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# Polarization observations in a low synchrotron emission field at 1.4 GHz

## 1. Introduction

The Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization (CMBP) is one of the most promising field to date for investigating the cosmological parameters and only recently its detection has been claimed by the DASI (Kovac et al. 2002) and WMAP111http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (Kogut et al. 2003) teams. Several other experiments are planned to measure and characterize it on different angular scales (SPOrt222http://sport.bo.iasf.cnr.it (see Carretti et al. 2002a), PLANCK333http://astro.estec.esa.nl/SA-general/Projects/Planck/, B2K2 (Masi et al. 2002), BaR–SPOrt (Zannoni et al. 2002) and AMiBA (Kesteven et al. 2002) among the others).

Besides the CMBP low emission level (3-4 $`\mu `$K on sub–degree scales and $`<1\mu `$K on larger ones), difficulties in its detection are mainly related to the presence of foreground noise both from Galactic and extragalactic origin. Synchrotron polarized radiation is expected to be the main polarized foreground up to 100 GHz but it is only partially known: only the Galactic plane is well surveyed and at frequencies lower than 2.7 GHz (Gaensler et al. 2001, Duncan et al. 1999 and references therein), whereas the only data available at high latitude (Brouw & Spoelstra 1976) are widely undersampled.

High Galactic latitudes are particularly relevant for ground–based and balloon–borne CMBP experiments, whose observations are constrained to limited patches of the sky, for which low foreground contamination is mandatory. The DASI team itself points out the absence of polarized foreground observations in their field (Kovac et al. 2002). This scenario emphasizes the importance to investigate the polarized foreground emission at high Galactic latitudes and calls for new deep observations of low emission areas aiming at exploring patches suitable for CMBP investigations.

In this Letter we present the first polarization observations of the BOOMERanG field at RA $`=5^h`$ and DEC $`=49^{}`$ (de Bernardis et al. 2000) with proper sampling and sensitivity. This patch has been found to be among the lowest dust and synchrotron total intensity emission areas in the Southern Hemisphere and so is very promising in polarization. It has also been selected as the Southern target for the BaR–SPOrt experiment (Carretti et al., 2002b).

We performed our investigation in a $`3^{}\times 3^{}`$ field at 1.4 GHz, where the signal is expected to be much higher than at the cosmological window frequencies ($`>30`$ GHz).

Though we must pay attention in extrapolating low frequency data, our results are encouraging, suggesting that synchrotron diffuse polarized radiation does not significantly contaminate CMBP measurements at 90 GHz in this region. CMBP observations seem to be advisable at 32 GHz, even though the estimated synchrotron signal is closer to the CMBP level.

## 2. Observations

Observations were made with ATCA (Frater, Brooks & Whiteoak, 1992), an East–West synthesis interferometer situated near Narrabri (NSW, Australia), operated by CSIRO–ATNF. Our dataset is a 49 pointing mosaic, which covers the $`3^{}\times 3^{}`$ region centred at the coordinate RA $`=5^h`$ and DEC $`=49^{}`$: the field position was chosen to minimize the presence of point sources. The observations were carried out in 9 sessions in June 2002, for a total effective time of $`72`$ h spread over a quite wide range of hour angles to get a good $`uv`$ coverage. The EW214 configuration was used, which provides useful sensitivity on scales ranging from $`30`$ arcmin down to the angular resolution of $`3.4`$ arcmin. Observations were carried out at the central frequency of about 1380 MHz using a $`2\times 128`$ MHz bandwidth divided in two sub–bands of 16 channels, each of 8 MHz. Because of interference contamination, 6 channels (out of 32) were discarded. The system provides the four Stokes parameters $`I`$, $`Q`$, $`U`$, $`V`$.

The data reduction was carried out using the MIRIAD package (Sault, Teuben & Wright 1995). Bandpass and gain calibrations were performed each session by observing the calibration source PKS B1934–638, which is assumed to have a flux density of $`14.94`$ Jy at 1.380 GHz (5% absolute calibration accuracy: see Reynolds 1994, Ott et al. 1994). With this array, we use a conversion factor between flux per beam and brightness temperature of 17.4 K/Jy beam-1.

All calibrated visibilities were then inverted to form $`I`$, $`Q`$, $`U`$ and $`V`$ images using a natural weighting scheme which gives the best signal–to–noise ratio. Point sources were directly subtracted from $`Q`$ and $`U`$ images using the MIRIAD task MOSSDI (a Clean-based mosaiced image deconvolver - see Sault, Staveley-Smith & Brouw 1996) and the residual images were then formed to obtain the diffuse emission without point source contamination. $`I`$, $`Q`$ and $`U`$ images were jointly deconvolved using the PMOSMEM algorithm (a joint polarimetric maximum entropy deconvolver for mosaiced observations - see Sault, Bock & Duncan 1999), which recovers the large scale structure measured by the mosaic. The final sensitivity achieved on Stokes $`Q`$ and $`U`$ images is $`0.18`$ mJy beam-1, where the beam size is $`3.4`$ arcmin.

## 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The polarization maps (intensity and angles) are shown in Figure 1. Stokes parameters $`Q`$ and $`V`$ are presented as well (Figure 2) to allow a comparison between signal and noise levels.

The polarized emission $`I_p`$ presents extended features distributed over the whole field. However, a bright feature appears like a filament centred in RA $`4^h55^m`$ and DEC $`49^{}30\mathrm{}`$ with an extension of $`1^{}`$ in declination. This is the brightest polarized structure in this field, reaching a maximum level of $`3.2`$ mJy/beam-1. The Stokes $`I`$ image does not show any particular diffuse structure at the same coordinates even though the strong point source contamination makes the comparison difficult.

It is likely that a Faraday screen is acting along the line of sight as a small scale modulation of a relatively uniform background, transfering the power from larger to smaller scales (for a comprehensive discussion, see Tucci et al. 2002, and Wieringa et al. 1993, Gaensler et al. 2001). Our data shows a uniformity scales for polarization angles of 10-15 arcmin and we checked that this results in an increasing of the power of $`Q`$ and $`U`$ on the 3-30 arcmin scales to which the interferometer is sensitive. Thus the detected signal represents an upper limit of the polarized synchrotron emission in the range where the CMBP peaks ($``$ 5–30 arcmin). Faraday screens, therefore, do not influence the main aim of this work to evaluate the mean polarized emission, because they produce only a power transfer from large to small scales.

The Faraday rotation amount is evaluated grouping the 26 useful channels in four sub–bands to form four maps at different frequencies. Rotation Measures (RM) were then deduced from these. RM values were fitted using the MIRIAD function IMRM, where pixels with an error in the polarization angle greater than $`20^{}`$ were discarded. About $`90\%`$ of the obtained RM values are lower than 100 rad/m2 and the RM distribution peaks at RM $`50`$ rad/m2. These values are consistent with RMs measurements from extragalactic radio source (Simard–Normandin & Kronberg 1980) which find values between $`|30|`$ and $`|60|`$ rad/m2 at about the same latitudes.

The bandwidth depolarization $`p`$, defined as the ratio between the observed and the intrinsic polarization degree, is (Gardner & Whiteoak 1966):

$`p`$ $`=`$ $`\left|{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{sin}(\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Theta })}{\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Theta }}}\right|`$
$`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Theta }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\text{RM}c^2\mathrm{\Delta }\nu }{\nu ^3}}`$ (1)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu 205`$ MHz is the effective bandwidth and $`\nu =1380`$ MHz is the central frequency. Our typical RM value of $`50`$ rad/m2 provides $`p0.92`$, which is insignificantly different from 1 for our purposes of estimating the mean polarized synchrotron emission in the field.

The highest RM values ($`100`$ rad/m2) coincides with the brightest polarized structures further supporting their origin from a Faraday screen.

To estimate the mean polarized synchrotron emission, we computed $`rms`$ values of the polarized intensity $`I_p`$. The $`rms`$ value of $`Q`$ and $`U`$ can be estimated from the maps by removing the noise contribution:

$`X_{rms}`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{<\stackrel{~}{X}^2>\sigma ^2}`$ (2)
where $`<>`$ denotes the average over the area, $`\stackrel{~}{X}`$ the detected signal, $`X`$ the intrinsic polarized signal and $`\sigma `$ the $`rms`$ noise. The $`rms`$ value of $`I_p`$ is defined as

$$P_{rms}=\sqrt{Q_{rms}^2+U_{rms}^2}$$
(3)
We restricted our analysis to the central $`2^{}\times 2^{}`$ sub–field, the area with the highest sensitivity in our field, obtaining

$`\sigma `$ $``$ $`3.2\text{mK}`$
$`Q_{rms}`$ $``$ $`8.1\pm 0.4\text{mK}`$
$`U_{rms}`$ $``$ $`8.4\pm 0.4\text{mK}`$
$`P_{rms}`$ $``$ $`11.6\pm 0.6\text{mK}`$ (4)
where the error budget is dominated by the calibrator accuracy. If point sources were not subtracted, we would obtain a slightly greater value, $`P_{rms}13.0\pm 0.7`$ mK. We note that the polarized intensity mean value is nearly one order of magnitude lower than the 100–200 mK background emission found near the Galactic Plane by Uyaniker et al. (1999) at the same 1.4 GHz frequency.

