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# Galaxy luminosity evolution: how much is due to a model choice?

## 1 Introduction

The study of the cluster luminosity function (LF) has at least two immediate objectives: to look for environmental related effects, as remarked by possible differences between the cluster and field LF, and to look for galaxy evolution, by comparing the LF at different redshifts. Both the objectives are considered in this paper.

At the present date, cluster and field LFs of large samples of galaxies in the nearby universe ($`z<0.25`$) have been computed (Garilli, Maccagni & Andreon 1999, hereafter GMA99; Blanton et al. 2001; Paolillo, Andreon, Longo et al. 2001, hereafter PALal01; Norberg et al. 2002b; de Propris et al. 2003). A convergence on the field LF, absent just few years ago (GMA99, see their figure 10) seems to be reached (Norberg et al. 2002b), in spite of an initial disagreement (Blanton et al. 2001) between Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and 2 degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey (2dFGRS) LFs. A convergence on the cluster LF, when the considered sample is large enough to dump out possible vagaries of individual cluster LF, seems also reached, given the good agreement between the GMA99 LF, based on 65 clusters, the PAal01 LF, computed for 39 clusters, and older LFs (see GMA99 and PALal01 for details). There are, however, recent cluster LFs that systematically differ from all LFs published thus far (e.g. Goto et al. 2002).

Given the reached convergence on the field and cluster LFs, it is therefore time to compare them.

LFs are usually characterized by a Schechter (1976) function:

$$\varphi (M)=\varphi ^{}10^{0.4(\alpha +1)(M_0^{}M)}e^{10^{0.4(M^{}M)}}$$

where $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ are the characteristic magnitudes and the slope of the function, respectively. $`\varphi ^{}`$ is a normalization parameter not relevant in this work.

For the field environment, the evolution of the LF, i.e the $`z`$ dependence of the best fit parameters of the LF, has been explored. Lin et al. (1999) presented some evidence for an evolution on $`M^{}`$ in the redshift range $`0.12<z<0.55`$, of the order of 0.4 (0.3) mag in the rest–frame $`B`$ ($`R`$) over the explored redshift range. Very recently, Blanton et al. (2003) analysis of a larger SDSS data set found a similar variation for $`M^{}`$ in the redshift range $`0.02<z<0.22`$ in $`g^{},r^{},i^{}`$. Blanton et al. (2003) and Lin et al. (1999), both claim evolution assuming a not evolving LF shape.

For the clusters, evolution of the LF is, instead, much less explored. GMA99 found only marginal, if any, evidence for evolution in the redshift range $`0.05<z<0.25`$ by binning cluster LFs in two $`z`$ ranges. de Propris et al. (1999) found evolution on $`M^{}`$ in the $`K`$ band in the $`0.2<z<0.9`$ redshift range for $`M<M^{}+1`$ galaxies and assuming that $`\alpha `$ does not evolve with $`z`$.

In this paper we have a twofold objective: first to compare the cluster and field LFs (§2), second to measure the evolution of the cluster LF using the same formalism used for measuring the evolution of the field LF. The data and the analysis is summarized in §3, whereas results are presented in Section 4.

We adopt $`H_0=50`$ km s-1 Mpc-1 and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$. However, the $`H_0`$ value reduce off in the comparisons, and is, therefore, irrelevant. Furthermore, the considered samples are at low redshift.

## 2 Cluster and field LF

The comparison of the cluster and field LF have been attempted several times in literature (for example Bromley et al. 1998a,b; Christlein 2000; Balogh et al. 2001; Valotto et al. 1997; Trentham & Hodgkin 2002), with opposite claims about the LF environmental dependence.

Figure 1 shows three luminosity functions in the Gunn $`r`$ and $`i`$ bands of the largest and most homogeneous samples measured thus far. Green open points mark the GMA99 cluster $`r`$ band LF. It has been obtained in the Gunn $`r`$ filter for about 2200 galaxies in 65 clusters, ranging in redshift from 0.05 to 0.25. Red closed points mark the PALal01 $`r`$ and $`i`$ band LFs. The LFs have been obtained by using $`F`$ and $`N`$ photographic plates calibrated in the $`r`$ and $`i`$ Gunn photometric system. The sample is about 1.5 time larger than the GMA99 one and is drawn from 39 clusters in the redshift range $`0.06<z<0.28`$. The two cluster LFs shown in Figure 1 are derived using different materials (CCD vs photographic plates), different ways to subtract interloper galaxies (using colors vs using control fields), different definitions of “total” magnitude, different portions of the clusters (GMA99 explored only the center, whereas PALal01 considered the whole cluster), and finally, the absolute limiting magnitude is approximately independent on $`z`$ for GMA99, whereas it is systematically brighter for more distant clusters in PALal01. Although some clusters are in common between the two works, only a very minor fraction of galaxies are in common, because of the different depths and field of views of the two works. Therefore, the two LFs are really independent each other, and should not share common biases introduced by the data analysis (that is completely different in the two works).

