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# A New Simple Model for High Frequency Quasi Periodic Oscillations in Black Hole Candidates

## 1 Introduction

One of the strongest motivations for studying X-ray binaries has been the hope that these systems could be used as probes of fundamental physics. Stellar mass black holes represent a laboratory for studying strong field General Relativity, while neutron stars allow us to test equations of state for nuclear matter. The high frequency quasi-periodic oscillations (HFQPOs) seen from these sources have been held forth as one of the most promising diagnostics, with the potential to measure, for example, the masses and radii of neutron stars (e.g. Kluzniak et al., 1990; Miller et al., 1998) or the masses and spins of black holes (e.g. Wagoner et al. 2001; Abramowicz and Kluzniak 2001).

A great deal more work has been done explaining the HFQPO phenomena in neutron star systems than those in black hole systems, and this is motivated in large part by the much larger number of observed systems and the richer data sets of these systems. A correlation between the frequencies of the high frequency QPOs and the break frequency for the broadband noise component of the Fourier power spectrum that fits both neutron stars and black holes (Psaltis, Belloni, van der Klis 1999 - PBK) has been suggested to provide evidence that the same mechanism must be taking place in all these systems. The extension of this correlation to include white dwarf systems (Mauche 2002) bolstered these claims.

If the PBK and Mauche (2002) correlations are indeed universal and the interpretation that a single mechanism is at work in all cases is correct, then the mechanism cannot depend on the presence of a stellar surface, of a strong magnetic field, or of a strong (i.e. relativistic) gravitational field. Instead, a model taking advantage of the properties of a non-uniform rotating fluid would be a strong candidate for explaining the HFQPOs (see e.g. Titarchuk 2003; Osherovich and Titarchuk 1999).

More recently, though, additional phenomenology has emerged which indicates some fundamental differences between the neutron star and black hole systems, and may suggest that different models apply to these sources after all. The kilohertz QPOs are typically seen in multiples. In the neutron star systems, the separation in the HFQPO frequencies is, in general, nearly constant, with the frequency separation shrinking as the frequencies increase (see e.g. van der Klis et al., 1997; Mendez et al., 1998). In the black hole systems, on the other hand, the kilohertz QPO frequencies seem to drift by much smaller amounts (Strohmayer 2001a, 2001b) and to be found in ratios of small integers (i.e. 1:2, 2:3, or 1:2:3; Abramowicz and Kluzniak, 2001; Remillard et al., 2002; Homan et al. 2003b). There are also some claims for harmonic structure in XTE J 1650-500 (Homan et al. 2003a), with peaks seen at 110, 140, 210, and 270 Hz, but the identification of a harmonic structure is not as clear here as the frequencies are not all identified simultaneously and, in fact, seem to drift. In addition to this, recent observations of the probable black hole transient XTE J 1550-564 indicate that its HFQPOs do not always fit on the PBK correlation (Remillard et al., 2002). These differences suggest that the PBK correlation may not apply to all of the HFQPOs seen; models requiring a stellar surface or general relativistic effects, or both (e.g. Stella and Vietri 1998) need not be rejected. As we wish to explain the integer ratios of the frequencies of HFQPOs from the dynamically confirmed black hole candidates, we will concentrate here on models which do not require a stellar surface.

A model applied primarily to the HFQPOs from black hole candidates is the “discoseismic” model which asserts that $`g`$ modes should become trapped in the potential well of a Keplerian disc in a Kerr potential (e.g. Nowak et al., 1997). The size of the region where the modes are trapped depends on both the mass and the spin of the accreting black hole. Additional frequencies of oscillation should be expected from $`p`$ (pressure) modes and $`c`$ (corrugation) modes. The predictions of the model are well summarised by Kato (2001). Given pairs of high frequency QPOs and a proper identification of the frequencies with the particular modes, one can measure both the black hole mass and spin to relatively high accuracy (Wagoner et al., 2001 and references therein). The discoveries of three systems where the HFQPOs show a harmonic structure with relatively strong peaks seen in integer ratios 1:2, 2:3, or 1:2:3 seem to cast some doubt upon this model. However, the discoseismic model remains viable for the intermediate frequency QPOs in GRS 1915+105, seen at 67 Hz (Morgan et al., 1997) and 40 Hz (Strohmayer, 2001b). We emphasize that such harmonic structure has been seen only from systems thought to contain a black hole as the compact accretor.

Being the first to point out that the frequencies of QPOs in some black hole and neutron star sources were in a ratio of small integers, Abramowicz and Kluzniak (2001, 2002, 2003a) have proposed the “resonance” model, in which a harmonic relationship in the HFQPOs frequencies can be produced as a result of orbital resonances. In particular, the model suggests that an initial perturbation is amplified at a radius where the radial epicyclic frequency for point-like masses is in resonance with the latitudinal epicyclic frequency, with the two frequencies being in (small) integer ratios (In a Schwarzschild spacetime the latitudinal epicyclic frequency and the orbital one coincide.). These annuli tend to be close to the black hole event horizon for the observed frequencies and, hence, given a mass estimate for the black hole and an identification of the ratio of the frequencies in resonance, a black hole spin could be measured.

It should be noted that given the observed frequencies of 162 and 324 Hz in GRS 1915+105 it is not possible to produce the 40 and 67 Hz QPOs with a discoseismic model and the higher frequency QPOs with a resonance model while retaining the same values for the black hole mass and spin (Maccarone 2002). Another potential problem for these two last models is the observational evidence for a frequency “jitter” in the HFQPOs of XTE J1550-564, i.e. for small variations of about 10% in frequencies for about 15% of the time. This difficulty could be particularly severe for the resonance model, whose relevant frequencies confine the resonance to a narrow region in radial coordinates \[This situation is worsened for the 1:3 resonance for which the radial variation of the frequencies is even more rapid (Remillard et al., 2002).\]. More recently, however, Abramowicz et al., (2003b) have considered a perturbative approach to the standard resonance model and were able to show that the resonance can take place also near the radial positions at which the epicyclic frequencies are in an exact 2:3 ratio. While this result offers at least in part a possible explanation for the frequency jitter, the radial extension over which the resonance takes place (which is $`0.1GM/c^2`$ at most, Karas 2003) may still be too small to produce the observed modulation in the emissivity.

We here propose an explanation for the high frequency QPOs in black hole candidates that has connections with both the discoseismic and the resonance model. More precisely, as in the discoseismic model, we are here focussed on global oscillation modes of a fluid orbiting in the vicinity of the black hole and, as the resonance model, we consider fundamental the observational evidence of a 2:3 ratio in the HFQPO frequencies. Our model, however, has distinct novel features and, most importantly, is based on the existence of a non-Keplerian (geometrically thick) disc orbiting in the vicinity of the rotating black hole. Using this single assumption, we show that the HFQPO phenomenology finds a simple explanation.

In Section 2 we introduce the basic properties of our model and discuss how, using this single assumption, we can explain the most important aspects of the HFQPO phenomenology. Finally, in Section 3, we explain how the model can be used to deduce the black hole properties and the ways in which it can be refined or refuted.

## 2 The Model

In contrast to a Keplerian accretion disc, which is in principle infinitely extended, a non-Keplerian disc can easily be constructed to have a finite size, the extent being determined uniquely by the distribution of the specific angular momentum and by the pressure gradients. Because pressure gradients play such an important role, non-Keplerian discs tend to be geometrically thick and look like tori rather than thin discs. Depending then on the pressure gradients and angular momentum distribution, the orbiting fluid is confined to a finite-size region which can behave as a cavity in which global oscillation modes could be trapped. This is a fundamental difference from Keplerian discs, which have no definite outer boundary and in which outward propagating waves cannot grow (Kato 2001).