Using the spectral index found by Platania et al. (1998), $`\alpha =3`$ in the 1–19 GHz range, $`P_{rms}`$ can be scaled to estimate the mean polarized signal at the frequencies of both BaR–SPOrt and B2K2 experiments. Table 1 shows the signal expectation at 32, 90 and 150 GHz as estimated after the conversion to CMB thermodynamic temperature. We use the conversion factor

$$c=\left(\frac{2\mathrm{sinh}\frac{x}{2}}{x}\right)^2$$
(5)
where $`xh\nu /kT_{cmb}\nu /56.8`$ GHz.

Since the CMBP signal is expected to be a few $`\mu `$K on sub–degree angular scales, both from theoretical predictions (Seljak, 1997) and from the recent DASI result (Kovac et al. 2002), our $`P_{rms}`$ estimate suggests that, in this patch the polarized synchrotron would not prevent the detection of the CMBP at a frequency of 32 GHz.

The 90 GHz value is even more encouraging: the estimated synchrotron contamination is two orders of magnitude lower than the predicted CMBP signal: it is likely to measure CMBP without foreground contamination. This conclusion seems to be unaffected by uncertainties in the synchrotron polarization spectrum: assuming an uncertainty of $`0.2`$ in the spectral index, we obtain a worst case foreground signal of $`0.1`$ $`\mu `$K, more than one order of magnitude lower than CMBP expectations. Considering that the new WMAP results show a steepening of $`0.5`$ in the synchrotron spectral index between K and Q bands (Bennett et al. 2003), our estimate appears to be conservative, expecially at 90 and 150 GHz.

Looking at the future, it is worth noting that this patch also appears to be a good candidate for $`B`$–mode polarization measurements. The expected $`B`$–mode level is $`P_{rms}^B<0.3`$ $`\mu `$K for tensor to scalar perturbation power ratio $`T/S<1`$. At this extremely low level, the foreground contamination should be relevant over most of the sky, jeopardizing all–sky $`B`$–mode surveys. Therefore, the detection of $`B`$–mode polarization would be possible only in selected regions with low Galactic contamination.

The detection reported in this paper is an upper limit of the Galactic synchrotron polarized emission in the 3–30 arcmin range and it is not directly comparable with the $`B`$–mode of the CMBP, which peaks on 1–2 angular scales. However, the $`B`$–mode angular power spectrum of the Galactic synchrotron follows a power law behaviour

$$C_{\mathrm{}}\mathrm{}^\alpha $$
(6)
with

$$\alpha >2.0$$
(7)
and $`\mathrm{}`$ the number of multipole corresponding to the angular scale $`\theta =180^{}/\mathrm{}`$ (Tucci et al. 2000, Bruscoli et al. 2002). Thus, the mean polarized emission on a given scale follows a power law $`P_{rms}^2\mathrm{}(\mathrm{}+1)/(2\pi )C_l\mathrm{}^\gamma `$ with $`\gamma >0.0`$ , providing a polarized emission decreasing with the angular scale. As a result, the mean polarized emission measured in the 3–30 arcmin range represents an upper limit for the $`B`$–mode emission on the 1-2 degree scale. In turn, this allows to estimate an upper limit of the Galactic synchrotron contamination on the $`B`$–mode of the CMBP.

The synchrotron emission estimated at 90 GHz in this area ($`P_{rms}0.05`$ $`\mu `$K) corresponds to the $`B`$–mode signal ($`P_{rms}^B`$) in models with $`T/S0.01`$, suggesting us the sensitivity for this cosmological parameters achievable in this low foreground emission area.

The situation is even better at 150 GHz, where the estimated synchrotron level corresponds to the $`B`$–mode emission for $`T/S0.002`$. However, at this frequency, the most important contamination is expected to come from Galactic dust, for which no data about polarized emission exists in this patch.

## 4. CONCLUSIONS

In this Letter we present the first polarization measurement of the BOOMERanG field at 1.4 GHz.

The polarized emission has been detected and shows a smoothed behaviour with no peculiar properties. There is, however, a bright structure with no corresponding feature in total intensity. The mean polarized emission over the area has been found to be $`P_{rms}=11.6\pm 0.6`$ mK, nearly one order of magnitude below the background level in the Galactic Plane.

Our RM estimates suggest that (even though Faraday screens are the likely mechanism) Faraday depolarization across the bandwidth is negligible, allowing a fair estimate of the polarized emission amount.

The extrapolation to higher frequencies suggests that, in this region, $`E`$–mode CMBP signal could be measurable even at 32 GHz. At 90 GHz, we are confident that foreground noise is low enough (more than two order of magnitude lower than the expected cosmological signal) to not affect the CMBP signal detection. Last but not least, the low emission at 90 GHz makes this patch a good candidate also for the $`B`$–mode detection provided a $`T/S>0.01`$. Even lower $`T/S`$ values ($`0.002`$) could be accessible at 150 GHz, but at this frequency the signal is more likely affected by dust contamination.

In the light of these results, it is important to make observations at higher frequencies to confirm such preliminary estimates. Such observations would give us information on the intrinsic properties of the local polarized foreground, the ISM, and an improved understanding of the role of Faraday rotation.

Acknowledgments: We thank Mark Wieringa and the anonymous referee for useful comments. This work has been carried out in the frame of the SPOrt programme funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI). G.B. acknowledges a Ph.D. ASI grant. We acknowledge the use of CMBFAST package. The Australia Telescope Compact Array is part of the Australia Telescope which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO.

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# The critical temperature of a trapped, weakly interacting Bose gas

current address: \]Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A7, Canada.

## Abstract

We report on measurements of the critical temperature of a harmonically trapped, weakly interacting Bose gas as a function of atom number. Our results exclude ideal-gas behavior by more than two standard deviations, and agree quantitatively with mean-field theory. At our level of sensitivity, we find no additional shift due to critical fluctuations. In the course of this measurement, the onset of hydrodynamic expansion in the thermal component has been observed. Our thermometry method takes this feature into account.

Degenerate atomic Bose gases provide an ideal testing ground for the theory of quantum fluids. First, their diluteness makes possible first-principles theoretical approaches Dalfovo et al. (1999). Second, thanks to the powerful experimental techniques of atomic physics, static and dynamic properties can be studied quantitatively through a wide range of temperature and densities. Furthermore, the inhomogeneity induced by the external trapping potential leads to entirely new behavior, when compared to bulk quantum fluids.

Atomic interactions have previously been found to affect deeply the dynamical behavior of trapped Bose gases at finite temperatures Jin et al. (2001); Maragò et al. (2001). By contrast, the influence of interactions on thermodynamics is less pronounced Giorgini et al. (1996), and has been less studied experimentally. Pioneering work on thermodynamics Ensher et al. (1996) concentrated essentially on the ground state occupation, and the role of interactions was somewhat hidden by finite size effects Dalfovo et al. (1999). Though several such measurements have been reported Maragò et al. (2001); Mewes et al. (1996), to our knowledge a decisive test of the role of interactions is still lacking. In this Letter, we focus on the critical temperature $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ of a harmonically trapped 87Rb Bose gas to demonstrate the influence of interactions on the thermodynamics. We study the behavior of $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ as a function of the number of atoms at the transition, for a fixed trapping geometry. We find a deviation from ideal-gas behavior, towards lower critical temperatures, whose signification will be discussed below. In the course of this study, we have observed that collisions induce an anisotropy in the free expansion of the cloud even far from the hydrodynamic regime kagan1997a ; Schvarchuck et al. (2002). We correct for this effect in our temperature measurement.

For an ideal Bose gas in a harmonic trap, the critical temperature is Dalfovo et al. (1999)

$$k_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{c}^{\mathrm{ideal}}=\mathrm{}\overline{\omega }\left(\frac{N}{\zeta (3)}\right)^{1/3}\frac{\zeta (2)}{6\zeta (3)}\mathrm{}(\omega _z+2\omega _{}).$$
(1)
The first term on the right hand side is the transition temperature $`T_\mathrm{c}^0`$ in the thermodynamic limit, and the second represents finite-size corrections. Here $`N`$ is the total atom number, $`\omega _{}`$ and $`\omega _z`$ are the trapping frequencies, $`\overline{\omega }=\omega _{}^{2/3}\omega _z^{1/3}`$ is their geometrical average, and $`\zeta `$ is the Riemann zeta function.

