )\}`$. One can uniquely choose the label for the eigenstates with the different eigenvalues. For the case of degenerate eigenvalues, if two generic density matrices $`\rho `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ are equivalent under the local unitary transformations, one can always find a kind of label for the eigenstates such that they share the same invariants (8), i.e., under this label, $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )_{ij}=\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ^{})_{ij}`$, $`\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )_{ij}=\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ^{})_{ij}`$, $`X(\rho )_{ijk}=X(\rho ^{})_{ijk}`$, $`Y(\rho )_{ijk}=Y(\rho ^{})_{ijk}`$. This is due to that these invariants are the sufficient and necessary conditions for two generic density matrices to be equivalent under local unitary transformations, see the proof below.

\[Proof\]. We first show that the quantities given in (8) are invariant under local unitary transformations. Let $`u`$ and $`w`$ be unitary transformations, $`uu^{}=u^{}u=ww^{}=w^{}w=1`$. Under the local unitary transformation $`uw`$, we have $`\rho \rho ^{}=uw\rho u^{}w^{}`$. Correspondingly, we have $`|\nu _i|\nu _i^{}=uw|\nu _i`$, or equivalently $`A_i`$ is mapped to $`A_i^{}=u^tA_iw`$, where $`u^t`$ is the transpose of $`u`$. Therefore

$$\rho _i^{}=A_i^{}A_i^{}=u^tA_iA_i^{}u^{}=u^t\rho _iu^{},\theta _i^{}=A_i^{}A_i^{}=w^{}A_i^{}A_iw=w^{}\theta _iw.$$
(9)
By using (9), it is straightforward to check the following relations:

$$\begin{array}{c}J^s(\rho )J^s(\rho ^{})=Tr_2[\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^sTr_1(|\nu _i^{}\nu _i^{}|)]=Tr_2[\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^sA_i^{}A_i^{}]=J^s(\rho ),\hfill \\ \mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )_{ij}\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ^{})_{ij}=Tr(\rho _i^{}\rho _j^{})=Tr(u^t\rho _i\rho _ju^{})=\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )_{ij},\hfill \\ \mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )_{ij}\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ^{})_{ij}=Tr(\theta _i^{}\theta _j^{})=Tr(w^{}\theta _i\theta _jw)=\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )_{ij}\hfill \\ X(\rho )_{ijk}X(\rho ^{})_{ijk}=Tr(\rho _i^{}\rho _j^{}\rho _k^{})=Tr(u^t\rho _i\rho _j\rho _ku^{})=X(\rho )_{ijk},\hfill \\ Y(\rho )_{ijk}Y(\rho ^{})_{ijk}=Tr(\theta _i^{}\theta _j^{}\theta _k^{})=Tr(w^{}\theta _i\theta _j\theta _kw)=Y(\rho )_{ijk},\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`i,j,k=1,\mathrm{},n`$. Hence the quantities in (8) are invariants of local unitary transformations. If two density matrices are equivalent under local unitary transformations, then their corresponding invariants in (8) have the same values.

Now suppose conversely that the states $`\rho =_{i=1}^n\lambda _i|\nu _i\nu _i|`$ and $`\rho ^{}=_{i=1}^n\lambda _i^{}|\nu _i^{}\nu _i^{}|`$ give the same values to the invariants in (8). We are going to prove that $`\rho `$ and $`\rho ^{}`$ are equivalent under local unitary transformations.

a) As

$$J^s(\rho )=Tr_2(\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^sTr_1(|\nu _i\nu _i|))=Tr_2(\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^sA_iA_i^{})=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^s,$$

from $`J^s(\rho ^{})=J^s(\rho )`$ we have

$$\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^s=\underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}\lambda _i^s,s=1,\mathrm{},N^2.$$

From (3), we have that $`\rho ^{}`$ and $`\rho `$ have the same nonzero eigenvalues, i.e., $`\lambda _i^{}=\lambda _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$.