When a disc (either Keplerian or non) initially in equilibrium is perturbed in some way, restoring forces appear to compensate for the perturbation. A first restoring force is the centrifugal force, which is responsible for inertial oscillations of the orbital motion of the disc and hence for epicyclic oscillations (this is the restoring force at work in the resonance model). A second restoring force is the gravitational field in the direction vertical to the orbital plane and which will produce a harmonic oscillation across the equatorial plane if a portion of the disc is perturbed in the vertical direction (these oscillations are extensively studied in galactic dynamics). A third restoring force is provided by pressure gradients and the oscillations produced in this way are closely related to the sound waves propagating in a compressible fluid. In a geometrically thick disc, the vertical and horizontal oscillations are in general coupled and more than a single restoring force can intervene for the same mode. A detailed discussion of how to classify the different modes of oscillation through its main restoring force can be found in Kato (2001), but it is here sufficient to remind that $`c`$ modes are essentially controlled by the vertical gravitational field, that $`g`$ modes are mainly regulated by centrifugal and pressure-gradient forces, and that all of the restoring forces discussed above play a role in the case of $`p`$ modes. It is also useful to underline that because we are here interested in modes with a prevalent horizontal motion and frequencies above the epicyclic one, we are essentially selecting “inertial-acoustic” modes having centrifugal and pressure gradients as only restoring forces. Hereafter we will refer to these simply as $`p`$ modes.

Following a recent investigation of the nonlinear dynamics of perturbed relativistic tori orbiting around a Schwarzschild black hole (Zanotti et al., 2003), we have analysed the global oscillation properties of such systems and, more specifically, we have performed a perturbative analysis of the axisymmetric modes of oscillation of relativistic tori in a Schwarzschild spacetime and in the Cowling approximation (Rezzolla et al., 2003a). The eigenvalue problem that needs to be solved to investigate consistently the oscillation properties of fluid tori is simplified considerably if the vertical structure is accounted for by an integration in the vertical direction. Doing so removes one spatial dimension from the problem, which can then be solved integrating simple ordinary differential equations. While an approximation, this simpler model reproduces with a precision of less than a few percent, the numerical results obtained with fully nonlinear, 2D numerical calculations (see Rezzolla et al., 2003a for a comparison).

One of the important results of the perturbative investigation was that the eigenfunctions and eigenfrequencies found were those corresponding to the $`p`$ modes of the torus. Furthermore, the behaviour of the fundamental frequencies was observed to converge to the epicyclic frequency $`\kappa _\mathrm{r}`$ at the position of maximum density in the torus $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$ as the torus’s size was progressively reduced to zero (see Fig. 4 of Rezzolla et al., 2003a). Finally and most importantly, the eigenfrequencies computed both for the fundamental mode of oscillation as well as for the first few overtones, were found to be in a harmonic sequence 2:3:4:$`\mathrm{}`$ to within 5–10%, the exact value depending on the specific model for the torus (in general larger tori have progressively smaller ratios). Note that such a relation among the eigenfrequencies is not a standard property of $`p`$-mode oscillations. In stars, for instance, this happens only for purely radial oscillations. Despite showing this important property, the fundamental frequencies were smaller than the observed lower HFQPO frequencies when the estimated masses of the black hole candidates were used.

Stimulated by this mismatch, we have extended the calculations to the case of a torus orbiting around a Kerr black hole. The details on these calculations will be presented in a separate paper (Rezzolla, and Yoshida, 2003b) but the mathematical setup and the numerical methods used follow closely those presented in Rezzolla et al. (2003a). Here, we will concentrate on summarizing the results and discussing how they can be used to construct a new model to explain the HFQPOs in black hole candidates.

Figure 1 shows a typical example of the solution of the eigenvalue problem for a black hole with mass $`M=10M_{}`$ and its comparison with the observations of XTE J1550-564 (other sources could equally have been used). In particular, we have plotted the value of the different eigenfrequencies found versus the radial extension $`L`$ of the torus, expressed in units of the gravitational radius $`r_gGM/c^2`$. The sequences have been calculated for a distribution of specific angular momentum following a power-law (see Rezzolla et al., 2003a for details), keeping constant $`r_{\mathrm{max}}=3.489`$, and for a black hole with dimensionless spin parameter $`aJ/M^2=0.94`$ to maximize the value for $`L`$. Indicated with a solid line are the fundamental frequencies $`f`$, while the first overtones $`o_1`$ are shown with a dashed line; each point on the two lines represents the numerical solution of the eigenvalue problem. The asterisks represent the frequencies of the HFQPOs detected in XTE J1550-564 at 184 and 276 Hz, respectively. Note that the two plotted eigenfrequencies are close to a 2:3 ratio over the full range of $`L`$ considered (this is shown in the inset) and that while they depend also on other parameters in the problem (e.g. the position of $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$, the angular momentum distribution, the polytropic index), these dependences are very weak so that the frequencies depend effectively on $`M`$, $`a`$ and $`L`$. As a result, if $`M`$ and $`a`$ are known, a diagram as the one shown in Fig. 1 could be used to determine the dimension of the oscillating region $`L`$ rather accurately.

On the basis of these results, we suggest that the HFQPOs observed in black hole candidate systems can be interpreted in terms of $`p`$-mode oscillations of a small-size torus orbiting in the vicinity of a black hole. Such a configuration could be produced whenever an intervening process (e.g. large viscosity, turbulence, hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical instabilities, etc.) modifies the Keplerian character of the flow near the black hole.

Two remarks are worth making at this point. The first one is about the existence of a non-Keplerian fluid motion: this is required only very close to the black hole (the inner edge of the torus can be in principle be located at the marginally bound orbit) and beyond this region the fluid motion can be Keplerian. Stated differently, the HFQPOs observed could be produced by the inner parts of a standard, nearly-Keplerian, geometrically thin accretion disc, where a variety of physical phenomena can introduce pressure-gradients. The second remark is about the stability of these tori to non-axisymmetric oscillations. It is well-known that a stationary (i.e. non-accreting) perfect fluid torus flowing in circular orbits around a black hole is subject to a dynamical instability triggered by non-axisymmetric perturbations (Papaloizou and Pringle, 1984). It is less well-known, however, that the instability can be suppressed if the flow is non-stationary. Stated differently, a fluid torus around black could be stable to non-axisymmetric perturbations if mass-accretion takes place (Blaes 1987; Blaes and Hawley 1988; Hawley 1991; De Villiers and Hawley 2002). Because the tori discussed here are assumed to be the terminal part of standard accretion discs, we expect them to be stable to non-axisymmetric perturbations as long as magnetic fields are unimportant.

In what follows we discuss how the HFQPO phenomenology finds simple explanations within this model.

(i) The harmonic relations between the HFQPO frequencies in black hole candidates are naturally explained within this model. When the torus is sufficiently small, in fact, it can be thought of as a cavity in which the $`p`$ modes effectively behave as trapped sound waves. If the sound speed in the cavity were constant, the frequencies of these standing waves would be in an exact integer ratio. In reality the sound speed is not constant but the eigenfrequencies found are in a sequence very close to 2:3:4 in the parameter range we are interested in.

(ii) Being global modes of oscillation, the same harmonicity is present at all radii within the torus. This removes the difficulty encountered in the resonance model and provides also a larger extent in radial coordinates where the emissivity can be modulated (cf. Fig. 1).

(iii) By construction, the frequencies scale like $`1/M`$. This is in agreement with the observations made of XTE J1550-564 and GRO J1655-40 as long as the spins are similar (Remillard et al., 2002). On the other hand, a rather narrow range of black hole spins has been suggested as a possible explanation for the narrow range of radio-to-X-ray flux ratios in the Galactic X-ray binary systems (Fender 2001).

(iv) The frequency jitter can be naturally interpreted in terms of variations of the size of the oscillating cavity $`L`$. Indeed, the frequencies may drift arbitrarily over a large range with the harmonic structure preserved (cf. Fig.1).

(v) The observed variations in the relative strength of the peaks can be explained as a variation in the perturbations the torus is experiencing. (This has been reproduced with numerical simulations; Rezzolla et al., 2003a). Furthermore, while the low frequency overtones are energetically favoured and the corresponding eigenfunctions possess less nodes, any number of harmonics could in principle be observed.

(vi) The evidence that an overtone can be stronger than the fundamental in the harder X-ray bands (Strohmayer 2001a), can be explained simply given that the overtone is an oscillation preferentially of the innermost (and hottest) part of the accretion flow (see Rezzolla et al., 2003a for the eigenfunctions).

## 3 Black hole properties and model tests

Because the $`p`$ modes discussed here represent the basic oscillation modes of the torus, some of their features will not be very sensitive to general relativistic corrections. The harmonic relation between the fundamental frequency and the first overtones is one of such features and this has been encountered not only in Schwarzschild and Kerr spacetimes, but also when we have considered a simple Newtonian gravitational potential (Rezzolla et al., 2003a). While these qualitative features remain unchanged in relativistic regimes, quantitative difference emerge and since these depend on the mass and spin of the black hole, they can be used to measure the black hole properties. This weak dependence on relativistic effects is an important way in which our model for HFQPOs differs from the ones proposed so far.