As stated earlier, the main goal of this paper is to probe the role of two-body repulsive interactions on $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. Corrections to the ideal gas formula depend on the ratio between the s-wave scattering length $`a`$ and $`\lambda _0=h/\sqrt{Mk_\mathrm{B}T_\mathrm{c}^0}`$, the de Broglie wavelength at the transition ($`\lambda _0=(2\pi )^{1/2}\sigma [N/\zeta (3)]^{1/6}`$ for a harmonically trapped gas, where $`\sigma =\sqrt{\mathrm{}/M\overline{\omega }}`$ is the mean ground state width). In a trapped gas, the dominant effect of interactions can be understood using a simple mean-field picture Giorgini et al. (1996): interactions lower the density in the center of the trap $`n(\mathrm{𝟎})`$, and accordingly decrease the temperature $`T`$ that meets Einstein’s criterion $`n(\mathrm{𝟎})\lambda _0^3=\zeta (3/2)`$. The magnitude of this reduction has been calculated to leading order Giorgini et al. (1996),

$$\frac{T_\mathrm{c}T_\mathrm{c}^{\mathrm{ideal}}}{T_\mathrm{c}^0}=a_1\frac{a}{\lambda _0}1.326\frac{a}{\sigma }N^{1/6},$$
(2)
where $`a_13.426`$ Giorgini et al. (1996); Arnold and Tomášik (2001). In this work, the finite-size correction in Eq. (1) changes $`T_\mathrm{c}^0`$ by at most 2%, whereas the interactive shift (2) can be as high as 10%. The measurements presented below are in quantitative agreement with the prediction of Eq. (2).

In addition, as dicussed in Arnold and Tomášik (2001); houbiers1997a ; holzmann2003a ; Gruter et al. (1997); baym ; Tc\_mc , critical fluctuations that develop in the system near $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ are expected to favor the formation of the condensate and thus to increase $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. In the case of a uniform Bose gas Gruter et al. (1997); baym ; Tc\_mc , this is the leading effect, because the critical temperature is not affected at the mean-field level. The correction $`\delta T_\mathrm{c}/T_\mathrm{c}^0=+c_1a/\lambda _0`$, with $`c_11.3`$ Tc\_mc , can be traced back to density fluctuations with wavelength much larger than the correlation radius $`r_\mathrm{c}\lambda _0^2/a`$ baym . This upwards trend, which has been observed experimentally in a dilute sample of 4He adsorbed in a porous glass reppy2000a , is quite sensitive to the presence of an external potential Arnold and Tomášik (2001); holzmann2003a . In the harmonically trapped case of interest here, the contribution of long wavelength excitations to the shift in $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ scales as a higher power of $`a/\lambda _0`$, making it negligible when compared to the “compressional” shift given by Eq. (2). The quantitative agreement we find with the mean-field result can be considered evidence of this effect, and highlights the important role played by the trapping potential.

Our experimental setup to reach Bose-Einstein condensation in the $`|F=1;m_\mathrm{F}=1`$ hyperfine ground state of 87Rb is similar to that used in Richard et al. (2003). The trapping frequencies are $`\omega _{}/2\pi =413(5)`$ Hz and $`\omega _z/2\pi =8.69(2)`$ Hz in the present work. To reduce non-equilibrium shape oscillations that occur in such anisotropic traps upon condensation Richard et al. (2003); Schvarchuck et al. (2002), the last part of the evaporation ramp is considerably slowed down (to a ramp speed of $`200`$ kHz/s) and followed by a $`1`$ s hold time in the presence of a radio-frequency shield. We ensure good reproducibility of the evaporation ramp in the following way. We monitor regularly (typically every four cycles) the radio-frequency $`\nu _0`$ that empties the trap. This allows us to detect slow drifts of the trap bottom, and to adjust in real time the final evaporation radio-frequency $`\nu _{\mathrm{rf}}`$ to follow them. In this way, the “trap depth” $`\nu _{\mathrm{rf}}\nu _0`$, is kept constant within $`\pm 2`$ kHz. Since we measure $`\eta =h(\nu _{\mathrm{rf}}\nu _0)/k_\mathrm{B}T`$ 11 in this final evaporation stage, we estimate the temperature stability to be $`\pm 10`$ nK.

We infer the properties of the clouds by absorption imaging. After rapid switch-off of the trap ($`1/e`$ cut-off time of about $`50`$$`\mu `$s), a $`22.3`$ ms free expansion, and a repumping pulse, we probe the ultra-cold cloud on resonance with the $`|F=2|F^{}=3`$ transition imaging . The images are analyzed using a standard procedure, described for instance in Ketterle1999a . For an ideal thermal cloud above the transition point, the evolution of the density in time of flight is related to the initial density profile by simple scaling relations, so that the column density (integrated along the probe line-of-sight, almost perpendicular to the long axis of the trap) is

$`\stackrel{~}{n}_{\mathrm{th}}(\rho )`$ $`=`$ $`\stackrel{~}{n}_{\mathrm{th}}(\mathrm{𝟎})g_2\left\{\mathrm{exp}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mu }{k_\mathrm{B}T}}{\displaystyle \frac{x^2}{2R_{\mathrm{th}}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{z^2}{2L_{\mathrm{th}}^2}}\right)\right\},`$ (3)
where $`g_2(u)=_{j1}u^j/j^2`$, and $`x`$ and $`z`$ are the coordinates along the tight and shallow trapping axes, respectively. For mixed clouds containing a normal and a (small) condensed component, we assume, as usual for a condensate in the Thomas-Fermi regime Dalfovo et al. (1999), that one can describe the bimodal distribution by an inverted parabola on top of an ideal, quantum-saturated thermal distribution (Eq. (3) with $`\mu =0`$). The condensed number $`N_0`$ is then deduced from integration of the Thomas-Fermi fit, and the total atom number $`N`$ from integration over the entire image. We estimate that condensed fractions as low as 1% can be reliably detected by the fitting routine. Absolute accuracy on the value of $`N`$ and $`N_0`$ relies on the precise knowledge of the absorption cross-section of the probe laser, which depends on its polarization and the local magnetic field. This cross-section is calibrated by fitting the radial sizes of condensates with no discernible thermal fraction to the Thomas-Fermi law $`R_0N_0^{1/5}`$, as explained in Dalfovo et al. (1999); kagan1997a ; Ketterle1999a ; Castin and Dum (1996). We find a reduction of $`4.00(14)`$ compared to the reference value $`\sigma _0=3\lambda _\mathrm{L}^2/2\pi `$ imaging .

We will now discuss the more complex issue of thermometry in some detail. The temperature is usually inferred from the sizes of the thermal cloud after a time of flight $`t`$, assuming a purely ballistic expansion with isotropic mean velocity, $`v_0=\sqrt{k_\mathrm{B}T/M}`$, as appropriate for an ideal gas. We show in Fig. 1 that the observed aspect ratio of non-condensed clouds, in a wide range of temperatures and atom numbers (corresponding to $`1T/T_\mathrm{c}1.8`$), is actually larger than the value (0.773) expected for an ideal gas and $`\omega _zt1.23`$ that corresponds to our parameters (dotted line in Fig. 1), in contradiction with the assumption of an isotropic velocity distribution.

In a very elongated trap, this could be explained by two distinct collisional effects. First, the initial mean-field energy of the non-degenerate cloud converts almost completely into radial kinetic energy during time-of-fight menotti2002a , as for an elongated condensate kagan1997a ; Castin and Dum (1996). The magnitude of this effect is controlled by the ratio $`\chi `$ of the mean-field energy to the temperature. In our case, the parameter $`\chi `$ does not exceed 0.02, too low to explain the observed anisotropy (dashed line in Fig. 1, calculated along the lines of menotti2002a ).

Second, as studied theoretically in kagan1997a ; wu1998a ; pedri2003a  and observed in Bose Schvarchuck et al. (2002) and Fermi gases fermihydro , anisotropic expansion occurs for a cloud in the hydrodynamic regime, i.e. when the mean free path at equilibrium is smaller than the dimensions of the sample. In our very elongated cloud, the mean free path is typically smaller than the axial length, but much larger than the radial size. Hydrodynamic axial motion of the thermal particles results in energy transfer from the axial to the radial degrees of freedom. For weak deviations from ballistic expansion, this collisional dynamic creates a velocity imbalance proportional to $`\gamma _{\mathrm{coll}}`$, the equilibrium collision rate, in agreement with the trend observed in Fig. 1.