b) From (5), the generic condition $`det(\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ))0`$ implies that $`\{\rho _i\}`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},n(=N^2)`$, span the space of $`N\times N`$ matrices and

$$\rho _i\rho _j=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}C_{ij}^k\rho _k,C_{ij}^k\text{ }C$$
(10)
Taking trace of (10) and using the condition $`Tr\rho _i=1`$ one gets

$$\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}C_{ij}^k.$$
(11)
From (11) and (7) we obtain

$$X_{ijk}=\underset{l=1}{\overset{n}{}}C_{ij}^l\mathrm{\Omega }_{lk}.$$

Therefore

$$C_{ij}^l=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}X_{ijk}\mathrm{\Omega }^{lk},$$
(12)
where the matrices $`\mathrm{\Omega }^{ij}`$ is the corresponding inverses of the matrices $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}`$ (which exist due to the assumption (6)). (12) implies that the coefficients $`C_{ij}^l`$ are given by $`\{\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij},X_{ijk}\}`$. From (5), the generic condition (6) implies that $`\{\rho _i\}`$ forms an irreducible $`N`$-dimensional representation of the algebra $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$ with the generators $`\{e_i,i=1,\mathrm{},N^2\}`$ satisfying

$$[e_i,e_j]=\underset{k=1}{\overset{N^2}{}}f_{ij}^ke_k,$$
(13)
where $`f_{ij}^k=C_{ij}^kC_{ji}^k`$. More explicitly, $`\pi \left(e_i\right)=\rho _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N^2`$, where $`\pi `$ is the representation of $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$.

The generic condition $`det(\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ^{}))0`$ implies that $`\{\rho _i^{}\}`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N^2`$, also span the space of $`N\times N`$ matrices,

$$\rho _i^{}\rho _j^{}=\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}C_{ij}^k\rho _k^{},C_{ij}^k\text{ }C.$$
(14)
If $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ^{})=\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )`$ and $`X(\rho ^{})=X(\rho )`$, we have $`C_{ij}^l=C_{ij}^l`$. Therefore, $`\left\{\rho _i\right\}`$ and $`\left\{\rho _i^{}\right\}`$ (if one chooses $`\pi ^{}(e_i)=\rho _i^{}`$) are two irreducible $`N`$-dimensional representation of $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$ (13). It is well-known that all the Casimir operators of the algebra $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$ can be expressed in terms of homogeneous polynomials of $`e_i`$’s (for example, the first Casimir operator $`C_2`$ can be written as a quadratic polynomial of $`e_i`$’s). Moreover Casimir operators are algebraically independent and give rise to a complete set of generators for the center of the universal enveloping algebra of $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$. They take scalar values on an irreducible representation of $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$ (from Schur’s Lemma), and become the characters of the irreducible representations . Due to the fact that the trace of every polynomial of $`\{\rho _i\}`$ and $`\{\rho _i^{}\}`$ can be represented in terms of $`\{\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}(\rho ),X_{ijk}(\rho )\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij}(\rho ^{}),Y_{ijk}(\rho ^{})\}`$ respectively (see below remark 2), we conclude that the values of all the Casimir operators given by the two $`N`$-dimensional representations $`\left\{\rho _i\right\}`$ and $`\left\{\rho _i^{}\right\}`$ are equal, from the condition $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )=\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ^{})`$ and $`X_{ijk}(\rho )=X_{ijk}(\rho ^{})`$. Hence, the two sets of representations (primed and unprimed) of the algebra $`gl(N,\text{ }C)`$ are equivalent, i.e.,

$$\rho _i^{}=u^t\rho _iu^{},$$
(15)
for some $`u𝒰`$.

Similarly, from $`\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho )=\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ^{})`$ and $`Y_{ijk}(\rho )=Y_{ijk}(\rho ^{})`$ we can deduce that

$$\theta _i^{}=w^{}\theta _iw,\mathrm{for}\mathrm{some}w𝒰.$$
(16)
From the Singular value decomposition of matrices , we have $`|\nu _i^{}=uw|\nu _i`$, $`i=1,\mathrm{},N^2`$, and $`\rho ^{}=uw\rho u^{}w^{}`$. Hence $`\rho ^{}`$ and $`\rho `$ are equivalent under local unitary transformations.