As discussed above, the solution of the eigenvalue problem in a Schwarzschild spacetime has shown that the fundamental $`p`$-mode frequency tends to the radial epicyclic frequency at $`r_{\mathrm{max}}`$ in the limit of a vanishing torus size. For a Kerr black hole, this frequency is a function of its mass and spin through the relation $`\kappa _\mathrm{r}^2(a,M)=(GM/r^3)(1+a/\widehat{r}^{3/2})^2(16/\widehat{r}+8a/\widehat{r}^{3/2}3a^2/\widehat{r}^2)`$, where $`\widehat{r}r/r_g`$ (Kato 2001). Exploiting this property and the solution of the eigenvalue problem for a large number of different models for the tori, (i.e. with different pressure and density profiles, distributions of specific angular momentum, polytropic indices, etc.) we suggest that a first estimate of the black hole spin and of the size of the oscillating torus can be obtained once the lower frequency in the HFQPOs is measured accurately. In this case, and as shown schematically in Fig. 2, given a black hole candidate with measured mass $`M_{}`$, a lower limit on the black hole spin $`\overline{a}`$ can be deduced as the value of $`a`$ at which the maximum epicyclic frequency is equal to the lower observed HFQPO frequency, i.e. $`\overline{a}a1`$, with max$`[\kappa _\mathrm{r}(\overline{a},M_{})]=`$lower HFQPO frequency. Because for small tori $`Lr_{\mathrm{max}}`$ (cf. Rezzolla et al., 2003a), once $`\overline{a}`$ has been determined, the radial position $`\overline{r}`$ of the maximum of the epicyclic frequency provides an upper limit on the size of the torus, i.e. $`0L\overline{r}`$, where $`d\kappa _\mathrm{r}(\overline{a},M_{})/dr=0`$ at $`r=\overline{r}`$. These two estimates should be considered first approximations only and should be used to further define the properties of the oscillating region; in the case of XTE J1550-564, for instance, the values estimated in this way are $`\overline{r}3.49r_g`$, and $`a0.89`$ (cf. Table 1), while the solution of the full eigenvalue problem built around these estimates yields the more accurate limits: $`\overline{r}1.75r_g`$, and $`a0.94`$ (cf. Fig. 1). The values of $`\overline{a}`$ and $`\overline{r}`$ for the black hole candidates with HFQPO observations and for which an estimate of the mass is available, are presented in Table 1, which also shows a surprisingly small scatter. Given these estimated sizes and the location of the inner and outer edges of the tori, it is easy to calculate that the gravitational potential energy change across the torus is $`6\%`$ of the energy at the outer edge; this relative energy loss could account for the modulated emission observed in QPOs.

We note that this model requires rather large values of the spin parameter. This is not too surprising given that the massive star progenitors of the black holes in X-ray binaries routinely have more angular momentum than even a maximally rotating black hole of the mass of the remnant (see, for instance, the velocity measurements in Brown, Vershueren 1997). The large required spins also make it unlikely that this model will be successfully applicable to neutron star HFQPOs; we re-emphasize that this does not represent a major problem for this model, since the neutron star systems do not show simple integer ratios of frequencies as part of the phenomenology of their HFQPOs.

It is also worth noting that if this model is confirmed to be correct, it will give us a reliable means of placing an upper limit on the mass of a black hole while at the same time requiring the existence of a black hole (see Abramowicz et al., 2002). Observing relatively high-frequency QPOs in pairs with small integer ratios would give us good suggestive evidence for the existence of low-mass black holes. At the present, in fact, there is no strong evidence for any compact objects with masses between the $`1.4M_{}`$ of a neutron star and the $`6.3M_{}`$ of GRO J 1655-40.

A final comment will be reserved to the possibility of finding support to this model from the observational data. There are now extensive observations of these black hole HFQPOs and interesting spectral and flux correlations are beginning to be found (see, for instance, Remillard et al., 2002a, and references therein). These observations could be used to deduce the presence of a small torus in the terminal part of the accretion discs. Furthermore, being based on a single assumption, our model for HFQPOs is simply constructed, but, equally simply, it can be confuted. We now discuss two observational constraints that if not met will cast serious doubts about whether this model is a satisfactory description of the phenomenology observed in HFQPOs. The first constraint can be easily deduced from Fig. 2 and basically requires the lower HFQPO frequency to be always less than the maximum possible epicyclic frequency for a black hole of mass $`M_{}`$, i.e. lower HFQPO frequency$`\mathrm{max}[\kappa _\mathrm{r}(a=1,M_{})]`$. The second constraint, on the other hand, is that even if the HFQPOs frequencies change as a result of the change in size of the torus, they should nevertheless appear in a harmonic ratio to within 5-10%. Both of these observational requirements are sufficiently straightforward to assess and therefore provide a simple and effective way of falsifying this model.

## Acknowledgments

It is a pleasure to thank L. Stella, O. Blaes, M. Klein-Wolt and M. Mendez for helpful comments, M. Abramowicz, W. Kluzniak, and V. Karas for a comparison with the resonance model. Financial support for this research has been provided by the MIUR and by the EU Network Programme (Research Training Network Contract HPRN-CT-2000-00137). LR also acknowledges hospitality at the KITP in Santa Barbara where this work was completed (NSF grant PHY99-07949).


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# Super Star Clusters in the Blue Dwarf Galaxy UM 462 Based on observations obtained at the ESO 3.6m telescope of La Silla

## 1 Introduction

The galaxy UM 462 (UGC 06850) is a Blue Compact Dwarf (BCD) of relatively low metallicity. Low resolution spectroscopy of this object was obtained by the objective prism survey of MacAlpine et al. (1983), higher quality data were collected later on by Terlevich et al. (1991). From these spectra Masegosa et al. (1994) derived a metallicity 12+Log(O/H)=7.98. More recent observations by Izotov & Thuan (1998) gave 12+Log(O/H)=7.95, that is about 1/9 solar. A radio HI map has been obtained by van Zee et al. (1998), they derive a neutral hydrogen mass of $`\mathrm{2.65\; 10}^8M_{}`$. UM 462 has not been detected in the millimetric CO (Gondhalekar et al. 1998). The most recent optical images available are those of Cairos et al. (2001), they show a quite compact object, about $`20\times 10`$ arcsec in size, with a double peaked morphology and blue colors, B-V=0.6-0.3, V-R=0.3, V-I=0.2-0.4. No further details of the morphology of the galaxy can be inferred from these images due to the low angular resolution. The galaxy is classified as a peculiar BCD in the Near-IR Galaxy Morphological Atlas of Jarret (2000). Vanzi et al. (2002) identify, for the first time, a complex morphology in UM 462. Their near-infrared images reveal the presence of at least 6 young compact clusters that, according to the colors and luminosities observed were tentatively classified as Super Star Clusters (SSC). This discovery and the lack of high quality optical images motivated the work presented here. The paper is organized as follow; in Sect. 2 the new observations are described, Sect. 3 is dedicated to the description of color-color diagrams, Sect. 4 to the properties of the clusters: extinction, age, luminosity, mass, size and morphology. The conclusions are summarized in Sect. 5.

## 2 Observations

The observations presented in this paper have been obtained on April 31, 2002 at the ESO 3.6m telescope of La Silla using the optical imager spectrometer EFOSC-2. Images in the U, V, R and gunn-i broad band filters were obtained with total integration times of 1800, 1350, 900 and 1200 sec respectively. Each image was divided in three exposures of equal duration. The data reduction has followed the standard steps, fringes had to be removed from the gunn-i images using sky frames. The photometric calibration was performed using a photometric field of Landolt (1992). A transformation from gunn-i to I, available at the telescope, has been applied. The most prominent feature of the images is the presence of several compact sources. The photometry of the sources detected has been obtained over apertures of 1 ″ in radius. The contribution of the galaxy has been measured on an anulus around each source and subtracted. For each image the photometry has been carried out independently, then values corresponding to the same filter have been combined, the dispersion of the measures give an estimate of the photometric errors that are always between 0.01 and 0.02 mag. The results of the photometry are presented in Table 1. In the last column, indicated as G, the photometry of the entire galaxy, obtained with a radius of 20 ″ , is reported, the values are in full agreement with those of Cairos et al. (2000).