The dashed area in Figure 1 show the $`r^{}`$ and $`i^{}`$ field LF, as measured by the SDSS (Blanton et al. 2001). The sample is larger than both previous samples by a factor of few (at most), and it extends over a similar redshift range: $`0.02<z<0.170.20`$. SDSS $`r^{}`$ and $`i^{}`$ filters are quite similar to the Gunn $`r`$ and $`i`$ filters, at least for galaxies at low redshift, because they map the emission coming from almost identical part of the galaxy spectrum. The major difference between the two systems is the star that defines the objects of zero magnitude (and color). In fact, for $`r`$ and $`i`$ filters, the conversion from SDSS to Gunn is almost independent on the object spectra (see Table 3 in Fukugita et al. 1995). We therefore correct the SDSS $`r^{}`$ and $`i^{}`$ SDSS magnitudes for the change of the zero mag standard star by using the values listed in Fukugita et al. (1995). Galaxies having a surface brightness profile following a de Vaucouleurs (1948) law have a Petrosian flux that underestimates by 0.1-0.2 mag the total mag (Blanton et al. 2001). Since most of the galaxies in cluster are early–type galaxies, and hence have a de Vaucouleurs (1948) radial profile, we made SDSS Petrosian magnitudes brighter by 0.15 mag, in order to make them comparable to “total” magnitudes derived in GMA99 (SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts (1996) isophotal corrected magnitudes) and in PALal01 (Focas (Jarvis & Tyson 1981) “total” magnitudes). Finally, SDSS absolute magnitudes are corrected to our value of $`H_0`$. The vertical normalization of the LFs is arbitrary.

The three LFs are almost indistinguishable, hence suggesting that the effect of the cluster environment on the galaxy properties does not affect the galaxy luminosity function in red filters. The comparison performed by de Propris et al. (2003) between cluster and field $`B_j`$ LF shows instead differences in the cluster and field blue LF. The similarity of the luminosity function in different environments in the red bands suggests that the galaxy mass function is preserved during the galaxy infall in the cluster, whereas the blue luminosity, more sensitive to star bursts, is altered.

The found similarity of the LF in different environments seems at variance with previous (opposite) findings.

– Many LF determinations (e.g. Small, Sargent & Hamilton 1997; Bromley et al. 1998b; Christlein 2000; Balogh et al. 2001) use Sandage, Tammann & Yahil (1979, STY) and Efstathiou, Ellis & Peterson (1988, EEP) LF estimators, in which the spatial dependent part of the LF factors out under the assumption of an LF universality111See, for details, EEP and Binggeli, Sandage & Tammann 1988. These works claim to have measured different LFs in different environments, in spite of having assumed that the LF does not depend on environment in the LF computation. Hypothesis and results are, therefore, in direct contradiction. Furthermore, according to Efstathiou, Ellis & Peterson (1988), STY and EEP estimators underestimate errors if the LF universality does not hold. Because of the logical inconsistency between hypothesis and conclusions, we consider the results of these papers as suggestive at most, and with underestimated errors.

We also note that the skewed (Blanton et al. 2001) LF of the Las Campanas Redshift Survey undermines the claims of environmental effects based on that survey, such as Christlein (2000), Bromley et al. (1998b) and Balogh et al. (2001) results. Furthermore, Balogh et al. (2001) uses the 2MASS photometry (Jarrett et al. 2000), criticized by Andreon (2002a) because 2MASS misses dim galaxies and the outer halos of normal galaxies, hence giving skewed LFs, as confirmed by Blanton et al. (2003) and Bell et al. (2003).

– Cluster and field are found sometime to have different LFs. Some examples are shown in Valotto et al. (1997) and Zabludoff & Mulchaey (2000). Almost none of the papers comparing cluster and field LFs uses homogeneous and large samples as the ones used in this paper (see de Propris et al. 2003 as an exception), and none in the red bands considered in the present paper. Furthermore, only recently (Norberg et al. 2002b) there has been a convergence on the field LF. Therefore, the results of previous cluster vs field LF comparisons largely rely on which field LF has been considered. Just as an example in red bands, Zabludoff & Mulchaey (2000) do find differences between the LF of poor groups and the field when they adopt for the field the Lin et al. (1996) LF. The latter LF differ systematically from the SDSS LF for the reasons described in Blanton et al. (2001). The Zabludoff & Mulchaey (2000) result does not tell us about environmental differences, but about the slow convergence of the field LF to the present day determination.

The similarity of the global red LFs in different environments is not in contradiction with the suggested universality of the LFs of morphological types in the blue band (Sandage, Binggeli, & Tammann 1985; Jerjen & Tammann 1997; Andreon 1998). First, the LF of the types are measured in filters different from the ones studied in this paper. Second, the simplest interpretation of the suggested universality of the LFs of the morphological types is that galaxies change neither type nor luminosity. However, the same data can be interpreted as galaxies change type and luminosity, preserving at the same time the blue LFs of morphological types and the global mass function. Such an interpretations allows both the blue LF of the morphological types and the global red LF to be universal. It naturally allows the blue LF of cluster and field to be different, as observed by de Propris et al. (2003). Independently of the correct interpretation of the observations, the measure of the global mass function, here approximated by the red LF, is important in order to know whether galaxies change their mass during the infall in the cluster. Our present measure suggests that mass is preserved, at least in a statistical sense.

We caution the reader not to compare the SDSS and PALal01 $`g`$ band LFs, since the latter LF, although being internally consistent, is in a photometric system that can be linked to the standard SDSS $`g^{}`$ system in a quite complicate way. We are now re-deriving the blue cluster LF, for a twice larger sample, in its “natural” system (i.e. in the $`B_J`$) (Paolillo et al. 2004).

A technical detail should now be mentioned. All three LFs shown in Figure 1 are derived assuming that luminosity evolution in the studied redshift range is negligible. Since all three LFs considered almost the same redshift range, the comparison makes sense even in the presence of luminosity evolution in the studied redshift range. In that case, the derived LFs are computed at the median $`z`$, which is almost the same for the three LFs ($`0.15,0.12,0.10`$ for GMA99, PALal01 and Blanton et al. 2001, respectively). Although this point is quite technical, this is an important one: the measured LF depends on the model used in its derivations, as shown in Section 4. Our comparison uses LFs derived adopting the same model.