Remark 2. For a degenerate state $`\rho `$, $`det(\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ))=0`$ (resp. $`det(\mathrm{\Theta }(\rho ))=0`$), the above invariants (8) are not complete in the sense that two degenerate density matrices can be not equivalent under local unitary transformations even if they give the same values to the invariants in (8). This is due to the fact that there exist null vectors for the degenerate state. For example in the case $`det(\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ))=0`$, there exists at least one Hermitian matrix $`B`$ which satisfies $`Tr(B\rho _i)=0`$ for $`i=1,\mathrm{},n`$. Hence $`\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho ^{})_{ij}=\mathrm{\Omega }(\rho )_{ij}`$ and $`X(\rho ^{})_{ijk}=X(\rho )_{ijk}`$ are not enough to get the first equivalence relation (15). In this case some new invariants have to be introduced to get a complete set of invariants. From the algebraic relations (10) and formula (12), other generalized invariants like $`Tr((\rho _i)^{m_i}(\rho _j)^{m_j}\mathrm{}(\rho _k)^{m_k})`$ and $`Tr((\theta _i)^{m_i}(\theta _j)^{m_j}\mathrm{}(\theta _k)^{m_k})`$, $`i,j,\mathrm{},k=1,\mathrm{},n`$; $`m_i,m_j,\mathrm{},m_kIN`$, can be represented in terms of $`\{\mathrm{\Omega }_{ij},X_{ijk}\}`$ and $`\{\mathrm{\Theta }_{ij},Y_{ijk}\}`$ for a generic state with full rank, for example,

$$Tr\left(\rho _{i_1}\rho _{i_2}\mathrm{}\rho _{i_m}\right)=\underset{\{\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _{m2}\}}{}C_{i_1i_2}^{\alpha _1}C_{\alpha _1i_3}^{\alpha _2}\mathrm{}C_{\alpha _{m3}i_{m1}}^{\alpha _{m2}}\mathrm{\Omega }_{\alpha _{m2}i_m}.$$

Hence by doing so we do not get new invariants.

To summarize, we have discussed here the local invariants for arbitrary dimensional bipartite quantum systems and have presented a set of invariants of local unitary transformations. The set of invariants is not necessarily independent (they could be represented by each other in some cases) but it is complete in the sense that two generic density matrices are equivalent under local unitary transformations if and only if all these invariants have equal values for these density matrices.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank M. Grassl for interesting discussions. P.P. is grateful to Prof. Yu. I. Manin for encouragement and the Max-Planck Institute für Mathematik, Bonn, for warm hospitality, where a part of this work was done. W-L Yang would like to thank Prof. R. Sasaki and acknowledge the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University and the JSPS for their warm hospitality.


text:
# Optical identification of the companion to PSR J1911-5958A, the pulsar binary in the outskirts of NGC 6752

## 1 Introduction

Recently, 5 millisecond pulsars have been discovered (D’Amico et al. damico\_c (2002)) towards the nearby galactic globular cluster NGC 6752. Three of them are located inside the $`6\stackrel{}{.}7`$ core radius (Lugger et al. lugger (1995)) while the other two are outside the $`1\stackrel{}{.}92`$ half-mass radius (Djorgovski djorgovski (1993)), at $`2\stackrel{}{.}7`$ and $`6\stackrel{}{.}4`$, respectively. The latter of these is a binary millisecond pulsar, PSR J1911$``$5958A (hereafter PSR A), and has a low-mass ($`0.19\mathrm{M}_{}`$, assuming a $`1.4\mathrm{M}_{}`$ neutron star) companion in a 20 hour, highly circular ($`e<10^5`$) orbit (D’Amico et al. damico\_c (2002)). The pulsar period and period derivative suggest that it is a “canonical” recycled millisecond pulsar (see Phinney & Kulkarni phinney (1994) for a review), and hence that the companion is likely a white dwarf.

The large separation of PSR A from the cluster center is puzzling. Colpi et al. (colpi (2002)) have recently investigated possible scenarios, and found that both for the case of a primordial binary and for an exchange or scattering event with other cluster stars, it is very difficult to explain both the pulsar’s current position and its close circular binary orbit. Instead, they suggest that the binary may have been scattered to its current position by a binary composed of two 3–100 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$ black holes.

One might learn more about the system’s origin (and verify cluster membership) if one can confirm that the companion is a white dwarf and measure its mass and age. Therefore, we searched for the optical counterpart in archival data. We report here on the results.