Spectroscopy has been obtained with the grism #9 of EFOSC-2 covering the spectral range 4700-6700 Å with a resolution R=900 and a 1 arcsec wide slit. Two spectra were observed at position angles which allowed to include 5 of the compact sources visible in the images. The orientations of the slits and the clusters detected are indicated in Fig. 1 on the R image of the galaxy. The reduction of the spectra followed the standard steps, 1D spectra centered on the compact sources were extracted with an aperture of 2 arcsec. The flux calibration of the spectra has been obtained using the spectro-photometric standard star EG-274 (Hamuy et al. 1992, 1994) observed with a 5 arcsec wide slit and, in a completely independent way, using the photometry extracted from the V image. The two methods gave results consistent within 0.1 magnitudes. The spectrum extracted from source 1 is shown in Fig. 2. Several lines typical of HII galaxies are easily identified, the fluxes of the lines detected are listed in Table 2. In addition one image in the $`H\alpha `$ narrow band filter has been observed with 2700 sec of integration. The width of the filter is 62 Å allowing the $`H\alpha `$, redshifted by about 1000 $`\mathrm{Km}/\mathrm{s}`$, to be covered. The contribution of the continuum has been subtracted using the broad-band R image rescaled by a suitable factor. The image has been flux calibrated using the $`H\alpha `$ fluxes measured in the spectra. In this way it has been possible to have $`H\alpha `$ fluxes for the sources not covered by the spectroscopic observations, see Table 2. The accuracy in this case has been evaluated to be of about 10%. Quite interestingly bright sources that are not prominent in any of the broadband images have been detected in $`H\alpha `$, these are indicated with a, b and c in Fig. 3.

## 3 The color-color diagrams

The sources observed have been studied first comparing their colors with the evolutionary tracks produced in color-color diagrams by a single stellar population model. To study the stellar component through this method it is critical to evaluate any contribution of non stellar origin and to correct for it. The main non stellar contribution to the broad band magnitudes comes, in our case, from the gas. The model Starburst99 (SB99 - Leitherer et al. 1999) has been used as a reference, this model includes the effect of the nebular continuum so that it has been sufficient to correct the observations for the contribution of the emission lines. This can be done directly through the observations. Unfortunately the spectra observed do not cover the entire spectral range which includes the photometric filters used, so that a direct measure of all emission lines affecting the photometry has not been possible. Instead I have used the template spectrum of a typical BCD galaxy (Saviane 2003) rescaled and diluted to match the characteristics of the spectra available for UM 462 in the region of overlap. In particular it has been imposed that the EW of $`H\alpha `$ and the V magnitude were the same as those observed. These rescaled spectra have been used to measure the contribution of the emission lines to the photometry. Of course this approach must be considered as not very accurate since the flux emitted in most of the lines of interest depends on the temperature, density and abundance; parameters that have not been matched perfectly, however the method gives a very good idea of the effect and it is certainly the best we can do with the data available. For those sources not observed in spectroscopy the $`H\alpha `$ flux obtained from the narrow band image has been used, the corrections in these cases must be considered less accurate. The corrections to the photometry calculated in this way are listed in Table 1. The effect is most important in V while it is always negligible in I due to the absence of important emission lines. In Fig. 4 and 5 color-color diagrams for the clusters in UM 462 are shown. Both the observed (solid circles) and the emission-line-corrected points (solid triangles) are plotted. The errors on the colors are 0.03 at most. The tracks generated by SB99 for an instantaneous burst with solar neighborhood IMF (1-100 $`M_{}`$, 2.35) and $`1/5Z_{}`$ abundance are plotted as solid lines. Despite the uncertainty the emission line correction works very well to move the observed points close to the tracks defined by the model. On those tracks the points at ages 1, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 500 and 1000 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ are marked by open circles with the oldest ages at the top-right of the plots.

The near-infrared data from Vanzi et al. (2002) have been used to build an optical-near-infrared color-color diagram of the clusters. This is shown in Fig. 6. The errors are larger in this case and the correction for the emission line contribution more uncertain than in the optical case. The near-infrared spectrum of Vanzi et al. (2002) in fact includes clusters #1 only. To correct the K photometry of the other clusters I have used the infrared spectrum of cluster #1 as template and rescaled it to produce for each cluster the $`H\alpha `$/$`Br\gamma `$ ratio predicted by case B, then used the rescaled spectrum to derive the photometric correction.

The colors of the galaxy as a whole are in all diagrams consistent with the presence of an evolved population of stars, the observed colors are plotted as solid circles with error bars, the arrows points to the colors corrected for the contribution of the clusters, they are consistent with a population older than 0.5 $`\mathrm{Gyr}`$. Unfortunately the K image is not deep enough to extract a reliable magnitude for the entire galaxy.

## 4 Properties of the Clusters

### 4.1 Extinction

The extinction can be estimated by the ratio $`H\alpha /H\beta `$ for the clusters with spectroscopic observations. Guseva et al. (2000) give $`A_\mathrm{V}=0.27`$. From the fluxes of Table 2 values in the range 0.11-0.77 can be derived for cluster #1, #2, #3 and #6, in particular the highest value of extinction is obtained for cluster #1 and #6. The values of the extinction are listed in Table 3. For cluster #1 the $`Br\gamma `$ flux of Vanzi et al. (2002) can be used in combination with $`H\alpha `$, in this case $`A_\mathrm{V}=0.55`$. So that the optical extinction can be considered relatively low toward all the sources observed. The contribution of the galactic extinction in the direction of UM 462, as reported by NED, is low $`A_\mathrm{V}=0.064`$.

### 4.2 Ages

The stellar populations of all clusters are quite young according to their colors, typically younger than 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, as can be derived from the comparison with SB99. Clusters #4 and #5 are more evolved than the others. The diagram U-V/V-R is quite straightforward. Clusters #1, #2, #3, and #6 show ages of about 5 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$. The gas correction is most likely under-estimated for cluster #1, while it could be over-estimated for clusters #7 and #8 which slightly deviate from the general trend. These latter clusters could also be very young objects affected by some extinction. It is difficult to disentangle the effect of extinction and age specially given the uncertainty on the corrections applied. We have seen in the previous Section that there are good indications for the extinction to be low in UM 462, unfortunately no data are available to measure the extinction toward cluster #7 and #8. Clusters #4 and #5 are close to the 25 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ point of the model.

In the V-R/R-I diagram most of the points seem to show an offset of about 0.1 mag with respect to the model, the offset however is not systematic and in particular clusters #7 and #8 present a trend opposite to the others so that it is difficult to give a unique interpretation. The problem could arise both from the observations and from the model. In any case clusters #1, #2, #3 and #6 are all close to 5-10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, clusters #7 and #8 again deviates from the behavior of the other clusters and are in the very young part of the diagram, while clusters #4 and #5 are close to 25 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ with #4 a bit younger than #5 as it is in the previous diagram. The optical color-color diagrams then give fully consistent results.

In the V-I/V-K diagram the data points show a significant offset from the model with a color excess of about 0.2-0.5 in V-K. This in principle could be due to a systematic error in the V-K color, however the photometry has been checked with the optical and K photometry available in the literature both for the galaxy and for the field stars finding good agreement within the errors. Since the contribution of the underlying galaxy has been subtracted and most of the clusters have quite young ages, it seems also unlikely for the V-K color to be reddened by the contribution of an evolved population. It is interesting to notice that a discrepancy similar to the one reported here is also found in the V-I/V-K diagram discussed by Vanzi et al. (2000) for the metal deficient galaxy SBS 0335-052 so that it could be due to a more fundamental effect. It is well known that current stellar evolutionary tracks fail in reproducing the correct Blue to Red supergiants ratio (B/R) at metallicities lower than solar (Langer & Maeder 1995, Maeder & Meynet 2001). In particular the number of red supergiants is highly underestimated at low metallicity. According to the calibration of Eggenberg et al. (2002) at solar metallicity B/R=3 while for $`1/5Z_{}`$ B/R=0.27. This is mainly due to the longer duration of the red phase during the He burning. While solar single stellar population models are dominated by red supergiants stars from 6.5 to about 25 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ with a maximum at 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, subsolar model don’t. Theory and observations agree pointing to an even longer red supergiants phase at subsolar abundance. This has been quantified by Origlia et al. (1999) unfortunately these authors did not model the V-I and V-K colors, however the evolution of J-K which they calculate is quite significant. Standard models predict a maximum in J-K around 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ which rapidly declines at 13-15 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, the maximum is much more prominent in solar than in subsolar models. Adjusting the red supergiants temperature and lifetime during the He burning makes J-K redder and almost constant beyond 25 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$. Since all clusters observed are in the right age interval the effect described could well explain the discrepancy of the data respect to the model. Despite the systematic deviation from the model again clusters #1, #2, #3 and #6 are close to each other in the young part of the diagram while clusters #4 and #5 show more evolved colors. It is interesting to notice that, beside K, the effect must be visible in the I filter so that it can possibly be responsible for the red eccess observed for some of the clusters in the V-R/R-I diagram.