## 3 Cluster LF evolution: data and analysis

In order to measure the LF evolution we use the sample presented in Garilli et al. (1996) and whose LFs have been previously presented in GMA99. This sample is ideal for such evolutionary study for several reasons. First, because all clusters are sampled at $`M^{}+3`$ to $`M^{}+4`$ independently on redshift (see GMA99 figure 5). The sample depth allows to measure the evolution of both $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ at all studied redshifts, for the first time. Second, the fact that both $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ can be measured at all studied redshifts should clarify the usual degeneracy between the two parameters and makes the results less sensitive to mis–interpretations. Third, GMA99 compute aperture magnitudes fixed in the galaxy frame (they use a 20 kpc aperture), magnitude that we adopted here. Such a metric aperture does not suffer the problem of isophotal magnitudes, or even pseudo–total one according to Dalcanton (1998), that bias the LF with $`z`$ in such a way to mimic evolution. The choice of a metric aperture is therefore essential. However, LFs derived with such an aperture are tilted with respect to the one computed using pseudo–total magnitudes, and the former cannot be compared to the latter. For this reason in Figure 1 we plot the GMA99 LF derived using pseudo–total magnitudes and not the one computed using aperture magnitudes. Fourth, three colors (Gunn $`g`$, $`r`$ and $`i`$) photometry is available, allowing to study the wavelength dependence of the possible evolution.

The only difference with GMA99 sample is that we discarded one cluster (MS0013+1558), because the studied part of it includes just one single galaxy. We remind that absolute magnitudes are k–corrected assuming an elliptical spectrum, with k–corrections taken from Frei & Gunn (1994).

We compute the LF using standard maximum–likelihood methods (STY, EEP) used for the field LF determination.

Given a sample of N galaxies in M clusters at redshift $`z_1,z_2,\mathrm{},z_M`$, we compute the likelihood $`L`$ by the formula:

$$\mathrm{ln}L=\underset{clusters}{}\underset{galaxies}{}p_i$$

where $`p_i`$ is the individual conditional probability

$$p_i=p(M_i|z_i)=\frac{\varphi (M_i)}{\varphi (M)𝑑M}$$

where the integral is evaluated over the range $`[\mathrm{},mag_{lim}]`$, where $`mag_{lim}`$ is the limiting magnitude, and where $`\varphi `$ is the Schechter (1976) function modified for allowing $`\alpha `$ and $`M^{}`$ to vary with $`z`$:

$$\varphi (M)=\varphi ^{}10^{0.4(\alpha _z+1)(M_z^{}M)}e^{10^{0.4(M_z^{}M)}}$$

$$\alpha _z=\alpha _0Pz$$

$$M_z^{}=M_0^{}Qz$$

We hence take $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ to vary linearly with $`z`$ with a rate given by $`Q`$, and $`P`$, respectively. Positive values for $`P`$ and $`Q`$ mean that in the past galaxies were brighter and the LF was steeper. Our $`Q`$ has the same meaning of $`Q`$ in Lin et al. (1999) and Blanton et al. (2003). Instead, their $`P`$ parameter has a different meaning from our $`P`$: we model the $`\alpha `$ evolution, whereas they model the $`\varphi ^{}`$ evolution.

Best fit parameters are derived by maximizing the likelihood. Error ellipses in the ($`M^{},\alpha `$) or ($`P,Q`$) planes are computed by finding the contour corresponding to

$$lnL=lnL\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2$$

where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\chi ^2`$ is the change in $`\chi ^2`$ appropriate for the desired confidence level and a $`\chi ^2`$ distribution (with two degree of freedom/interesting parameters for confidence contours, and one degree of freedom for single parameters).

The computation of the LF parameters by using the maximum likelihood method has a great advantage: the $`\varphi _i^{}`$ parameters (one per cluster) cancel out in computing $`p_i`$ (see the $`p_i`$ equation), and the dimension of the overall space to be explored decreases from 68 to 4.

## 4 Genuine evolution or built-in the LF model?

In literature, LFs have been computed under one of these three hypothesis:

– no evolution at all ($`P=Q=0`$). Only a few selected studies do not make such an assumption.

– no evolution on the LF slope ($`P=0`$) and an assumed evolution on $`M^{}`$. This hypothesis is used by the 2dFGRS LF (Norberg et al. 2002b).

– no evolution on the LF slope ($`P=0`$). $`M^{}`$ evolution ($`Q`$) is solved during the LF determination (CNOC LF, Lin et al. 1999; SDSS LF, Blanton et al. 2003)

We determine the cluster LF under all these hypothesis (and even more). Table 1 presents the derived best fit values and their errors. We will show that results, for the very same data sample, depend on the model used to derive the LF, i.e. on assumptions about $`P`$ and $`Q`$. In particular, best fit parameters and their error, luminosity evolution, and its statistical significance, all depend on the adopted model, suggesting caution in interpreting similar published results.

### 4.1 The usual case, i.e. assuming $`P=Q=0`$

By fixing $`P=Q=0`$, i.e. assuming no evolution at all, we found the same best fit ($`M^{},\alpha `$) parameters found in GMA99, comfortably showing that the present algorithm converges to the same value previously found with an algorithm using the $`\chi ^2`$. Presently and previously computed confidence contours also almost perfectly overlap each other. $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ are correlated, and the correlation is shown in Figure 6 of GMA99.