In pedri2003a , a set of scaling equations was derived to investigate how collisions affect the expansion of a non-condensed cloud. Numerical solution of these equations, that also include the weak mean field effect, agrees well with our data (solid line in Fig. 1). The calculation makes use of the results of kavoulakis2000a  for the collision rate of a non-condensed, almost ideal Bose gas, in general larger (by as much as 70% close to $`T_\mathrm{c}`$) than the classical collision rate with the same $`N`$ and $`T`$ gammacoll . In view of the satisfactory agreement of our data with the scaling theory, we conclude that the observed anisotropy is a signature of the onset of hydrodynamic expansion.

In the regime $`\gamma _{\mathrm{coll}}\omega _{}`$, where the anisotropy is weak and increases linearly with $`\gamma _{\mathrm{coll}}`$, kinetic energy conservation suggests that mean square expansion velocities take the form $`v_x^2/v_0^21+\beta \gamma _{\mathrm{coll}}/2\omega _{}`$, and $`v_z^2/v_0^21\beta \gamma _{\mathrm{coll}}/\omega _{}`$, where $`\beta `$ depends in general on $`\omega _{},\omega _z,t`$ (fixed for the measurement presented here). These simple forms are confirmed by the numerical solution described above. Provided the expansion velocities along both axes are measured, they allow to infer the initial mean square velocity $`v_0`$ and temperature $`T`$, independently of the coefficient $`\beta `$ temp . Were this correction not applied, a systematic 10-15% discrepancy between the axial and radial temperature would remain. Note that mean-field effects are not corrected by this procedure. As stated above, they change the expansion energy by 2% at most. This error is not significant when compared to calibration uncertainties, that limit the accuracy of $`T`$ to about 5% errT .

Having identified an appropriate thermometric technique, we turn to the measurement of the critical temperature as a function of atom number. Data were taken in a narrow range around $`T_\mathrm{c}`$. From the two-component fit, we extract the number of condensed atoms, the temperature, and the total atom number as a function of the trap depth, as shown in Fig. 2a, b and c, respectively. The trap depth at which the transition point is reached, $`(\nu _{\mathrm{rf}}\nu _0)_\mathrm{c}`$, is taken to be the point at which a linear fit to the condensed number data crosses zero (a linear approach towards $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ is consistent with the simulations reported in Krauth (1996)). The temperature and total number are also fitted assuming a linear dependency on $`\nu _{\mathrm{rf}}`$, and from the value $`(\nu _{\mathrm{rf}}\nu _0)_\mathrm{c}`$, we extract the critical atom number $`N_\mathrm{c}`$ and critical temperature $`T_\mathrm{c}`$.

In Fig. 3, we have plotted $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ as a function of $`N_\mathrm{c}`$, measured in ten independent data sets. The ideal gas value $`T_\mathrm{c}^{\mathrm{ideal}}`$ (dashed line) lies two standard deviations above our data. Including the mean-field correction (2) yields a much better agreement (solid line), that we quantify in the following way. We assume that the interactive shift in $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ can be written as $`\delta T_\mathrm{c}/T_\mathrm{c}^0=\alpha N^{1/6}`$, with a free coefficient $`\alpha `$. A fit to the data yields $`\alpha =0.009(1)_{0.001}^{+0.002}`$, whereas Eq. (2) predicts $`\alpha 0.007`$ for a scattering length $`a5.31`$ nm vankempen2002a  and $`\sigma 1.00\mu `$m. The first uncertainty quoted is statistical, while the upper and lower bounds reflect calibration and analysis uncertainties. The shaded area in Fig. 3 delineates the resulting 1$`\sigma `$ confidence interval compatible with the experimental results.

The data shown in Fig. 3 reasonably exclude any additional shift of the same order of magnitude as the compressional effect given by Eq. (2). In particular, if the (positive) critical shift in $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ predicted in the uniform case Gruter et al. (1997) were directly scalable to the trapped one, one would expect an overall $`\alpha 0.004`$, a value not consistent with our findings within the estimated accuracy. This observation is in line with recent theoretical studies of critical density fluctuations in a harmonically trapped gas Arnold and Tomášik (2001); holzmann2003a , which point out that, instead of being delocalized over the entire system as in the homogeneous case, critical fluctuations in the trapped gas are confined to a small region around the trap center. This reduces corrections to the equation of state by a factor $`(a/\lambda _0)^3`$, corresponding to the ratio of the volume of the fluctuation region to the volume of the thermal cloud. The critical temperature, being fixed by the equation of state of the whole cloud, thus depends only weakly on critical phenomena: corrections to mean field behavior secondorder  enter only to second order in $`a/\lambda _0`$ Arnold and Tomášik (2001); holzmann2003a . For our experimental parameters, we calculate from Arnold and Tomášik (2001) an upwards correction to $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ smaller than 1%, below the sensitivity of the measurement.

In summary, we have measured the critical temperature of a trapped, weakly-interacting 87Rb Bose-Einstein gas. Our results exclude ideal gas behavior by two standard deviations, and we find satisfactory agreement with mean-field theory. We find no evidence for critical behavior close to $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ within our experimental sensitivity, in line with recent theoretical estimates that predict an increase of $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ due to critical fluctuations significantly smaller in the trapped case than in the uniform case Arnold and Tomášik (2001). We have also observed hydrodynamic behavior in the expansion of the thermal cloud, and shown how to correct for it in the thermometry procedure. We note to conclude that measuring corrections to $`T_\mathrm{c}`$ beyond the mean-field for our typical experimental parameters would require thermometry with an accuracy of 1% or better. A more direct route to investigate such effects might be to measure the critical density near the center of the trap, directly sensitive to the presence of critical fluctuations. Alternatively, these many-body effects could be enhanced in the vicinity of a Feshbach resonance inouye1998a .

We acknowledge useful discussions with D. Guéry-Odelin concerning the work reported in pedri2003a , and with F. Laloë on critical temperature calculations. We also thank D. Boiron, J. Retter, J. Dalibard and S. Giorgini for useful comments on this work. JHT acknowledges support from CNRS, and MH from IXSEA. This work was supported by DGA, and the European Union.


text:
# Auger & XtremWeb: Monte Carlo computation on a global computing platform

## I Introduction

The aim of the Pierre Auger Observatory is to detect showers produced by the interaction of cosmic rays of energy greater than 10E+19eV with the atmosphere. In order to determine the origin of these cosmic rays, their direction and energy must be measured with accuracy. Their nature (photons, protons or nuclei) must be known too.

These measurements are based on the properties of the secondary particles of the shower reaching the ground (number, position, energy, nature and mean arrival time) and on the study of the nitrogen fluorescence generated by these particles through the atmosphere. However statistical fluctuations in the development of an air-shower exist. For that reason, the data analysis needs a large number of simulated air-showers, with a good accuracy, to study these fluctuations. As duration of one simulation is about 10 hours, the needed simulation computing time is estimated at 106 hours for all the experiment.

The AiresAIRES  (Air-shower Extended Simulations) is one of the main program of simulation used by the Auger Collaboration; it is already used in Computing Center of the IN2P3 in Lyon. As computer sciences evolve, it appeared that we can now use new technology to break Computer Center barriers and gain computing resources distributed among the Internet.
These new possibilities are known as Global Computing.

## II Global computing

Global computing is an intensive computer science research field which aim is to distribute and share computing resource (CPU, disk space etc.). Among these proposals are different approaches which all try to solve problems on large scale computing. This last is a paradigm that addresses the problems of resource sharing between distributed systems in a dynamic, flexible, secure and non disturbing way, from within different organizations (universities, companies etc.) or even individuals.

The different studies around global computing are generalized as Grid computing, but can be divided into at least two groups, peer-to-peer computing (P2P) and Grid GRID0 .

“Grid” main goal is to achieve flexible and secure large scale computing with high performances between so called virtual organizations, entities that accept a resource exchange policy, based on high control about who shares what, what is shared and what are the sharing conditions. The main toolkit, Globus GLOBUS , is already used by several projects. Its strong security mechanism (GSI) is one of its main contributions. However, Globus lacks a mechanism for transparent fault tolerance that leads to use or implement a fault tolerance environment in top of Globus.

“P2P” has quite the same goal, to achieve flexible and secure large scale computing with high performances, but in a more decentralized way. P2P system main features are resource volatility and the lack of security mechanism for resources, applications and their results. Some P2P deployments have already shown useful performances (SETI@Home for P2P computing with several Teraflops, Kazaa for P2P file sharing with one Terabits/s of service bandwidth…) and fault tolerance capabilities (the time between two connections or disconnections is lower than a minute).

## III XtremWeb

XtremWeb is a P2P project developed at University of Paris-Sud, FranceXTREMWEB . It was originally designed to study execution models in the general framework of Global Computing and is now a full production platform too; it has been released for Linux, Windows and MacOS-X.