## 2 Observations and analysis

We searched the ESO and *Hubble Space Telescope* archives for images coincident with the pulsar position ($`\alpha _{2000}=19^\mathrm{h}11^\mathrm{m}42\stackrel{s}{.}7562`$, $`\delta _{2000}=59\mathrm{°}58\mathrm{}26\stackrel{}{.}900`$; D’Amico et al. damico\_c (2002)). We found two images, taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) at the ESO 2.2 m telescope on La Silla. These observations, 4 minute $`B`$ and $`V`$-band exposures, were taken during the night of May 13/14, 1999. The seeing was poor, $`1\stackrel{}{.}5`$ in $`V`$. However, both images showed a faint object at the pulsar position (see below). This object was also present in two *HST* observations with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2; Holtzman et al. holtzman\_a (1995)). Both observations, U5FI07 and U5FI03 (GO-8256), were imaged in the same filters and had similar exposure times, 42 s in F555W (hereafter $`V_{555}`$), 220 s in F439W ($`B_{439}`$), 660 s in F336W ($`U_{336}`$) and 1 800 s and 1 693.5 s in F255W ($`\mathrm{nUV}_{255}`$) for the first and second field, respectively. The position of the pulsar coincides with the WF3 chip for the U5FI07 dataset, while it is on the WF4 chip on the other dataset.

### 2.1 Astrometry

The WFI detector has an array of 8 CCDs (2 rows of 4), each CCD having a field of view of $`8\mathrm{}\times 16\mathrm{}`$, a total of $`33\mathrm{}\times 34\mathrm{}`$. The position of the pulsar was coincident with chip 6 of the $`V`$-band image. We found that there was some distortion over the whole chip. To minimize its effect we only used the upper half of this chip for the astrometric calibration. Stars on this $`8\mathrm{}\times 8\mathrm{}`$ sub-image were compared against entries in the USNO CCD Astrograph Catalog (UCAC; Zacharias et al. zacharias (2000)). In total 68 UCAC stars coincided with this image and their centroids were measured. Of these 43 were not saturated and appeared stellar and unblended. One outlier, having a total residual of $`0\stackrel{}{.}32`$ was rejected. The remaining stars were used to calculate an astrometric solution, fitting for zero-point position, scale and position angle. This solution has root-mean-square (*rms*) residuals of $`0\stackrel{}{.}06`$ in both right ascension and declination. The statistical uncertainty in the astrometry is thus $`0\stackrel{}{.}084`$ in each coordinate.

We used the astrometrically calibrated WFI image to obtain astrometric solutions for the two *HST*/WFPC2 datasets. First, the WFPC2 pixel positions were corrected for geometric distortion and placed on a master-frame, using the prescription of Anderson & King (anderson (2003)). We matched stars on the WFI image and fitted for zero-point position, scale and position angle against the WFPC2 master frame positions. Outliers having residuals larger than three times the *rms* residual of the fit are removed and a new solution is computed. This process is iterated until convergence. On average the converged astrometric solution used some 200–300 stars with *rms* residuals of the order of $`0\stackrel{}{.}03`$ in both right ascension and declination. The final uncertainty in the tie to the UCAC system is dominated by the step from the UCAC to the WFI sub-image, and is $`0\stackrel{}{.}10`$ in each coordinate.

### 2.2 Photometry

We started with the pipe-line calibrated *HST*/WFPC2 images, and used the HSTphot 1.1 (Dolphin 2000a ) package for further reduction and photometry of the images. We followed the recommended procedures to mask bad pixels, defects, cosmic ray hits and hot pixels. Next we used the main task *hstphot* to find stars, measure positions, and determine calibrated photometry. The latter uses the aperture corrections, charge-transfer efficiency corrections and zero-points of Dolphin (2000b ).

### 2.3 The counterpart to PSR J1911$``$5958A

The UCAC catalog is on the ICRS at the 20 mas level (Assafin et al. assafin (2003)). Including this uncertainty in the uncertainty of the astrometric tie, we obtain 95% confidence radii for the WFI and *HST*/WFPC2 frames of $`0\stackrel{}{.}211`$ and $`0\stackrel{}{.}235`$, respectively. Within these radii there is a single object, see Fig. 1. The *HST*/WFPC2 positions and magnitudes are tabulated in Table 1.

The photometric measurements of the object in the two datasets are consistent for all filters except $`\mathrm{nUV}_{255}`$. The object is 0.7 magnitudes brighter in the first dataset than in the second. However, we compared the magnitudes of 240 stars that overlapped between the two datasets and found that, on average, stars in the first dataset were brighter by 0.34 magnitudes in $`\mathrm{nUV}_{255}`$, which removes the observed discrepancy. We have not, however, found an explanation for this large offset between the two datasets.