We check for a possible incompleteness in the data sample, by computing the LF adopting half a magnitude brighter limiting magnitude in $`r`$: the newly determined best fit parameters are within the 68 % confidence level of the previous ones (i.e. the difference is less than 1/$`\sqrt{2}`$ combined $`\sigma `$), in agreement with independent checks done in GMA99.

The parameters just settled (i.e. $`P=Q=0`$) is the original Blanton et al. (2001) choice for the first SDSS LF derivation, and also the standard setting adopted in most LF derivations, such as the Stromlo–APM LF (Loveday et al. 1992), SSRS2 LF(da Costa et al. 1994), the CfA1 and CfA2 LF (Marzke et al. 1994), the Century Survey LF (Geller et al. 1997) the Corona Borealis LF (Small et al. 1997) the ESP LF (Zucca et al. 1997) and the K20 LF (Pozzetti et al. 2003).

### 4.2 $`P=0`$ and $`\alpha `$ fixed at the best global fit

Let now $`Q`$ to be free (i.e. we allow $`M^{}`$ to evolve), and $`\alpha `$ to be fixed (i.e. $`P=0`$) at its best global fit. This setting is the same adopted in the Lin et al. (1999) LF determination. Blanton et al. (2003) in their second SDSS LF derivation do not use a Schechter function, but the sum of Gaussians, with fixed (i.e. not evolving) relative amplitude. Therefore, also in Blanton et al. (2003) the LF shape (slope) is not allowed to be redshift dependent.

Figure 2 shows confidence contours for $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ for our sample. As expected, the present computed $`M^{}`$ differs from the one computed in the previous section, by $`Q\times z_{median}`$, as it occurs between the first and second SDSS LF derivations (Blanton et al. 2003), the latter being different from the former “almost entirely because of the inclusion of evolution in the luminosity function model” (Blanton et al. 2003).

$`Q`$ turn out to be positive, i.e. galaxies are brighter in the past, in the three filters. $`Q=0`$ is ruled out at $``$90 to 99.73 % confidence level in the $`g`$ filter only, and therefore the statistical significance of the evidence is $``$2 to 3 $`\sigma `$ at most.

For an old passive evolving stellar population, $`Q=1.11.2`$ at the redshifts sampled in this work. Such values can easily derived from the convolution of the GISSEL96 (Bruzual & Charlot 1993) spectral energy distributions at the look back times sampled in the present work (i.e. $`z<0.25`$) with the Gunn filters. Best fit $`Q`$ values (2.1 and 3.1, see Table 1) derived by imposing a not evolving $`\alpha `$ are twice/three times larger than expected by assuming a passive luminosity evolution, $`Q=1.11.2`$, but compatible with them at the 68.3 (or better) % confidence level (see Figure 2).

If we stop our analysis here we would claim to have found evidence of luminosity evolution at $``$2 to 3 $`\sigma `$, in good agreement with Blanton et al. (2003), because our and their $`Q`$ values agree to better than $`1\sigma `$. Instead, we proceed further.

### 4.3 $`Q`$ forced to be as model predictions

We now assume that $`Q`$ is forced to be equal to the model prediction, i.e. $`Q=1.11.2`$ depending on filter, and $`\alpha `$ free to evolve. Figure 3 shows confidence contours for $`P`$ and $`\alpha `$. The best fit $`P`$ (i.e. the $`\alpha `$ derivative) is $`1`$ to $`1.5`$, although $`P0`$ can be rejected at only the $`95`$ % confidence level (Figure 3). Therefore, $`\alpha `$ variations are suggested by the data but not required (evidence is $`2\sigma `$), if passive evolution is assumed.

With the further constraint of a fixed $`\alpha `$, this type of fit would make resemblance to the 2dFRS LF model (Norberg et al. 2002b), that assumes an evolution well reproduced by simple synthesis population models, and a unique (redshift independent) slope. Of course, being $`M^{}`$ evolution imposed ab initio, it cannot independently derived by the LF analysis. At most, one may claim that the found luminosity evolution is compatible with the assumed one.

### 4.4 All parameters free

Let now $`P`$ and $`Q`$ to be free, in order to look for evolution in both the parameters. We do not force a priori that some of the parameters do not evolve with redshift, but we left them to evolve as the data allow. At difference of previous sections (and previous works, including SDSS and 2dFRS ones), in absence of a better knowledge we do not make a debatable assumption, and we allow all our parameters to be redshift dependent, as much as allowed by the data. We are here explicitly allowing bright and faint galaxies to evolve differently, as it is likely, because brighter galaxies tend to be redder and are therefore presumed to be older and slowly evolving.

Figure 3 shows $`P,Q`$ confidence contours for the three filters. The $`P=Q=0`$ point, i.e. the no–evolution case, is well outside the 99.73 % confidence contours in $`g`$ and $`r`$, whereas falls on the top of the 99.73 % confidence contours in the $`i`$ band. Therefore, unevolving $`\alpha `$ and $`M^{}`$ are rejected at 3, or more, $`\sigma `$ in all three filters. Therefore, evolution is required by the data, although it is not by adopting the other LF considered models.

The point $`Q1.15`$ and $`P=0`$, i.e. the pure passive evolution expectation, is included in the 95.4 percent confidence contour in $`g`$ and $`i`$ and in the 99.73 percent confidence contour in $`r`$. Therefore, the passive evolution case is a statistically acceptable description of the data at 2 to 3 $`\sigma `$. Pure passive evolution, however, is not the unique solution allowed by the data. There are other acceptable solutions at $`Q1.15`$ (i.e. $`M^{}`$ is passively evolving): a detailed inspection of Figure 3 shown that all the range $`3P0`$ is as good as (or better than) $`P=0`$. We remind that negative values for $`P`$ imply that the LF becomes flatter at higher redshift.