Distribute applications among set of resources (i.e. hosts) is a widely spread idea that leads different team to work on (SETI@Home, Folding@Home), and some projects especially focus on distribution of multi parameter applications, which need to be executed several times with different input/parameters, each computation being independent from each other. Among such projects is Nimrod Nimrod  which uses a static set of resources and which security relies on standard Unix level security. We see in following paragraphs that XtremWeb focuses on multi parameters applications too, but uses dynamic resources accordingly to their availability and implements its own strong security policy.

### III.1 Design

XtremWeb implements three distinct entities, the coordinator, the workers and the clients, to create a so-called XtremWeb network (i.e. the Global Computing platform) using connectionless protocols only.
The coordinator masters the tasks management process (tasks scheduling and results storage) and is the only piece under the full control of the XtremWeb network administrator (i.e. the user who creates an XtremWeb network). Clients are software instances available for any user allowed to submit tasks to the XtremWeb network; it submits tasks to the coordinator, providing binaries and optional parameter files and permits the end user to retrieve his results. Finally, the workers are the software part spread among volunteer hosts to compute tasks. Everything is written in Java language for portability purposes.

XtremWeb protocols, as defined below, resolve firewall problems by using single side communications. Firewalls are usually configured asymmetrically allowing outgoing connections and blocking incoming ones. Workers and clients behind a firewall or even a gateway implementing NAT can then contact the coordinator and receive answers through the same opened canal. The coordinator, which is the only one in XtremWeb to open incoming ports, can receive connections since it uses the standard Web port (80) and firewalls are usually configured to let incoming connections to this port. If the firewall in front of the coordinator stops these connections, this will be the only one to be reconfigured so that the full system works.

#### The coordinator.

Tasks are managed following the coordinator-worker paradigm. One host (the coordinator) manages a bag of tasks provided by clients, coordinates their scheduling among a set of hosts (the workers) that are volunteers provided by institutional or private users and, as such, are not under the control of the coordinator and are very volatile in essence. Following this concept, each action is initiated by workers only. This behavior is commonly known as pull model and clearly implies independence of all components.
Scheduling is in FIFO (first in, first out) mode. XtremWeb can schedule native and Java applications, so there’s a match done on CPU type, OS version and whether Java is enabled in workers. Java applications are distributed as jar files, whereas native ones are binary.
Tasks are scheduled to workers on their specific demand only since they may appear (connect to coordinator) and disappear (disconnect from coordinator) with no predictable pattern (a worker is then said connected as long as it periodically contacts the coordinator). Any scheduled task is expected to be computed by a worker and have its results sent back to the coordinator; on failure, the task is re-scheduled to another worker.

#### The clients.

Clients are distributed to authorized users only to make them able to submit tasks to the coordinator as transactions. Before submitting any task, the client contacts the coordinator to fetch any previous submitted ones. This ensures that when the client restarts from a fault or any other reason, it does not resubmit previously submitted tasks. Results are managed according to the user needs. They can be discarded immediately after fetch or kept by the coordinator until the end of the session. So on client failure, it is the responsibility of the client programmer to fetch relevant results. An API is implemented to provide such secure implementations.

#### The workers.

Workers are distributed entity to volunteer institutional or individual PCs, which aim to use CPU accordingly to a local user customizable policy (available scheduling time, CPU usage conditions…) to compute tasks provided by the coordinator. A worker requests task to compute accordingly to its own local policy; it downloads task software and all expected objects (input file, arguments…), stores them on reliable media and starts computing the provided tasks. Computation goes on locally until it ends or dies for any reason, including due to host utilization policy rules. As computation is started, the worker periodically signals the coordinator, so that last knows the computation goes on well. If unable to connect (coordinator or network shut down), the worker still continues computation and will signal the coordinator as soon as possible.
After any failure (network or host shut down, or local usage policy rule) the worker retrieves its current state; it restarts the interrupted task, if any, from the beginning as there is no checkpointPruitt  implemented in XtremWeb and signal the coordinator the task it is computing. A worker may then be asked to stop computing, if it task has been rescheduled.
When a task is completed, the worker sends results back to the coordinator and ask for another one.

### III.2 Fault tolerance

Several fault tolerance mechanisms are used in XtremWeb to handle clients, workers and coordinator failures. The main purpose of these mechanisms is to enable the system to restart properly after any failure (worker, client and coordinator). It is not currently intended to provide minimum service interruption using techniques like redundancy, but is planned as future work.

The coordinator manages its tasks using transactions and stores them in reliable media (disk) so that the full system integrity is preserved even if the coordinator shuts down for any reason (crash or system management). At starting time, the coordinator reads the information stored on reliable media to set up its proper state; it then retrieves tasks (scheduled and awaiting ones). The client submits tasks and the worker fetches tasks using transactions. This ensures a consistent state when the coordinator restarts from fault while the client and the worker have not failed.
Worker faults are detected thanks to the alive signal and their tasks may then be rescheduled on another available worker. A worker can impromptingly be told to stop its current task if it has been disconnected for too long (i.e. if it has not signaled the coordinator in time) to avoid redundant task and, more, result overwriting.

XtremWeb then achieve to prevent fault tolerance transparently for user, using resilient components fetching their context before restarting.

### III.3 Security

XtremWeb has the responsibility to ensure user authentication, hosts (workers) integrity, application and results protection and user execution logging.

Security mainly relies on three completer mechanisms : a list of authorized users as ACLs managed by the coordinator, authentication of the coordinator by workers and clients and self-protection of workers by the use of sand boxing system utility.

All tasks are submitted to the workers through the coordinator credential and contain a descriptor with the actual user identity so that workers and coordinator can take appropriate corrective action (user revocation), in case of security problem. Therefore it is a first concern to ensure that workers and clients connect to the appropriate coordinator. To do so, all communications to the coordinator are performed within a SSL tunnel. To open the connection a challenge is run using the public key (certificate) of the coordinator, previously inserted within the worker or client software. We suppose that the download and installation of the worker/client is a safe stage in the process. As the coordinator certificate is the only one contained in the list of trusted keys (the list itself cannot be updated) , this prevents the “Man in the Middle” attack, because the attacker would have to own the private key of the coordinator to let the SSL session to be established. This mechanism prevents malicious participants to be able to intercept and read any connection, and to connect to the coordinator; it also prevents workers/clients to connect to a wrong XtremWeb coordinator. On the contrary client and worker are not authenticated by the coordinator beside the use of the couple login/password. This point requires the maintenance of a database which could be evicted by integrating a certificate/signature system like PKI or GSI in Globus.

XtremWeb workers protect their host by implementing sand boxingSANDBOX2 ; SANDBOX3 ; SANDBOX1  to secure binary application executions, providing rights to do some actions and denying some others since binary applications have access to the full hosting system by nature. Workers are configured to run any task of that type inside a sand box which is fully customizable, from memory usage to file system operations. Java applications, on their side, are always executed inside a virtual machine which includes securityJAVASECURITY ; XtremWeb uses this functionality in two levels, one for the worker itself and a more restrictive one for the downloaded Java byte code. Java virtual machines, as sand boxes, have a performance costSANDBOX-PERF .

Finally, XtremWeb must ensure application, parameters and results integrity. Even if all these objects (binary, parameters and results) are safely transferred, they are still vulnerable inside the worker host itself as they are stored onto disk. The major difficulty then comes from two points. The first is that anybody (or at least the host owner) have the full access of hosting machine, even XtremWeb worker temporary files (binary, parameters and results). The second point is on XtremWeb open source policy, which makes protection coding ineffective since anybody can download the source code. The XtremWeb team is currently working on this problem and will present results on paper to come.

Host and connection security is achieved in XtremWeb that can then be deployed being sure volunteer hosts integrity is guaranteed. There’s still applications and their results to be certified and, as previously said, these subjects are under work by the XtremWeb team.

### III.4 User experiences and feedback

XtremWeb is already used by several projects as listed below:

* CGP2P ACI GRID (academic research on Desktop Grid systems), France
* Industry research project (Airbus + Alcatel Space), France
* IFP (French Petroleum Institute), France
* EADS (Airplane + Ariane rocket manufacturer), France
* University of Geneva, (research on Desktop Grid systems), Switzerland
* University of Wisconsin Madison, Condor+XW, USA
* University of Guadeloupe + Paster Institute (Research on tuberculosis), France
* Mathematics lab University of Paris South (PDE solver research) , France
* University of Lille (control language for Desktop Grid systems), France
* ENS Lyon: research on large scale storage, France

## IV Auger simulations distributed with XtremWeb

Prior to any proposal to introduce XtremWeb into Auger simulated showers management, we decided to make some experimentations. We introduced 1024 identical Aires tasks into the XtremWeb network to determine how the full system reacts. Each task is computed in about 18 minutes on the reference host, a mono-processor PIII 733Mhz. These 1024 tasks would take 307 hours on that host.

Figure 1 shows the experimentation platform we used to test XtremWeb to distribute simulation computations over three different sites: two sites in France, one at the LRI and the other at Grenoble, and one site in Wisconsin, USA.