The age of the clusters can also be estimated in an independent way by the comparison of the equivalent width (EW) of $`H\alpha `$ with the predictions of SB99. The ages derived with this method are listed in Table 3. Clusters #1, #2, #3 and #6 have ages between 4.7 and 5.8 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ which are fully consistent with the values derived from the stellar continuum. Cluster #5 instead looks significantly younger in $`H\alpha `$ than in the continuum and right at the maximum of the red supergiants phase, a fact that could explain the discrepancy for what has been said before. For cluster #1, the only one with a NIR spectrum, the age can also be derived from $`Br\gamma `$, the value obtained is 4.9 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, fully consistent with the previous estimate. From the previous analysis no obvious correlation can be found between the age of the clusters and their extinction.

The sources detected in $`H\alpha `$ which are faint in the continuum must have a very high EW, they can easily be clusters younger than about 4.0 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$. For these ages in fact SB99 predicts Log EW $`(H\alpha )>10^3\AA `$. The $`H\alpha `$ luminosities of these sources are in the range $`1.4\mathrm{5.4\; 10}^{38}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}`$ that is also compatible with them being SuperNova Remnants younger than about 2500 days (Turatto et al. 1993). This latter hypothesis seems less likely since there are no reports of SN found in the galaxy during the last 15 years.

It must be noted that the tracks used for deriving the ages of the clusters both from the colors and from $`H\alpha `$ have a metallicity slightly higher than UM 462. We can use the tracks at 1/20 $`Z_{}`$ to qualitatively estimate the effect. The differences introduced even at this very low metallicity are small and certainly negligible for the present discussion.

### 4.3 Luminosity and Mass

Billett et al. (2002) define as Super Star Clusters (SSC) those clusters with $`M_V<10.5`$ at a fiducial age of 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$. Such an age seems a good approximation for most of the clusters observed in UM 462. Using a distance module 30.92 (Vanzi et al. 2002) and the V magnitude observed, all clusters qualify as SSCs in agreement with the finding of Vanzi et al. (2002). If the clusters were younger than 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, as it is possibly the case for cluster #1, #2, #3 and #6, the error introduced would be small, less than about 0.5 mag, and in both directions as evidenced by the evolution of $`M_V`$ with time calculated by SB99. If instead the clusters were older than 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$, as cluster #4 and #5 are, then the brightness derived would have to be considered as a lower limits since $`M_V`$ increases steeply with time. The number of compact sources observed in UM 462 is very high compared to the size of the galaxy. If we use the specific frequency defined by Östlin (2000) $`S_{11}=N_{11}\times 10^{0.4(M_{V,host}+15)}`$ where $`N_{11}`$ is the number of objects with $`M_V11`$ and $`M_{V,host}`$ is the total V absolute magnitude of the host galaxy we obtain $`S_{11}=2.46`$ which is the highest value when compared to the list of Östlin.

The total star formation taking place in the clusters can be derived from the $`H\alpha `$ flux, summed over the sources detected. Using the calibration of Kennicutt (1998) the total star formation rate is 0.05 $`\mathrm{M}_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$. This value is in perfect agreement with the star formation rate of 0.06 $`\mathrm{M}_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$ derived by Vanzi et al. (2002) on the basis of the IRAS fluxes confirming the low value of the extinction observed and also telling us that most of the star formation in UM 462 occurs in the clusters observed. The value instead contrasts with the 1.4 $`\mathrm{M}_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$ that are obtained using the total $`H\alpha `$ flux measured by Guseva et al. (2000). The total $`H\alpha `$ flux summed over all the point like sources detected is $`\mathrm{2.4\; 10}^{13}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$ which compares well with the total flux of $`\mathrm{3.2\; 10}^{13}\mathrm{erg}/\mathrm{s}/\mathrm{cm}^2`$ measured by Terlevich et al (1991), while the value of Guseva et at. (2000) is higher by more than one order of magnitude. The mass can be tentatively derived comparing the luminosity of each cluster, corrected for the extinction, with the value predicted by SB99 for the corresponding age. In deriving the mass of the clusters the IMF of SB99 that is truncated at a lower mass of 1 $`M_{}`$ has been extended to a more realistic lower cut-off of 0.1 $`M_{}`$. The masses calculated in this way are listed in Table 3. For cluster #5 that has a quite uncertain measure of the extinction, due to the low fluxes in $`H\alpha `$ and $`H\beta `$ the same extinction as for clusters #1 and #6 has been assumed.

### 4.4 Size and Morphology

The observations have been obtained under and average seeing of 1 ″ in V and 0.8 ″ in I. All clusters are barely resolved in the images indicating sizes of the order of few 10 pc. Only cluster #3 is well resolved with a deconvolved size of 4.8 ″or more than 300 pc. This indicates that rather than single star clusters we could be observing large associations, in fact typical sizes for SSCs are of the order of few parsecs (O’Connell et al. 1995). This also means that the specific frequency derived in the previous section must be considered as an upper limit.

It is very interesting to notice that the main SSCs observed are distributed around two ring-like structures. One of them, delimited by clusters #5 and #6 on the north-est side, is quite regular with a radius of about 1.5 arcsec corresponding to 100 pc. The second one, surrounded by clusters #1, #2, #3, #4 and #6, is more elongated with semiaxis of about 2.5 and 4 arcsec equivalent to 166 and 266 pc. Structures like these are not unusual in BCD galaxies, they are typically interpreted as super-bubbles driven by SNe generated in previous SB episodes (Martin 1998). The typical expansion velocities measured for these bubbles are of the order of few 10 $`\mathrm{Km}/\mathrm{s}`$ (Martin 1998). In the case of UM 462 an expansion velocity of 10 $`\mathrm{Km}/\mathrm{s}`$ would give an age of about 10 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ for the smallest bubble and about 20 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$ for the largest one. These times are perfectly consistent with the idea that the current star formation and morphology of UM 462 are the consequence of the compression of the ISM produced by a previous episode of star formation. In this case in fact we expect the expansion age of the bubbles to be greater than the age of the clusters as it is indeed observed.

## 5 Conclusions

1. High quality optical data of the BCD galaxy UM 462 have been presented. The broad band images reveal several compact sources and two large bubbles. A narrow band image in $`H\alpha `$ evidences the presence of further compact sources.
2. Their luminosities qualify all compact sources observed as young Super Star Clusters or very large HII associations. The colors of the stellar continuum and the EW of $`H\alpha `$ and $`Br\gamma `$ all give fully consistent ages between few and about 25 $`\mathrm{Myr}`$. The masses are in the range $`1.2\mathrm{7.2\; 10}^5M_{}`$
3. The number of clusters observed, once normalized to the luminosity of the galaxy, is very high, even compared to the most extreme cases known.
4. The extinction observed in UM 462 is low. Most of the star formation occurring in the galaxy is concentrated in the clusters observed adding up to a total value of $`0.05\mathrm{M}_{}/\mathrm{yr}`$.
5. The galaxy as a whole has evolved colors indicating the presence of an underlying evolved stellar population older than 0.5 $`\mathrm{Gyr}`$.
6. The bubbles observed are interpreted as produced by the compression of the ISM due to a previous SB episode. The current star formation would have been triggered by this compression. The size of the bubbles and the ages of the SSCs are consistent consistent with this idea .