By leaving all parameter free, $`M^{}`$ evolution is smaller, or even with opposite sign, than by keeping $`\alpha `$ fixed (see Table 1). Therefore, one more degree of freedom of evolution drastically influences the derived $`M^{}`$ evolution. Such a degree of freedom is allowed by none of previous LF determinations, including 2dFRS and SDSS. Therefore, we warn the reader that other similar studies in literature, all of which assume a fixed and not evolving $`\alpha `$, may mis–interpret the found $`M^{}`$ evolution.

By leaving all parameter free, errors on $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ are larger (by a factor $`3`$) than when $`P=Q=0`$, i.e. under the usual hypothesis done in the LF computation, and are twice larger than when $`\alpha `$ is kept fixed.

In order to check that the flattening is not due to an increasing incompleteness at faint magnitudes with increasing redshift, we re–computed the best fit parameters considering only the galaxies at least half a magnitude brighter than the claimed completeness magnitude. We found almost identical best fit values (see Table 1 where we list results for the $`r`$ filter). A couple of clusters, mainly nearby, have deeper observation than the other clusters. In order to make the limiting magnitude even more uniform with redshift, we recomputed the best fit parameters by adopting the brighter between the claimed magnitude limits and $`M_r=17.5`$ mag. We found identical best fit values and errors (see Table 1), as expected because only an handful of galaxies, out more than 2000, are removed by this cut. Therefore, best fit values and confidence contours are robust to incompleteness.

### 4.5 $`P=Q=0`$ vs the correct solution when the LF evolves

Using the very same data, GMA99 split the sample in two redshift bins and derived the composed LF assuming no evolution inside each redshift bin ($`\delta z0.1`$). This is the standard way in which the evolution of the luminosity function is computed (e.g. Lilly et al. 1995; Ellis et al. 1996; Heyl et al. 1997; Cohen et al. 2002). The comparison of the LFs in the two redshift bins, performed using a $`\chi ^2`$ approach, showed no statistically significant differences. In the present paper, by adopting a model in which $`\alpha `$ do not evolve, we found an evidence of evolution on $`M^{}`$ at 2 to 3 $`\sigma `$. A model that allow both $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ to evolve excludes the no–evolution case at better than 3 $`\sigma `$.

The analysis presented here supersedes the comparison presented in GMA99 in two aspects: first, it uses the likelihood approach that is more powerful than the $`\chi ^2`$. Second, it removes the logical inconsistency of checking for evolution LFs derived assuming no evolution. The very same logical inconsistency is shared by most LFs works aimed to measure an LF evolution (and finding an evolution), such as CFRS (Lilly et al. 1995), Autofib (Ellis et al. 1996, Heyl et al. 1997), Caltech Faint Galaxy Redshift Survey (Cohen et al. 2002), and K20 (Pozzetti et al. 2003) LFs.

The assumption of an unevolving LF in each redshift bin has an important impact on the luminosity density, even for the modest (passive) evolution seen in the nearby universe: the luminosity density derived in the $`P=0`$ hypothesis is 0.5 mag different from the one derived if $`M^{}`$ evolution is allowed (Blanton et al. 2003). The impact of this statement on the luminosity density evolution (the Madau plot) is obvious, in particular at high redshift, especially when one realizes that evolution is faster at redshift higher than probed by SDSS, and that the redshift range covered by SDSS is smaller ($`\delta z0.2`$) than the typical redshift bin in usual luminosity density determinations at high redshift.

## 5 Conclusions and discussion

There are been several comparisons of the cluster and field LFs in literature. However, almost none of them uses homogeneous and large samples as the ones used in this paper, and none in the red bands considered in the present paper. Furthermore, only recently (Norberg et al. 2002b) there has been convergence on the field LF. Therefore, the results of previous cluster vs field LF comparisons largely rely on which field LF has been considered. Here we use the state-of-the-art LF, on which convergence seems to be reached.

In our cluster vs field comparison, the same LF model is used in both environments: both are derived adopting $`P=Q=0`$, and the two samples have very similar median redshifts, making the comparison a fair one. Cluster and field LFs, determined by analysing large homogeneous samples (SDSS, GMA99, PALal01), are almost indistinguishable down to $`M^{}+4`$, hence suggesting that the effect of the cluster environment on the galaxy properties does not affect the galaxy luminosity function in red filters. The similarity of the LF shape in different environments suggests that the galaxy mass function is preserved during the galaxy infall in the cluster.

In order to measure the LF evolution we use the sample presented in Garilli et al. (1996), that is ideal from many points of view (multicolor data, large size, many clusters, metric magnitudes). We use the same formalism (STY) used to compute many field LF, and we made different assumptions on the model used to derive the LF, among which those adopted in recent LF determinations.

The found evolution depends on the LF model, i.e. whether the slope $`\alpha `$, or the characteristic magnitude $`M^{}`$, or both, are allowed to evolve. Best fit parameters differ when different models are adopted, in spite of the use of a fixed and large sample. Models in which both $`M^{}`$ and $`\alpha `$ may evolve have not been considered in previous studies and, therefore, the evidence of a brightening of $`M^{}`$ with look back time is intended by us as suggested by previous works, but is still far to be definitively determined, even in the largest (and more recent) surveys. Furthermore, errors depends on the model: errors are larger when more degrees of freedom are allowed (or to be precise, when other parameters are not surreptitiously kept fixed because of a lack of a better knowledge), hence suggesting that the usual errors (derived adopting $`P=Q=0`$) are underestimated. The underestimation is given by a factor $`1+n`$, where $`n=1,2`$ are the number of parameters kept fixed (see Table 1). This is one more reason to suggest caution.