The coordinator run on a dedicated machine at LRI. Workers run on different sites, managed by batch systems to make the deployment just easier; we deployed then our XtremWeb workers as tasks locally managed by provided batch systems. Grenoble site uses PBS feitelson97theory  whereas Wisconsin and LRI sites use CondorwebCondor . As these two batch systems use different resource allocation policies, no prediction can be made about how and when our workers are scheduled. Figure 1 also shows some workers not included in any cluster. This is to make clear that XtremWeb workers don’t need to be managed by any cluster and may be run on any personal computer. Our experiments used workers on clusters only to keep management as easiest as possible.

We have made five experiments : WISC-97 (97 processors at Wisconsin), WL-113 (113 processors at Wisconsin and LRI), G-146 (146 processors at Grenoble), WLG-270 (270 processors at Wisconsin, LRI and Grenoble) and WLG-451 (451 processors at Wisconsin, LRI and Grenoble).

Figure 2 shows works execution time for each task, decreasingly sorted. We note the remarkable stability of the system at Grenoble (G-146 curve) where all hosts are identical (CPU, memory…) whereas WISC-97 clearly shows two levels corresponding on the two available host types (PIII 533Mhz and 900Mhz). That last does not show the stability found in G-146. This is because Condor may simultaneously allocate the same resource (i.e. the same CPU) to different tasks, depending on the local resource management policy and, in another hand, because the network bandwidth is not the same between Wisconsin and LRI, and between Grenoble and LRI.

Figure 3 shows resource utilization for each experimentation. All curves show three different steps. The first is the power slope as CPU are allocated by clusters; then we reach the efficient power utilization which finally decreases as experimentation ends.

## V Conclusion and future work

Figure 4 shows Auger configuration for Monte Carlos computations as we expect it to be in near future, as tests are fully convincing. We can see that Auger will use two different ways to compute its simulated showers; the first one uses “standard” CPU power provided by traditional computing centers whereas the other implements an XtremWeb network. Both are connected to Auger database (Auger DB) at Lyon, France to get informations about showers and to generate and store generated showers.

Parts will be deployed as follow:

* a daemon (Xw Auger) as XtremWeb client; it scans Auger DB for new showers to be generated and submits them to the coordinator. On the other hand, its periodically connects to the coordinator to retrieve results, if any;
* the coordinator is then not connected by itself to Auger DB; it definitely knows nothing specific to Auger and only sees a client (Xw Auger) as it would for any XtremWeb client as previously defined;
* the workers are widely distributed among volunteer collaboration hosts. They download Aires binary, a shower simulator, compute the shower and send results back to the coordinator. Again, this XtremWeb component has just nothing specific to Auger.

The first phase will accept worker connections from collaboration hosts only since the XtremWeb results certification is not available yet.

We have presented a Global Computing platform, XtremWeb, which usage experiment has presented an easy and convenient way to answer our CPU needs for monte carlos computations. This platform achieves to resolve most of the problems encountered by any Grid system such as scalability, fault tolerance and security.

As our tests have completed, we believe that this platform responds to the expectations of Auger users who would easily deploy workers among PCs of the collaboration so that an effective XtremWeb network could grow and propose a non-negligible CPU power.


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# Core Structure of Global Vortices in Brane World Models

## I Introduction

The idea of extra dimensions has been an appealing concept in theoretical physics since the 1920’s when it was first considered by KaluzaKaluza:tu  and KleinKlein:tv . They proposed that our universe may be embedded in a five dimensional spacetime where the fifth dimension is not detected because it is compact and small. They achieved a unification of gravitational and electromagnetic forces by inducing four dimensional gauge interactions solely by the five dimensional geometry. Isometries of the extra-dimensional compact manifold are then realized as gauge symmetries of an effective four dimensional theory. In such a framework the extra components of the metric play the role of the gauge fields of the four dimensional theory.

Later, in the context of string theory (for a good review see Antoniadis:1999yx ) it was shown that the existence of extra dimensions is crucial not only for the unification of gravity with other interactions but also for its quantization. String theory is the only consistent quantum theory of gravity and its consistency requires the existence of extra dimensions. Recently, the possibility of having large extra dimensions has been considered as a solution of the hierarchy problemAntoniadis:1998ig ; Arkani-Hamed:1998rs ; Arkani-Hamed:1998nn ; Randall:1999ee ; Randall:1999vf . According to this proposal, the fundamental Planck scale of the $`4+D`$ dimensions is close to the TeV scale not far from the electroweak and strong interaction scales. The much larger value of the four dimensional Plank mass $`M_4`$ would be due to the large size of the extra dimensions according to the relation

$$M_4^2=b^DM_{4+D}^{D+2}$$
(1)
where $`b`$ is the radius of the compact extra dimensions. Consistency with phenomenology then requires that whereas gravity can propagate in the $`4+D`$ dimensional bulk space, the ordinary matter fields and gauge bosons be bound to live on a 3 dimensional brane which would constitute the usual spatial dimensions.

The localization of the brane in the compact D-dimensional manifold spontaneously breaks the corresponding Kaluza-Klein (KK) isometries and defines a set of Goldstone boson fields which parametrize the location of the brane in the compact manifoldDvali:1999jd ; Dvali:2000bz ; Dobado:2000gr ; Cembranos:2001my ; Cembranos:2001rp . These zero modes can in general depend on the position on the brane and their excitations have been called ’branons’ in previous studiesDobado:2000gr .

Topologically non-trivial configurations of these geometrical Goldstone fields can produce a new set of topological states: vortices, monopolesDvali:2000bz  and skyrmionsCembranos:2001rp . These defects form when the isometry group $`G`$ of the D-dimensional compact manifold $`M`$ breaks down to a subgroup $`H`$ due to the localization of the brane. If now the vacuum manifold $`G/H`$ has $`n`$-dimensional closed surfaces that can not be contracted to a point in $`G/H`$ ($`\pi _n(G/H)I`$) then topologically non-trivial configurations can form for $`n=1`$ (vortices), $`n=2`$ (monopoles) and $`n=3`$ (skyrmions). These form by mapping the surfaces $`S^1`$, $`S^2`$ or $`S^3`$ from the physical space on the brane to the vacuum manifold. They correspond to a constant change of the position of the brane on the D-dimensional compact space (vacuum manifold) as we travel a closed surface in 3+1 dimensions. For example for $`n=1`$, the compact space is $`S^1`$ and a geometrical ‘cosmic string’ forms when travelling around such a string a four dimensional observer makes a full circle along the extra dimension $`S^1`$. The condition for such a geometrical string to form is

$$\theta _2(\theta _1)=\theta _1$$
(2)
where the Goldstone field $`\theta _2`$ parametrizes the position of the brane along the extra dimension $`S^1`$ while $`\theta _1`$ is the usual azimuthal angle on the brane. On the other hand no string would form if $`\theta _2=const`$ and the Goldstone field is independent of position on the brane.

It has been shownDvali:2000bz  that in the core of such defects, the broken isometries of the compact space get restored and the four dimensional observer is free to move anywhere along the D-dimensional compact space. Another interesting possibility which has not been investigated so far is the modification of the size of the extra dimensions at the geometrical defect core due to energetic reasons (the stabilization of extra dimensions size is dynamical). This could lead to spatially variable size of extra dimensions with interesting cosmological consequencesMorris:2002sd ; Guendelman:2003jg .

These topological defects are geometrical since they form due to the spontaneous breaking of isometries of extra dimensions and are distinct from the usual defects formed by the spontaneous breaking of non-geometrical scalar field symmetries. However, non-geometrical defects do admit several new generalized properties in the context of brane-world models. For example the 3+1 dimensions of our brane-world can be identified with the core of topological defects residing in a higher dimensional space-time (a domain wall in 5dRubakov:bb ; KorthalsAltes:2001et , string in 6dCohen:1999ia ; Gregory:1999gv ; Olasagasti:2000gx ; Gherghetta:2000qi ; Gregory:2002tp ; Cline:2003ak , monopole in 7dGherghetta:2000jf ; Benson:2001ac  or other defectsDemir:2000gj ; Cho:2002ui ). In this framework, the localization of matter fields on the defect core can be associated with the fermionic and scalar zero modes localized in defect coresGiovannini:2002mk . The scalar fields forming these defects are assumed to propagate in the extra dimensions (the bulk) and depend only on the extra coordinates. For example, the scalar field of a global vortex in 6d would be

$$\varphi (\rho _2,\theta _2)=f(\rho _2)e^{im\theta _2}$$
(3)
where $`\rho _2`$ and $`\theta _2`$ are the bulk radius and bulk angle and $`m`$ is the integer winding number (in what follows we set $`m=1`$ for simplicity).