###### Acknowledgements.

I wish to thank Luz-Marina Cairos for making her images of UM 462 available to me. I am grateful to Michael Sterzik for support during the observations, to George Hau for providing useful information during the reduction of the data and to Valentin Ivanov, Marc Sauvage and André Maeder for useful discussions during the preparation of this paper. Luigi Guzzo provided the data to remove the fringes in the i band images. Finally I thank the director of La Silla, Jorge Melnick, for granting the observation time for this work and the anonymous referee for useful comments which contributed to improve the paper. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.


text:
# An upper bound on the number of e-foldings

## 1 Introduction

A remarkable series of observations - ( for a review see ), indicate that we live in an accelerating universe. It is quite tempting to speculate that the source of this acceleration is a small positive cosmological constant, leading to an asymptotically de Sitter (dS) space. If this is indeed the case, there is a restriction on the number of e-foldings during inflation.

We emphasize that when we say the observed acceleration is due to a cosmological constant, we mean that space-time is asymptotically de Sitter, with the value of the cosmological constant that fits the data. Our bound would not apply to a model of a meta-stable dS minimum, which decayed into an asymptotic space-time with vanishing cosmological constant. More generally, it is important to realize that theories of quantum gravity are defined with fixed asymptotic conditions. The same effective Lagrangian may have solutions which describe the physics of completely different quantum models of gravity. In the second half of this paper we will argue that inflation models with large numbers of e-foldings and a positive “true” cosmological constant, are not asymptotically dS, and have only a temporary dS phase. Their true asymptotic behavior depends on issues in quantum gravity which are not yet resolved. In a brief comment at the conclusion of this paper, we will take up the difficult problem of how to differentiate a truly asymptotically dS space-time from such a meta-stable scenario, by current observations.

The existence of a small cosmological constant, $`\lambda `$111When equations do not appear dimensionally homogeneous, the reader should understand that we are using Planck units., makes the universe eventually appear to a local observer as a finite cavity of size $`\lambda ^{1/2}`$ . Second, as was shown in a recent paper , this finite size cavity can only accommodate a limited amount of entropy stored in field theoretical degrees of freedom. It was shown in  that this limited amount of entropy scales like $`\lambda ^{3/4}`$. Any excess entropy beyond this bound has to be encoded into black holes or imprinted onto the walls of the cavity. That excess entropy in turn is limited to be smaller than the entropy of empty de Sitter space .

This third version of our paper is written to clarify the basic assumption which underlies our bound. It was left implicit in the first version and explained only cursorily in the second. We have found that many people have been confused about our claim, because they did not understand this basic assumption.

In  we announced a principle we called Cosmological Complementarity. According to this principle, the physics of an asymptotically de Sitter space-time is completely described by a pure state in a Hilbert space of finite dimension, determined by the value of the cosmological constant. This principle cannot be derived from the covariant entropy bound  or any simple generalization of it. It was meant to parallel the notion of Black Hole Complementarity, which is necessary to the unitary resolution of the black hole information problem. Complementarity for dS space does not however follow from Complementarity for black holes. Cosmological Complementarity was meant to be a guide in formulating a quantum theory of asymptotically dS space-times. It is the basic assumption on which our bound on the number of e-foldings of inflation rests.

The other important assumption we will make is that at early times, the standard description of the inflationary universe in terms of quantum field theory in curved space-time makes sense over the entire inflationary patch. There are several reasons for this. One is that there are no obvious inconsistencies in the field theoretic treatment. Indeed, if the true cosmological constant were zero, inflation theorists would use the predictions for fluctuations on the scale of this patch to try to fit the data that would be seen as more and more of the CMB fluctuations came into our horizon. However the most important reason for making this assumption is that it affects the state of an observer inside the cosmological horizon volume. The Bunch Davies (BD) wave function is typically written in terms of momentum modes in the flat coordinate system for the expanding half of the approximate dS space of the inflationary epoch. It contains no correlations between different modes. However, if we rewrite it in terms of wave functions concentrated in the cosmological horizon volume of a given observer in the asymptotically dS space, and wave functions with support outside that volume, then there are correlations between the inside and outside modes. Thus, the standard inflationary picture contains correlations between the observables in a single cosmological horizon volume, and those of a potentially larger set of degrees of freedom. Indeed, one of the prime virtues of inflation is its ability to explain correlations between widely separated objects that might otherwise appear causally disconnected.

We will count the entropy implied by the inflationary picture, with a variety of assumptions about what the products of reheating are. We argue that if it is larger than the dS entropy of asymptotic dS space, that the density matrix on the finite dimensional dS Hilbert space cannot be pure. This contradicts the assumption of Cosmological Complementarity.

The reader is perfectly justified in concluding that he can avoid having to think about a bound on the number of e-foldings by rejecting our assumption about purity of the density matrix. This is an assumption which is virtually impossible to check in any experimental way. We remind the reader who is inclined to do this, that similar remarks could have been made about unitarity of the S-matrix for black hole production and decay in asymptotically flat space-time. It is only because examples exist of exactly unitary theories of quantum gravity with asymptotically flat and AdS geometries that we have strong arguments for a unitary S-matrix in this case222The arguments are not so strong as to have convinced everyone in the field.. Once we allow for the possibility of violation of unitarity for a single causally connected patch in any space-time we must ask ourselves why it doesn’t occur in general.

Indeed, models with a very large number of e-foldings often appear to lead to the phenomenon of eternal or self-reproducing inflation, when analyzed by the methods of quantum field theory in curved space-time. Such models appear to violate unitarity for a single observer, even when there is no cosmological horizon. Indeed they can imply the existence of infinite numbers of causally disconnected regions in the future, which were all correlated in the past. In the landscape scenario for string theory  there are non-accelerating FRW cosmologies in many of these regions, which have different degrees of freedom and different space-time dimensions. If one tries to think of these models in terms of an S-matrix333This proposal is due to L. Susskind., then the S-matrix for a given type of asymptotic region is non-unitary. Similarly  there are treatments of cosmology in tree level string theory which seem to imply multiple asymptotic regions, with the S matrix for any one region violating unitarity. If there are valid quantum theories of this type, then one might equally well contemplate a similar treatment of cosmologies with a number of e-foldings violating our bound. We will argue however that the dS region is unlikely to be stable in such models, so our bound does not apply.

In this paper we will argue that the limited entropy that can fit into asymptotic de Sitter space puts an upper bound on the amount of inflation. On the other hand, there is a minimum number of e-foldings required in order to reconcile the isotropy of the microwave background on large scales with causality 444For an alternative, see work by Banks and Fischler on ”holographic cosmology”  . We will see that these numbers are rather close.

It is quite remarkable that a small cosmological constant, seemingly irrelevant in magnitude when compared to the energy density during inflation, has such an important impact. The essential ingredient is that because of the UV-IR connection, entropy requires storage space. The existence of a small cosmological constant restricts the available storage space.

In the first section we present the details of how the bound on the number of e-foldings is obtained. This will be followed by a section where this bound is discussed in a different ”holographic gauge”. We end by offering some conclusions.

## 2 The Number of e-Foldings is Bounded

We begin by making a precise statement of the physical assumptions that go into the derivation of our bound. We first assume the standard picture of inflationary cosmology, that is, that inflation produces a large volume of space, of order $`e^{3N_e}\mathrm{\Lambda }_I^{\frac{3}{2}}`$ in which all the degrees of freedom are well described by local field theory, and are correlated with each other. This system has a minimal entropy, which is needed to describe the fluctuations in the energy density. We will study models in which the classical gravitational equations predict that long after the inflationary period the universe enters an asymptotically dS phase, with cosmological constant $`\lambda `$. We then assume, that the asymptotically static dS observer has a complete, unitary description of all the physics that she can measure555This means that her density matrix is pure, if she makes all possible observations of the states on her horizon., using a Hilbert space of finite dimension, determined by $`\lambda `$. If the entropy needed to describe the large inflationary patch exceeds the logarithm of the dimension of this Hilbert space, then we have a contradiction. Either we must give up the assumption of unitary evolution in causal patches, or we must conclude that quantum fluctuations in the model, destroy its classical asymptotic dS geometry.

Next, we briefly review the physics that leads to the bound on the entropy that a fluid described by an equation of state $`p=\kappa \rho `$ can encode. This physics was discussed in a recent paper . For the case of radiation, a hand-waving derivation of the bound was also presented in .