In our more general model, we found a statistically significant evidence of evolution, but the data do not clarify what ($`M^{}`$, $`\alpha `$ or both) is actually changing. Other works find a more constrained evolution, largely because some evolutionary modes are not considered in these works.

One may argues that our results are due to the use of a poor sample, or they concern only our sample, or they are derived using a peculiar method. First, our cluster sample is large, and goes to $`M^{}+4`$ at $`z0.25`$, whereas many of the field surveys mentioned in this paper does not go that deep. Second, for the LF determination we adopted the most common method used for field surveys. Third, some or our results are confirmed on an independent sample (and method): a better model (the addition of a monolithic evolution to an not evolving LF) changed the $`M^{}`$ value by many $`\sigma `$ and the luminosity density by half a magnitude (Blanton et al. 2003). In our paper we show that an even better model, allowing a differential luminosity evolution between bright and faint galaxies, changes the results once more. Fourth, some results (e.g. larger errors when adding LF degrees of freedom) are expected to hold independently on the sample used.

Our discussion on the impact of the model choice on the found results has, thus far, concerned almost exclusively LFs determined as described in Sect. 3, i.e. by a maximum likelihood fit of the Schechter function to the data (STY). Non parametric methods, such as step wise maximum likelihood (SWML), use a step function in place of a Schechter one. Since the problem we point out is a logical one, and not a prerogative of the Schechter function, non parametric methods suffer in principle from similar problems if the function is not explicitly allowed to evolve with redshift.

The $`1/V_{max}`$ method (Schmidt 1968) is not immune to criticisms, too. Some field LFs, such as CFRS (Lilly et al. 1995), Autofib (Ellis et al. 1996), K20 (Pozzetti et al. 2003), all were derived using the $`1/V_{max}`$ method (Schmidt 1968), i.e. weighing each galaxy by the reciprocal of the maximal volume over which is observable. This method assume a luminosity evolution in the $`V_{max}`$ computation. Therefore, when deriving the luminosity evolution from an LF computed with the $`1/V_{max}`$ method, one should claim, at most, that the found evolution is compatible with the assumed one, without any guarantee that the solution is unique, neither that the solution is the best one.

In the course of the analysis, we noted that there are logical inconsistencies in many field FL computations: in several papers dealing with the redshift evolution of the LF, the LF is assumed not to evolve (inside each redshift bin in which it is computed) during the LF computations, even when a luminosity evolution is found222As already mentioned, the model choice may badly affect best fit values, errors and the luminosity density. Similarly, in several papers studying the environmental dependence of the field LF, the LF is assumed to be environmental independent during its computation.

We suggest that future studies solve at the same time for the LF parameters and their dependences (with look back time or environment). Although we afforded the workload of re–computing our own cluster LF by removing logical inconsistencies, by allowing galaxies of different luminosity to evolve independently each other, and by including an estimate of the impact of the model assumptions on the final result, we left to other authors (disposing of all the needed data) to do a similar work for the numerous field LFs published thus far.

When a Schechter function is adopted to describe the LF, $`\alpha `$ and $`M^{}`$ (and their errors) are correlated, making the interpretation of various findings less straightforward than for uncorrelated parameters. Therefore, we suggest to break this correlation by adopting a different $`M^{}`$ definition not influenced by the LF slope at faint magnitudes. We propose to use a Petrosian–like definition of $`M^{}`$, where the characteristic magnitude $`M^\eta `$ is the magnitude at which the ratio between the number of galaxies in the magnitude bin centered on $`m`$, $`N(m)`$ and in all brighter magnitude bins, $`N(<m)`$, is equal to $`\eta `$

$$\eta =\frac{N(m)}{N(<m)}$$

For an opportune choice of $`\eta `$, $`M^{}M^\eta `$ for a Schechter (1976) function. Such a definition uses only the exponential cut–off of the LF, where $`\alpha `$ plays a minor role (if $`\eta `$ is chosen to reproduce $`M^{}`$).

We apply such an approach to our own data, for different choices of $`\eta `$ and of the bin width over which $`N(m)`$ is computed. Unfortunately, the application of this approach do not clarify what is actually evolving in our sample, mainly because it uses only the bright part of the LF, which is also the less populated in a cluster sample. The proposed approach should be more efficient for a field sample, because most of the field sample has magnitude brighter than (or similar to) $`M^{}`$, whereas for a cluster (volume limited) sample, most of the galaxies are fainter than $`M^{}`$. We propose that this approach is tested on future LF determinations.

To summarize, we showed that the derived LF parameters depend on the assumed model, in a way seldom recognized thus far. With our most general model, that allows differential luminosity evolution between bright and faint galaxies, we found a statistically significant evidence of evolution, but the data do not unambiguously determine what ($`M^{}`$, $`\alpha `$ or both) is actually changing. Adopting the a unique model for large homogeneous samples, we found that cluster and field red LFs are quite similar suggesting a limited effect of the cluster environment on the galaxy mass function.

###### Acknowledgements.

The referee comments prompted us to better focus our work. We thank him.

## Appendix A $`Q=0`$, i.e. un–evolving $`M^{}`$

For completeness, we also compute the best fit parameters in case of a un–evolving $`M^{}`$ (i.e. $`Q=0`$). Literature papers do not explore the possibility of an evolving $`\alpha `$, for lack of data.