The magnitudes in the *HST* flight system filters ($`U_{336}`$, $`B_{439}`$ and $`V_{555}`$) were transformed to the Johnson-Cousins $`UBV`$ (Vega) system using the transformations by Holtzman et al. (holtzman\_b (1995)). The resulting average magnitudes for the object in this system are $`U=21.96\pm 0.10`$, $`B=22.46\pm 0.14`$ and $`V=22.08\pm 0.11`$. The object is blue by about 0.8 magnitudes with respect to the cluster main sequence in $`BV`$ at the same $`B`$-band magnitude, Fig. 2. This is also confirmed by an instrumental color-magnitude diagram constructed from the WFI $`B`$ and $`V`$-band images.

Given the density of objects on the *HST*/WFPC2 chips, there is a $`1`$% probability of a chance coincidence in the 95% confidence *HST* error circle. However, there are only a few stars that are blue with respect to the cluster main sequence, which greatly reduces the probability of a chance coincidence. The blue color, together with the positional coincidence, gives us confidence that we have detected the companion of PSR A.

## 3 Ramifications

The minimum mass for the companion is constrained by the pulsar mass function. For a pulsar mass of $`1.35\mathrm{M}_{}`$ (Thorsett & Chakrabarty thorsett (1999)) this minimum mass is $`0.185\mathrm{M}_{}`$. The lower limit increases for heavier pulsars, roughly by $`0.004\mathrm{M}_{}`$ for every $`0.05\mathrm{M}_{}`$ step in the pulsar mass. Assuming a random probability distribution for the inclination of the binary, we find that there is 90% probability that the companion mass is less than $`0.5\mathrm{M}_{}`$. Given this range of masses and the fact that PSR A is a recycled millisecond pulsar, it is likely that the companion is a Helium-core white dwarf.

To verify whether our observations are compatible with a Helium-core white dwarf at the distance of the cluster, we compare our magnitudes with the predictions from the white dwarf cooling tracks of Serenelli et al. (serenelli (2002)). We use their tracks for $`Z=0.001`$, as this metallicity provides the best match to the metallicity of NGC 6752 ($`\text{[Fe/H]}=1.43\pm 0.04`$; Gratton et al. gratton (2003)). We also assume a $`V`$-band distance modulus $`(mM)_V=13.24\pm 0.08`$ and reddening $`E_{BV}=0.040`$, as recently determined by Gratton et al. (gratton (2003)), and use the relative extinction coefficients listed by Schlegel et al. (schlegel (1998)).

Figure 2 shows the cooling tracks for Helium-core white dwarfs with $`Z=0.001`$ for masses in the range of 0.183 to $`0.336\mathrm{M}_{}`$. It appears that the magnitude and colors of the companion to PSR A are compatible with the two lowest-mass tracks, 0.183 and $`0.197\mathrm{M}_{}`$. Note that the $`0.183\mathrm{M}_{}`$ model is below the minimum mass inferred from the pulsar mass function.

We have fitted the observed absolute $`UBV`$ magnitudes against the predictions from the $`Z=0.001`$ Helium-core white dwarf models. A $`\chi ^2`$ statistic was computed for each entry in the model from the difference between the observed and modelled absolute magnitudes. Table 2 shows, for each model with a given mass, the properties of the white dwarf at the $`\chi ^2`$ minimum. Both Fig. 2 as Table 2 show that the lowest mass models, 0.197 to 0.244 $`\mathrm{M}_{}`$, are preferred. At these masses the white dwarf is rather hot, with $`T_{\mathrm{eff}}\mathrm{11\hspace{0.17em}000}\mathrm{16\hspace{0.17em}000}`$ K.