For any such fluid contained in a finite cavity of radius $`R`$, it was shown in  that there is a threshold on the amount of entropy stored in the fluid, beyond which black holes are formed. The entropy $`S_0`$ at the verge of black hole formation scales like

$$S_0R^{3\frac{2}{1+\kappa }}$$
(1)
If we now imagine that the cavity is the region that is causally accessible to the local observer living in asymptotic de Sitter space-time with cosmological constant $`\lambda `$, then the length scale in the previous equation $`R`$ is replaced by $`\lambda ^{1/2}`$.

This implies an upper bound on the entropy that scales parametrically with $`\lambda `$ as follows

$$S_0\lambda ^{\frac{1+3\kappa }{2(1+\kappa )}}$$
(2)
We will consider the bound in the context of a Lemaitre-Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (LFRW) cosmology where the geometry can be described by the metric

$$ds2=dt^2a^2(t)(dr^2+r^2d\mathrm{\Omega })$$
(3)
where we choose a spatially flat universe since we are interested in using the upper bound on the entropy at the exit from inflation.

The entropy $`S_0`$ carried by the dominant fluid in such a universe can then be rewritten, using equilibrium thermodynamics, as

$$S_0=a_{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{3}\rho _{0}^{}{}_{}{}^{\frac{1}{1+\kappa }}$$
(4)
The thermodynamical relation666 In principle there is a multiplicative constant of order one (in Planck units) in this relation (in $`1+1`$ CFT it is related to $`c`$). It would weaken our bound on the number of e-foldings only if the constant were much less than one. In CFT this constant is bounded from below by a number of order one. It affects the bound on $`N_e`$ by an additive constant $`\mathrm{ln}c`$. For $`\kappa =1`$ this constant reflects the typical distance in Schwarzschild radii between black holes in the black hole fluid, and the right equation of state is only achieved when it is of order one. For non-relativistic matter of mass $`M`$ the coefficient is of order $`\frac{M_P}{M}`$ and could increase the bound on $`N_e`$ by $`10`$, if the Compton wavelength is inside the Hubble radius. This is still stronger than the bounds for stiffer fluids.  that is used, relates the energy density $`\rho `$ to the entropy density $`\sigma `$

$$\sigma \rho ^{\frac{1}{1+\kappa }}$$
(5)
In what follows, we will apply these ideas in the context of inflation. Our approach is to first express the entropy according to equation (4.2), where $`a_0`$ and $`\rho _0`$ are evaluated at the exit of inflation. At the exit of inflation it is reasonable to take for the energy density $`\rho _0`$ a value representative of the energy density during inflation.

$$\rho _0\mathrm{\Lambda }_I$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_I`$ is the value of the energy density during inflation.

For the scale factor $`a_0`$ at the exit of inflation, we will take the apparent horizon during inflation multiplied by the number of e-foldings, $`N_e`$.

$$a_0\mathrm{\Lambda }_{I}^{}{}_{}{}^{1/2}e^{N_e}$$
(7)
Substituting the expressions for $`a_0`$ and $`\rho _0`$ into equation (2.4) leads, using equation (2.2) to the upper bound on the number of e-foldings, $`N_e`$

$$N_e<\frac{1+3\kappa }{6(1+\kappa )}log\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_I}{\lambda }$$
(8)
Let us recapitulate what the physics involved in obtaining this bound is. At the end of inflation, the energy density in the universe becomes dominated by a fluid with an equation of state $`p=\kappa \rho `$. The upper bound on the number of e-foldings for a given $`\kappa `$ , is the threshold beyond which black holes form and some of the excess entropy gets imprinted onto the asymptotic de Sitter horizon. The biggest value for the number of e-foldings occurs for the stiffest equation of state, $`\kappa =1`$.

$$N_e<\frac{1}{3}log\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_I}{\lambda }$$
(9)
This case is one that corresponds to a universe filled with black holes . For illustrative purpose, we will estimate the value of $`N_e`$ for the case where after inflation ends, the energy is dominated by a $`\kappa =1`$ fluid. We will assume a value for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_I(10^{16}GeV)4`$, which is consistent with having not observed yet a background of gravitons. We obtain the upper bound on $`N_e`$

$$N_e85$$
(10)
where we took $`\lambda `$ to be of $`O((10^3eV)^4)`$.

For the sake of comparison, the case $`\kappa =1/3`$ yields with the same value for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_I`$

$$N_e65$$
(11)
This value for the maximum number of e-foldings is close to the value necessary to solve the ”horizon problem”. It is interesting to note that a small value for the number of e-foldings may have observable implications for the low values of l in the spectrum of fluctuations of the microwave background.

At this point, a field theorist may be puzzled because he can write models of inflation where the inflaton is moving so slowly that the number of e-foldings becomes enormous, that nonetheless have solutions which appear to asymptote to a dS universe with arbitrary value of the cosmological constant . The next section is devoted to answering the legitimate concerns of such a field theorist.

## 3 The View from a Different ”Holographic Gauge”

The work of Bousso  shows that there are many different ways to project the information in a space-time onto a collection of holographic screens. Different coordinate systems often suggest different natural screens. Thus, for example, in the presence of a black hole, an external observer finds it natural to project the information in the hole onto the horizon, at least until the black hole begins to evaporate significantly. An infalling observer chooses a different sets of screens. Similarly, in dS space, each static observer uses his cosmological horizon for a screen. In  and  we suggested that for certain states of the system there is an alternative description, which approximates quantum field theory in global coordinates better and better as the cosmological constant goes to zero. The states in question have only black holes which are much smaller than the cosmological horizon, and the state in each horizon volume is well described by local field theory. The holographic screens are chosen to be those of small causal diamonds distributed throughout the volume of dS space-time.

The motivation for this suggestion was the observation that such field theoretic states have an entropy per horizon volume of order $`R^{\frac{3}{2}}`$, while the total dS entropy scales like $`R2`$, where $`R`$ is the dS radius. This indicates the possibility of a description of field theoretic states by of order $`R^{\frac{1}{2}}`$ commuting copies of the field theory degrees of freedom in a single horizon.

In quantum field theory in curved space time, dS space is, at late times, an exponentially expanding sphere. The number of copies of a given horizon volume grows to infinity as the global time goes to infinity. Even if we impose a UV cutoff on the system, the number of field theoretic degrees of freedom appears to go to infinity with the global time. The counting of degrees of freedom above suggests that this picture is not valid for finite $`\lambda `$, but requires an IR cutoff when the entropy implied by the field theory picture exceeds the holographic bound in dS space. Field theory states with more entropy will back-react on the geometry and, when the back reaction is taken into account, the system will no longer be asymptotically dS. As we noted above, these solutions with back reaction do not refer to the quantum theory of asymptotically dS space.

This new holographic gauge allows us to understand why the conventional treatment of inflation in a universe which is asymptotically matter or radiation dominated is compatible with the holographic principle. This is true no matter how many e-foldings there are. We simply use the global gauge for the inflationary phase of expansion. Conventional restrictions on inflationary models ensure that the states of the system are well described by field theory. Eventually, when we enter the non-accelerating phase, the particle horizon can grow indefinitely and there is no contradiction with the large entropy implied by the field theoretic treatment of the inflationary stage.

However, if we truly have an asymptotically dS future, with cosmological constant $`\lambda `$, there will be such a contradiction. Let us consider the case of radiation. As in the previous section the entropy implied by conventional field theory (which we can now understand as a holographic entropy in the global gauge) is

$$S_{inf}=e^{3N_e}\mathrm{\Lambda }_{I}^{}{}_{}{}^{3/4}$$
(12)
. We can also view this from the global holographic gauge of the asymptotic dS universe, with the true cosmological constant. Since the inflationary model has been tuned so that horizon scale black holes do not form within the present cosmological horizon, the state of the system qualifies as a field theoretic state over scales larger than the horizon. However, we have claimed that quantum gravity will put an IR cutoff on this picture, determined by requiring that the volume of space over which the global gauge is valid has field theoretic entropy less than or equal to the total dS entropy . This is a refined version of the bound on the number of e-foldings announced in the previous section. We believe that the numerical value of the bound obtained by this method, is more accurate than the estimates in the first section. Its form is

$$N_e\frac{1}{4}\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{\Lambda }_\mathrm{I}/\lambda )+\frac{1}{12}\mathrm{ln}(\mathrm{M}_\mathrm{P}4/\lambda )$$
(13)
This gives $`N_e88`$, for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_I`$ of order $`(10^{16}GeV)^4`$.