Inspection of the $`\alpha P`$ confidence contours (figure not shown) in the three filters shows that $`P=0`$ can be rejected at the 95.4 % confidence level at most. Therefore, for this model assumptions, we have no compelling evidences for an $`\alpha `$ variation.


format: text

text:
# Distributed WWW Programming using (Ciao-)Prolog and the PiLLoW library1footnote 11footnote 1This paper is an expanded and improved version of [Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1996a, Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1996b, Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1997, Cabeza et al., 1996].

## 1 Introduction

The wide diffusion of the Internet and the popularity of the “World Wide Web” \[Berners-Lee et al., 1994\] –WWW– protocols are effectively providing a novel platform that facilitates the development of new classes of portable and user-friendly distributed applications. Good support for network connectivity and the protocols and communication architectures of this novel platform are obviously requirements for any programming tool to be useful in this arena. However, this alone may not be enough. It seems natural that significant parts of network applications will require symbolic and numeric capabilities which are not necessarily related with distribution. Important such capabilities are, for example, high-level symbolic information processing, dealing with combinatorial problems, and natural language processing in general. Logic Programming (LP) \[Kowalski, 1974, Colmerauer, 1975\] and Constraint Logic Programming (CLP) systems \[Jaffar & Lassez, 1987, Van Hentenryck, 1989, Colmerauer, 1990, M. Dincbas & Van Hentenryck, 1990, ECRC, 1993\] have been shown particularly successful at tackling these issues (see, for example, the proceedings of recent conferences on the “Practical Applications of Prolog” and “Practical Applications of Constraint Technology”). It seems natural to study how LP/CLP technology fares in developing applications which have to operate over the Internet.

In fact, Prolog, its concurrent and constraint based extensions, and logic programming languages in general have many characteristics which appear to set them particularly well placed for making an impact on the development of practical networked applications, ranging from the simple to the quite sophisticated. Notably, LP/CLP systems share many characteristics with other recently proposed network programming tools, such as Java, including dynamic memory management, well-behaved structure and pointer manipulation, robustness, and compilation to architecture-independent bytecode. Furthermore, and unlike the scripting or application languages currently being proposed (e.g., shell scripts, Perl, Java, etc.), LP/CLP systems offer a quite unique set of additional features including dynamic databases, search facilities, grammars, sophisticated meta-programming, and well understood semantics.

In addition, most LP/CLP systems also already offer some kind of low level support for remote communication using Internet protocols. This generally involves providing a sockets (ports) interface whereby it is possible to make remote data connections via the Internet’s native protocol, TCP/IP. A few systems support higher-level communication layers on top of this interface including linda-style blackboards (e.g., SICStus Prolog \[Carlsson, 1988\], Ciao \[Carro & Hermenegildo, 1999, Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1995, Hermenegildo & CLIP Group, 1994, Hermenegildo et al., 1995a, Hermenegildo et al., 1999a, Hermenegildo et al., 1999b, Bueno et al., 1997\], BinProlog/$`\mu ^2`$-Prolog \[Tarau, 1996, De Bosschere, 1989\], etc.) or shared variable-based communication (e.g., KL1 \[Chikayama et al., 1994\], AKL \[Janson & Haridi, 1991\], Oz \[Smolka, 1994\], Ciao \[Hermenegildo et al., 1995b, Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1995\], etc.). In some cases, this functionality is provided via libraries, building on top of the basic TCP/IP primitives. This is the case, for example, of the SICStus and Ciao distributed linda-style interfaces. In fact, as we have shown in previous work, shared-variable based communication can also be implemented in conventional systems via library predicates, by using attributed variables \[Hermenegildo et al., 1995b, Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1995\]. In addition to these communication primitives, several systems offer concurrency and even higher-level abstractions (distributed objects, mobile code, …) which are very useful for developing general-purpose distributed applications.

Our concrete interest here is WWW applications. These applications generally use specific high-level protocols (such as HTTP or FTP), data formats (such as HTML or XML), and application architectures (e.g., the CGI interface) which are different from, e.g., the shared-variable or linda-based protocols typically used in other types of distributed applications. In this paper we study how good support for these WWW-related protocols, data formats, and architectures can be provided for LP/CLP systems, building on the widely available interfaces to the basic TCP/IP protocols. Our aim is to discuss from a practical point of view a number of the new issues involved in writing WWW applications using LP/CLP systems, as well as the architecture of some typical solutions. In the process, we will describe PiLLoW (“Programming in Logic Languages on the Web”), a public domain Internet/WWW programming library for LP/CLP systems which, we argue, significantly simplifies the process of writing such applications. PiLLoW provides facilities for generating HTML/XML structured documents by handling them as Herbrand terms, producing HTML forms, writing form handlers, processing HTML/XML templates, accessing and parsing WWW documents, etc. We also describe the architecture of some relatively sophisticated application classes, using a high-level model of client-server interaction, active modules \[Cabeza & Hermenegildo, 1995\]. Finally we describe an architecture for automatic LP/CLP code downloading for local execution, using just the library and generic browsers.

Apart from the tutorial value of the paper, we present a number of technical contributions which include the idea of representing HTML and XML code (and structured text in general) as Prolog terms, the use of the logical variable in such terms leading to a model of an “HTML template” (a pair comprising a term with free variables and a dictionary associating names to those variables), the notion of “active logic modules” and its application to solving efficiency issues in CGI interaction in a very simple way, the idea of “Prolog scripts” and its application to CGIs, and the identification of a number of features that should be added to existing systems in order to facilitate the programming of WWW applications –mainly concurrency.