In addition to this brane-world generalization of non-geometrical defects we can consider another interesting generalization using just scalar fields that are localized on the brane $`(t,\rho ,\theta _1,z)`$. Consider for example the brane localized complex scalar field ansatz:

$$\varphi (\rho ,\theta _1,\theta _2)=f(\rho )e^{i\alpha \theta _1+i(1\alpha )\theta _2}$$
(4)
where $`\varphi `$ is localized on the $`3+1`$ brane of a 5d bulk with a toroidally compact extra dimension of size $`b`$ parametrized by $`\theta _2`$ and $`\alpha (\rho )`$ is a real function of $`\rho `$ with

$$\alpha (\rho \mathrm{})=1$$
(5)
for unit winding vortex. If the location of the brane in the bulk is independent of the position on the brane, the branons are not excited (locally or topologically) and we may set $`\theta _2=const`$. In this case, regularity of $`\varphi `$ at the origin $`\rho =0`$ implies that

$$\alpha (\rho )=1f(0)=0$$
(6)
and we obtain the well known global vortex.

A much more interesting case appears when we have topological excitations of branons. The simplest such case occurs when $`\theta _2=\theta _1`$. In this case, the boundary condition (5) does not imply the usual conditions (6). Instead, it is dynamics that will determine the core structure of the global vortex. This will be demonstrated in the next section. It will be seen that the global vortex generalizes in this case with a new dimensionless parameter $`\overline{b}\eta b`$ which is the ratio of the size of the compact extra dimension over the scale of symmetry breaking of the vortex $`\eta ^1`$. For $`\eta b0`$ we dynamically reobtain the usual core structure of the global vortex ($`f(0)=0`$). For $`\overline{b}1`$ we have a new structure with $`f(0)\eta `$ without violation of regularity since it is energetically favorable in this case for the winding to escape in the extra dimension with $`\alpha (0)=0`$. The gauged case and the extension to other types of defects is discussed in section III. Finally in section IV we conclude and discuss the possible extensions and implications of these results.

## II The Global Brane Vortex

Consider a spacetime with topology $`_4\times S^1`$ where $`_4`$ is our four dimensional Minkowski space and $`S^1`$ is a torroidally compact extra dimension. In this spacetime we consider a Lagrangian of a complex scalar field $`\varphi `$ with a broken global $`U(1)`$ symmetry

$$=\frac{1}{2}_M\varphi ^{}^M\varphi \frac{\lambda }{4}(\varphi ^{}\varphi \eta ^2)^2$$
(7)
where $`M=0,\mathrm{},4`$ and the extra coordinate $`x^4`$ is compact with size $`b`$ and parametrized by an angle $`\theta _2`$. The corresponding energy density of a static scalar field configuration is of the form

$$=\frac{1}{2}|\frac{\varphi }{\rho }|^2+\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{\rho ^2}|\frac{\varphi }{\theta _1}|^2+\frac{1}{2}|\frac{\varphi }{z}|^2+\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{b^2}|\frac{\varphi }{\theta _2}|^2+\frac{\lambda }{4}(\varphi ^{}\varphi \eta ^2)^2$$
(8)
where $`(\rho ,\theta _1,z)`$ are the usual cylindrical coordinates of $`M_4`$.

We now use the generalized global vortex ansatz (4) with boundary conditions at infinity

$$\alpha (\rho )1f(\rho )\eta $$
(9)
The energy density for this ansatz takes the form

$$2=f^2+\alpha ^2(\theta _1\theta _2)^2+\frac{\alpha ^2f^2}{\rho ^2}+\frac{(1\alpha )^2f^2}{b^2}+\frac{\lambda }{4}(f^2\eta ^2)^2$$
(10)
We now distinguish between two topologically inequivalent brane configurations

1. The vacuum sector with $`\theta _2=constant`$ where all points of the brane are located at the same extra coordinate. In this case continuity and regularity of $`\varphi `$ at the origin $`\rho =0`$ implies that $`f(0)=0`$ and $`\alpha (\rho )=1`$. We thus obtain the usual global vortex.
2. The topological sector with $`\theta _2=\theta _1`$ where as we span a circle on the brane we at the same time span a circle in the extra dimension. Thus the brane is deformed along the extra dimension in a topologically non-trivial way. In this case the core properties of the global vortex can be modified in two important ways.

* The function $`\alpha (\rho )`$ is not required to be integer and constant. Regularity and singlevaluedness of $`\varphi `$ are not violated for any value of $`\alpha (\rho )`$. Thus $`\alpha (\rho )`$ is determined by dynamics (energy minimization).
    * If dynamical arguments lead to $`\alpha (0)=0`$ then $`\varphi `$ can be regular at the origin with $`f(0)=c0`$. This is a novel type of behavior for the global vortex core.

In what follows we focus on the case of the topological sector ($`\theta _2=\theta _1`$) and investigate the properties of the global vortex by deriving the field functions $`\alpha (\rho )`$ and $`f(\rho )`$ with the boundary conditions (9). The analytical derivation of $`\alpha (\rho )`$ is simple since for $`\theta _2=\theta _1`$ the energy density (10) is independent of $`\alpha ^{}`$. Thus we simply demand

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta \alpha }=0$$
(11)
which leads to

$$\alpha (\rho )=\frac{\rho ^2}{b^2+\rho ^2}$$
(12)
Thus $`\alpha (\rho )`$ has the expected asymptotic behavior at $`\rho \mathrm{}`$ ($`\alpha 1`$) and at $`\rho 0`$ ($`\alpha 0`$). This dynamical behavior of $`\alpha (\rho )`$ implies that the winding at the origin transfers from the brane coordinate $`\theta _1`$ to the extra dimension $`\theta _2`$. Since now $`\varphi `$ is independent of $`\theta _1`$ at the origin $`\rho =0`$, it does not have to be zero to maintain its singlevaluedness and regularity. Thus, the boundary condition for $`f(\rho )`$ at the origin is $`f(0)=c`$ (and $`f^{}(0)=0`$ by symmetry considerations) where the values of $`c`$ and $`f(\rho )`$ are to be determined dynamically in terms of the single dimensionless parameter of the model $`\overline{b}=\eta b`$. In order to find $`f(\rho )`$ we rewrite the energy density (10) in dimensionless form using $`\theta _1=\theta _2`$. After setting

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\eta }}`$ $``$ $`f`$ (13)
$`\lambda \eta ^2\rho ^2`$ $``$ $`\rho ^2`$ (14)
$`\theta _1`$ $`=`$ $`\theta _2`$ (15)
$`\lambda \eta ^2b^2`$ $``$ $`b^2`$ (16)
equation (10) becomes

$$\frac{2}{\lambda \eta ^2}\overline{}=f^2+\frac{\alpha ^2f^2}{\rho ^2}+\frac{(1\alpha )^2f^2}{b^2}+\frac{1}{2}(f^21)^2$$
(17)
The rescaled field equation for $`f(\rho )`$ is

$$f^{\prime \prime }+\frac{f^{}}{\rho }\frac{f\alpha ^2}{\rho ^2}\frac{f(1\alpha )^2}{b^2}(f^21)f=0$$
(18)
For $`b0`$ equation (12) gives $`\alpha =1`$ and we obtain the usual global vortex field equation as we should. For $`b0`$ we may use equation (12) to eliminate $`\alpha (\rho )`$ from (17) and (18) leading to

$$\overline{}=f^2+\frac{f^2}{\rho ^2+b^2}+\frac{1}{2}(f^21)^2$$
(19)
for the rescaled energy density and

$$f^{\prime \prime }+\frac{f^{}}{\rho }\frac{f}{\rho ^2+b^2}(f^21)f=0$$
(20)
for the rescaled field equation. For small $`\rho `$ ($`\rho <1`$ and $`\rho <b`$) equation (20) implies $`f(\rho )=c`$ where $`c`$ is a constant. For $`b<1`$ and in the range $`b<\rho <1`$, $`f(\rho )`$ is approximated by

$$f(\rho )=c\frac{\rho }{b}$$
(21)
By extrapolating equation (21) up to $`\rho =\frac{b}{c}`$ and setting $`f=1`$ beyond that, we obtain a crude analytical approximation for the field function $`f(\rho )`$. This analytic approximation can be used to minimize the energy with respect to $`c`$ for various values of $`b`$. Thus, finding the value of $`c`$ that minimizes the energy for a given $`b`$ we have a crude analytic approximation of $`c(b)`$ to compare with the corresponding numerical result obtained by solving the diffrential equation (20) with boundary conditions $`f(\mathrm{})=1`$ and $`f^{}(0)=0`$. This comparison is shown in Fig. 1.

The corresponding forms of the field function $`f(\rho )`$ obtained numerically by solving equation (20) for various values of $`b`$ are shown in Fig. 2.