It is easy to write down models of inflation with an arbitrarily large number of e-foldings, which appear to asymptote to a dS universe with fixed cosmological constant independent of $`N_e`$. Consider for example a canonical chaotic inflation model , a single scalar, with potential

$$V=g\varphi 4+\lambda $$
(14)
. To fit the amplitude of density fluctuations observed in the CMB, $`g`$ is chosen to be $`g10^{15}`$. The slow roll condition and the condition that the energy density be less than the Planck scale are satisfied for a range of $`\varphi /M_P`$ of order $`10^3`$, and the number of e-foldings is of order $`10^3`$. It is hard to understand how such a fine tuned model could emerge from a fundamental theory like string theory. Nonetheless, one would like to understand whether such a model is inconsistent.

The spectrum of density fluctuations in models of this type is not scale invariant over the whole range of scales which are generated during inflation. The parameter $`g`$ is tuned so that $`\frac{\delta \rho }{\rho }10^5`$, the experimental number, during the last $`25`$ or so e-foldings of inflation (which generate fluctuations on the scales observed in the CMB). However, during most of the inflationary history, and thus on most scales larger than our horizon within the current inflationary patch, the amplitude of fluctuations is much larger. This leads to the following paradoxical situation. We generally imagine that fluctuations on scales much larger than our horizon scale cannot effect us. However, in inflationary models, the true particle horizon is at least as large as the inflationary patch. Otherwise field theory would not be able to generate correlations between fluctuations on these large scales (assuming no correlations in the initial state). Although they will not affect us for a long time, these large amplitude, large scale fluctuations do affect the answer to the question of whether the universe is asymptotically dS. We conjecture that these large amplitude “superhorizon” fluctuations can gravitationally collapse, and our horizon volume will in fact be contained in a huge black hole. An observer inside a black hole can remain oblivious to that fact for times of order the Schwarzschild radius of the hole. Since, in the present situation, this radius is much larger than our current horizon, there is no real contradiction with conventional predictions of the model for experiments done today. We are simply saying that, in models of this sort, at some time in the distant future, the currently observed accelerated expansion will be replaced by a Big Crunch. Thus, the hypothesis that a model of this type asymptotes to a dS universe is false, but it may still give rise to a period of accelerated expansion from the point of view of local observers. We emphasize that this is a conjectural resolution of the contradiction posed by classical solutions with many e-foldings and dS asymptotics. Our bound is based on quantum mechanical reasoning and cannot be evaded without giving up one of the assumptions we have made. We suggest that, in these models, it is the assumption of asymptotic dS space which must be relaxed, and are proposing a tentative mechanism for changing the asymptotic behavior.

The global structure of inflationary models has been the subject of intensive investigation , with results that the present authors find confusing. The standard field theory arguments lead to a picture of eternal or self-reproducing inflation. We are not convinced that, in the absence of a completely understood theory of quantum gravity, we are in a position to understand these issues, but they do appear to imply violations of unitarity for observers in causal patches. This would remove the basic assumption underlying our bound. However, we think it is very unlikely that a dS observer would survive forever in such a universe.

The question of finding global time slices in a self-reproducing universe is a vexing one, but if the model is to be fit into the conventional framework of quantum mechanics, it must have a unitary time evolution operator $`U(t,t_0)`$. The Hilbert space of the asymptotically dS local observer is a finite dimensional sub-factor of the vastly larger (perhaps infinite dimensional) Hilbert space of the self-reproducing universe. If our bound is violated, then at the end of inflation, this factor is correlated with a much larger sub-factor of the full space. We know of no example in quantum mechanics of a similar situation where the small system does not decay and become mixed with the larger one. Sometimes the decay proceeds by tunnelling, and takes a long time, but it always occurs. Indeed, in all semi-classical contexts in which a dS minimum can interact with a system with a larger number of degrees of freedom, it decays.

Finally, we want to mention an alternative to our bound which seems to be what is assumed by various colleagues who have raised objections to it . Models with a number of e-foldings violating our bound do not violate the covariant entropy bound. Nonetheless, no observer in such a universe can access more than a finite amount of information, given by the dS entropy. This is taken to suggest the existence of a quantum model, with a finite dimensional Hilbert space which describes such universes. How can this be compatible with the evolution of the restricted state vector of the causal patch from a pure to a mixed state? The suggestion is that this is an artifact of the field theory approximation. The real state of this system is pure, but approximates the mixed state well. It is surely true that there are states like this in the causal patch Hilbert space. What is less than obvious is what the dynamics might be in this space, which naturally evolves the system into this state. To find it one would have to construct the hypothetical quantum gravity model which describes this space-time. We can only admire the confidence with which this opinion is stated, but we cannot share it.

## 4 Conclusions

We have argued that a universe which is truly asymptotically dS is only consistent with inflationary models which satisfy the bound on the number of e-foldings. However, our explanation of how this is consistent with lagrangian models of inflation which can incorporate an arbitrarily large number of e-foldings and an arbitrary cosmological constant, implies that it might be difficult to distinguish the two scenarios by observation. Namely, we have argued that such models do not truly give rise to asymptotically dS universes, but that the Big Crunch or other instability which ends the dS era, might occur only after many times the current age of the universe.

In this sense, models with a large number of e-foldings and a positive cosmological constant are similar to quintessence models like those of , in which the current phase of acceleration is modelled by something like old inflation: a temporary sojourn in a meta-stable minimum with positive cosmological constant. This is followed by tunnelling out to a region of rolling scalar field with no acceleration. Such models might arise naturally if string theory truly has a discretuum of meta-stable dS vacua

Models of this type raise the spectre of non-falsifiability. One could imagine that no experiment in the foreseeable future could distinguish between them and a model with a true asymptotic dS space.

We can imagine two ways out of this uncomfortable situation. If the hypothesis of Cosmological SUSY Breaking  is correct, then radiative corrections to the long distance effective lagrangian may depend on the physics at large space-like distance, in a significant way . These virtual effects might then be able to distinguish between different models.

A more exciting possibility is raised by the low $`L`$ anomalies in the WMAP data.777This was emphasized to one of us (TB) at the Middle East String Theory Conference in Crete .. The WMAP data  shows weak evidence of a problem for the theoretical predictions of inflationary models for low values of angular momentum. Theoretical calculations of the amplitudes of the fluctuations at fixed and small spherical harmonic, depends somewhat on the theoretical predictions outside our current horizon . By introducing a break in the spectrum at the horizon scale, one can fix the “problem”. Indeed, in Sarkar’s model one can use the extra freedom to obtain a fit to the data without a cosmological constant. While we are (for religious reasons) not particularly sympathetic to the latter attempt, we would like to suggest that this aspect of the data may eventually be viewed as evidence that inflationary models which predict a scale invariant spectrum of fluctuations far outside the current horizon are ruled out. Our bound on the number of e-folds would then suggest that a true asymptotic dS behavior was the most likely explanation of this.

Inflationary models with small numbers of e-foldings exist. They are models with potentials of the form

$$V=\frac{M^6}{M_P^2}U(\varphi /M_P)$$
(15)
with $`M`$ of order the GUT scale. They arise naturally in brane world models derived from string theory, which use a mild difference between the Kaluza-Klein scale and the higher dimensional Planck scale to explain the ratio between the scales of gravity and coupling unification. The natural prediction of models of this type is $`O(1)`$ e-folds. One might imagine mild fine tuning of parameters, or perhaps the sort of dynamical friction in multi-field models that was discussed in , could increase this to $`10100`$, but more e-folds than that are implausible.

Alternatively, one could turn to holographic cosmology . The current version of these models  predicts a scale invariant spectrum, but only over a very limited range of scales. The range depends on parameters we can not yet calculate but the largest scale is very unlikely to exceed the present horizon by very much.

###### Acknowledgments.

We would like to thank A. Albrecht, E. di Napoli, C. Krishnan, M. Zanic and especially A. Loewy, S. Paban and S. Sarkar for useful discussions. We thank R. Bousso, D.Lowe and D.Marolf for discussions which led to the latest revision of this work. The research of W. Fischler is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0071512. The research of T. Banks was supported in part by DOE grant number DE-FG03-92ER40689.