Given these high temperatures, the counterpart is relatively young, $`2`$ Gyr (see both Fig. 2 and Table 2). The precise value strongly depends on the mass, since white dwarfs with lower masses have relatively thick hydrogen envelopes, where residual hydrogen shell burning keeps the white dwarf hot. From the values listed in Table 2, one sees a jump in the cooling age between the 0.197 and $`0.230\mathrm{M}_{}`$ models. This reflects a dichotomy in the thickness of the hydrogen layer, where, above a certain critical mass, the thickness has been reduced by shell flashes early in the evolution (Althaus et al. althaus (2001)). As the shell burning is through the CNO cycle, the critical mass depends on the metallicity: $`0.18\mathrm{M}_{}`$ for solar metallicity, $`0.22\mathrm{M}_{}`$ for $`Z=0.001`$ and $`0.26\mathrm{M}_{}`$ for $`Z=0.0002`$ (Althaus et al. althaus (2001); Serenelli et al. serenelli (2002)).

We should note that the dichotomy in cooling age was not found by Driebe et al. (driebe\_a (1998)), who found the flashes hardly affected the thickness of the hydrogen layer. As a result, more massive white dwarfs cool slower and are older. However, for the mass range of interest here, their results are similar. Their $`0.195\mathrm{M}_{}`$ model has a cooling age of 1.2 Gyr, comparable to the age of the Serenelli $`0.197\mathrm{M}_{}`$ model. For higher masses the cooling age decreases. The $`0.300\mathrm{M}_{}`$ model by Driebe et al. (driebe\_a (1998)) has a cooling age of 0.2 Gyr, down to 25 Myr for the heaviest model, with a mass of $`0.414\mathrm{M}_{}`$.

Finally, we note the similarity between the position in the color-magnitude diagram of the companion of PSR A and the companion of PSR~J0024$-$7204W (Edmonds et al. edmonds\_b (2002)) in 47 Tucanae. On the basis of optical variability with the orbital period (3.2 h) and eclipses of the pulsar radio emission, the companion is argued to be a heated main sequence star. For PSR A, however, we can exclude this possibility: the spin-down luminosity is too low to lead to heating to the observed temperature.

## 4 Discussion and conclusions

We have detected the optical companion to the binary millisecond pulsar PSR J1911$``$5958A, which is located $`6\stackrel{}{.}4`$ from the center of NGC 6752. The companion is blue with respect to the cluster main sequence by 0.8 magnitudes in $`BV`$ and comparison of its colors and magnitude with white dwarf models shows that it is consistent with a Helium-core white dwarf at the distance of NGC 6752.

Irrespective of the cooling models we use, we find that the white dwarf is at most 2 Gyr old. This age is similar to the $`0.7`$ Gyr the binary can be expected to stay in the outskirts if it is currently on a highly eccentric orbit in the cluster (Colpi et al. colpi (2002)), which suggests that the white dwarf formed during, or shortly after, an encounter that also ejected the binary from the core, in an exchange interaction involving a binary with another star or binary. In the scenarios in which the binary was formed in the periphery, or scattered by a binary black hole, the coincidence of the two time scales has to be due to chance.

One would expect the characteristic age of the pulsar to be similar to the cooling age of the white dwarf, as the pulsar starts to spin down after the cessation of mass transfer, while the white dwarf starts to cool. This seems not to be the case for PSR A, for the characteristic age of the pulsar is $`P/(2\dot{P})17`$ Gyr (D’Amico et al. damico\_c (2002)). It may be instead that the assumption underlying the characteristic age is wrong, and that the period at which the pulsar started spinning is similar to the current one.

Compared to other white dwarf companions to milliseconds pulsars, the companion to PSR J1911$``$5958A is bright, $`V22`$, which opens the possibility to determine detailed physical parameters (e.g., Van Kerkwijk et al. vankerkwijk (1996), Callanan et al. callanan (1998)). For instance, one could measure the white dwarf temperature and surface gravity through spectroscopy. By comparison with models, this would lead to a mass and radius of the white dwarf, as well as a much more precise cooling age. The radius would allow one to confirm the association of the binary with NGC 6752. If the association is confirmed, the more accurate distance to NGC 6752 provides additional constraints on the radius and thus the mass of the white dwarf. Combining the white dwarf mass with a radial-velocity orbit of the white dwarf (and thus a mass ratio), would give the mass of the pulsar.

###### Acknowledgements.

This research is based on observations made with the European Southern Observatory telescopes obtained from the ESO/ST-ECF Science Archive Facilities and observations made with the NASA/ESA *Hubble Space Telescope*, obtained from the data archive at the Space Telescope Institute. STScI is operated by the association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. under NASA contract NAS 5-2655. CGB is supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research.