As expected, for a size of the extra dimension much less than the scale of symmetry breaking ($`b1`$) $`f(0)`$ goes continously to $`0`$ and the usual global vortex solution is reached. At the other extreme where the extra dimension size is much larger than the scale of symmetry breaking ($`b1`$) the energy density approaches $`0`$ everywhere. In this limit, $`|\varphi |`$ remains at its vacuum everywhere while the winding is smoothly transferred to the extra dimension with practically no cost in gradient energy. This transition is shown in Fig. 3 where the numerically obtained energy density is shown to smoothly approach $`0`$ on scales $`\rho <b`$ for large enough compactification radius.

However, the total energy of the global vortex is

$$_0^{R^2}\frac{d\rho ^2}{b^2+\rho ^2}ln(\frac{R}{b})$$
(22)
and diverges logarithmically for any finite $`b`$. It is worth noting that the escape of the winding and of the scalar field to the extra dimension at the string core is consistent with the results of Ref. Dvali:2000bz  where it was shown that the center of a topologically deformed brane is a window to the extra dimensions for all fields and particles.

## III Generalized Nielsen-Olesen Vortex

In this section we attempt a generalization of the Nielsen-OlesenNielsen:cs  (NO) vortex along the lines of the previous section where the global vortex was generalized by an embedding to topologically non-trivial brane-worlds. The energy density of the static Abelian Higgs model embedded in a brane-world with a toroidally compact extra dimension is

$$=(D_i\varphi )^{}(D_i\varphi )+\frac{\lambda }{2}(\varphi ^{}\varphi \eta ^2)^2+\frac{1}{2}F_{ij}F_{ij}$$
(23)
where $`D_i=_iieA_i`$ and $`F_{ij}=_iA_j_jA_i`$ with $`i,j=1,2,3`$. The spatial coordinate $`x_3`$ is taken to be toroidally compact ($`x_3=b\theta _2`$). In analogy with the usual NO vortex in two spatial dimensions and with the results of the previous section we use the following generalization of the NO ansatz

$`\varphi `$ $`=`$ $`f(\rho )e^{i(\alpha \theta _1+(1\alpha )\theta _2)}`$ (24)
$`A_1`$ $`=`$ $`a_1(\rho )\mathrm{sin}\theta _1`$ (25)
$`A_2`$ $`=`$ $`a_1(\rho )\mathrm{cos}\theta _1`$ (26)
$`A_3`$ $`=`$ $`a_2(\rho )`$ (27)
Using this ansatz and equation (23) we may express the energy density in terms of $`f(\rho )`$, $`a_1(\rho )`$ and $`a_2(\rho )`$. The result (for $`\theta _2=\theta _1`$) in dimensionless form is

$`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{\eta ^4e^2}}\overline{}=f^2+{\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{\rho ^2}}(\alpha a_1)^2+`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{f^2}{b^2}}((1\alpha )a_1)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{2}}(f^21)^2+{\displaystyle \frac{a_1^2}{\rho ^2}}+{\displaystyle \frac{a_2^2}{b^2}}`$ (28)
where we have set

$`{\displaystyle \frac{f}{\eta }}`$ $``$ $`f`$ (29)
$`ea_1`$ $``$ $`a_1`$ (30)
$`ea_2`$ $``$ $`a_2`$ (31)
$`e\eta \rho `$ $``$ $`\rho `$ (32)
$`e\eta b`$ $``$ $`b`$ (33)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{e^2}}`$ $``$ $`\beta `$ (34)
As in the global case the functional form of $`\alpha (\rho )`$ is obtained analytically by energy minimization

$$\frac{\delta }{\delta \alpha }=0\alpha =\frac{\rho ^2+b^2a_1\rho ^2a_2}{b^2+\rho ^2}$$
(35)
which has the correct global limit. Using equation (35) for $`\alpha (\rho )`$ in (28) we may write the rescaled energy density as

$$\overline{}=f^2+\frac{f^2(1a_1a_2)^2}{\rho ^2+b^2}+\frac{\beta }{2}(f^21)^2+\frac{a_1^2}{\rho ^2}+\frac{a_2^2}{b^2}$$
(36)
By extremizing $`\overline{}`$ with respect to $`f`$, $`a_1`$ and $`a_2`$ we find the corresponding field equations

$`f^{\prime \prime }+{\displaystyle \frac{f^{}}{\rho }}{\displaystyle \frac{(1a_1a_2)^2}{b^2+\rho ^2}}f\beta (f^21)f=0`$
$`a_1^{\prime \prime }{\displaystyle \frac{a_1^{}}{\rho }}+{\displaystyle \frac{(1a_1a_2)\rho ^2}{b^2+\rho ^2}}f^2=0`$ (37)
$`a_2^{\prime \prime }+{\displaystyle \frac{a_2^{}}{\rho }}+{\displaystyle \frac{(1a_1a_2)b^2}{b^2+\rho ^2}}f^2=0`$
The boundary conditions at infinity are

$$f1,a_1^{}0a_2^{}0$$
(38)
and at the origin

$$f^{}0,a_10a_2^{}0$$
(39)
The next step would be to solve the system (37) with the above boundary conditions to obtain the field functions $`f(\rho )`$, $`a_1(\rho )`$ and $`a_2(\rho )`$. However, the existence of a trivial zero energy solution satisfying the boundary conditions saves the effort. The solution is

$$f=1a_1=0a_2=1$$
(40)
ie there is a non-singular gauge transformation that transforms the vortex to a $`0`$ energy configuration. Notice that we are free to take $`a_20`$ at $`\rho =0`$ without violating singlevaluedness of the gauge field $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ since $`\stackrel{}{A}`$ does not wind along the extra dimension and also $`b0`$. We conclude that the gauged analog of the generalized global vortex discussed in the previous section is trivial.

The brane-world defect generalizations discussed in this and in the previous section can be extended to the cases of monopoles and skyrmions. For example the case of global monopolesBarriola:hx  would require two extra dimensions with spherical compactification parametrized by the angles ($`\theta _2,\phi _2`$). The corresponding generalized global monopole ansatz is

$$\varphi (\rho ,\theta _1,\phi _1,\theta _2,\phi _2)=f(\rho )\left(\begin{array}{c}\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Psi }\\ \mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Theta }\mathrm{sin}\mathrm{\Psi }\\ \mathrm{cos}\mathrm{\Theta }\end{array}\right)$$
(41)
where

$`\mathrm{\Theta }`$ $``$ $`\alpha _\theta \theta _1+(1\alpha _\theta )\theta _2`$ (42)
$`\mathrm{\Psi }`$ $``$ $`\alpha _\phi \phi _1+(1\alpha _\phi )\phi _2`$ (43)
$`\theta _1`$, $`\phi _1`$ are the usual spherical coordinates on the brane and $`\alpha _\theta (\rho )`$, $`\alpha _\phi (\rho )`$ generalize the function $`\alpha (\rho )`$ of equation (4). The detailed study and classification of all generalized brane-world defects is an interesting open issue.

## IV Conclusion - Outlook

We have studied field configurations of vortices in braneworlds which are topologically deformed along a bulk with a toroidally compact extra dimension. We have found that the field configuration of generalized global vortices depends on a single dimensionless free parameter $`\overline{b}=\eta b`$: the ratio of the size of the extra dimension $`b`$ over the scale of symmetry breaking $`\eta ^1`$ that gives rise to the vortex. For $`\eta b0`$ the effects of the extra dimension can be ignored and the field configuration is that of the well known global vortex. For $`\eta bO(1)`$ the core of the vortex acquires novel properties: the complex scalar field remains non-zero and singlevalued at the origin while its winding escapes to the extra dimension. In addition, the energy density of the vortex gets reduced at the origin since the potential (and gradient) energies get smaller. For $`\eta b1`$ the energy density is negligible on scales $`\rho <b`$ since the winding resides exclusively on the large extra dimension on these scales, contributing negligible gradient energy. Thus it is possible to have topologically non-trivial configurations with negligible energy density at the core. The total energy however was shown to remain divergent logarithmicaly like $`ln\frac{R}{b}`$. It should be noted that for large extra dimensions ($`𝒪(1nm)`$) and vortices produced at symmetry breaking energy scales larger than the electroweak scale we anticipate $`\eta b1`$.

For the gauged case we showed that the extra component of the gauge field corresponding to the extra dimension is able to eliminate the energy density of the generalized NO vortex even though its topological properties remain non-trivial<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1A similar effect happens when one tries to gauge global textures. If however only the coordinates on the brane are gauged then the energy density of the vortex can not be eliminated and its core properties will be similar to those of the brane-world global vortex. The extension of this study to other types of defects in topologically non-trivial brane-worlds is an issue worth of further investigation.

Acknowledgements: I thank I. Olasagasti for interesting conversations. This work was supported by the European Research and Training Network HPRN-CT-2000-00152.