The argument throughout the paper is that, with only very small limitations in functionality (which disappear when concurrency is added, as in systems such as BinProlog/$`\mu ^2`$-Prolog, AKL, Oz, KL1, and Ciao Prolog), it is possible to add an extremely useful Internet/WWW programming layer to any LP/CLP system without making any significant changes in the implementation. We argue that this layer can simplify the generation of applications in LP/CLP systems including active WWW pages, search tools, content analyzers, indexers, software demonstrators, collaborative work systems, MUDs and MOOs, code distributors, etc.

The purpose of the paper is also to serve as a tutorial, containing sufficient information for developing relatively complex WWW applications in Prolog and other LP and CLP languages using the PiLLoW library. The PiLLoW library has been developed in the context of the Ciao Prolog system, but it has been adapted to a number of other popular LP/CLP systems, supporting most of its functionality. The Ciao Prolog system and the PiLLoW library can be freely downloaded from http://www.clip.dia.fi.upm.es and http://www.cliplab.org.

## 2 Writing basic cgi-bin applications

The simplest way of writing WWW applications is through the use of the “Common Gateway Interface” (CGI). A CGI executable is a standard executable file but such that the HTTP server (the program that responds to HTTP requests in a machine which serves a WWW site) can tell that it in fact contains a program that is to be run, rather than a document text that is to be sent to the client (the browser) as usual. The file can be distinguished by belonging to a special directory, commonly named cgi-bin, or by a special filename ending, such as .cgi. This is normally set during configuration of the HTTP server. The basic idea behind the CGI interface is illustrated in Figure 1. When the user selects an address of a CGI executable in a document, such as http://www.xxx.yyy/cgi-bin/hello\_world (or perhaps http://www.xxx.yyy/foo/hello\_world.cgi) the browser issues a standard document request (1). The HTTP server, recognizing that it is a CGI executable rather than a document, starts the executable (2), and during such execution stores the output of the executable in a buffer (3). Upon termination of the executable, the contents of the buffer (which should be in a format that the browser can handle, such as HTML) are returned to the browser as if a normal page with that content had been accessed (4).

The following is an example of how a very simple such executable can be written in an LP/CLP language. The source might be as follows:222Note that in the examples presented, and in order to shorten them, the HTML code may be slightly simplified, and as a result of this it may not be completely standard-conforming. However, the examples can be used as is with all popular browsers.

```
main :-
    write(’Content-type: text/html’), nl, nl,
    write(’<HTML>’),
    write(’Hello world.’),
    write(’</HTML>’).

```

And the actual executable could be generated as usual, for example in the Ciao system, using the standalone compiler, by writing at a UNIX shell “ciaoc -o hello\_world.cgi hello\_world”.333It often convenient to use options (such as ciaoc’s -s or -S) which will generate a standalone executable which is independent of any libraries. The executable then has to be placed in an appropriate place (accessible via an HTTP address by a browser) and have the right permissions for being executed by the server (for example, in some systems this means being executable by the user “nobody”).

In systems which make executables through saved states (which usually have the disadvantage of their generally large size), at the system prompt one could create the executable by writing something like:

```
?:- compile(’hello_world.pl’),
     save(’hello_world.cgi’), main.

```

## 3 LP/CLP Scripts for CGI Applications

CGI executables are often small- to medium-sized programs that perform relatively simple tasks. This, added to the slow speed of the network connection in comparison with that of executing a program (which makes program execution speed less important) has made scripting languages (such as shell scripts or Perl) very popular for writing these programs. The popularity is due to the fact that no compilation is necessary (extensive string handling capabilities also play an important role in the case of Perl), and thus changes and updates to the program imply only editing the source file.

Logic languages are, a priori, excellent candidates to be used as scripting languages.444For example, the built-in grammars and databases greatly simplify many typical script-based applications. However, the relative complication in making executables (needing in some systems to start the top-level, compile or consult the file, and make a saved state) and the often large size of the resulting executables may deter CGI application programmers. It appears convenient to provide a means for LP/CLP programs to be executable as scripts, even if with reduced performance.

It is generally relatively easy to support scripts with the same functionality in most LP/CLP systems. In Ciao, the program ciao-shell –which has also been adapted to SICStus \[Hermenegildo, 1996\]– accomplishes this task, by first loading the file given to it as the first argument (but skipping the first lines and avoiding loading messages) and then starting execution at main/1 (the argument provides the list of command line options). Then, for example, in a Unix system, the following program can be run directly as a script without any need for compilation:

```
#!/usr/local/bin/ciao-shell

main(_) :-
    write(’Content-type: text/html’), nl, nl,
    write(’<HTML>’),
    write(’Hello world.’),
    write(’</HTML>’).

```

Note that in some UNIX versions either the program ciao-shell must be included in the /etc/shells listing or the first line should be replaced by these two:

```
#!/bin/sh
exec ciao-shell $0 "$@"

```

The execution of Prolog scripts may be optimized in some systems. For example, in Ciao, the first time a script is run it is also compiled and its bytecode is saved to a file. At subsequent times, if the script has not changed, the object code is retrieved from that file, avoiding compilation or interpretation overhead.

## 4 Form Handling in HTTP

So far we have shown CGI executables which produce output, but this output is not a function of input coming from the request, which is obviously of limited interest. CGI executables become most useful when combined with HTML forms. HTML forms are HTML documents (or parts of HTML documents) which include special fields such as text areas, menus, radio buttons, etc. which allow providing input to CGI executables. The steps involved in the handling of the input contained in a form are illustrated in Figure 2. When a document containing a form is accessed via a form-capable browser (Mosaic, Netscape, Lynx, etc.), the browser displays the input fields, buttons, menus, etc. indicated in the document, and locally allows the user to perform input by modifying such fields. However, this input is not ultimately handled by the browser. Instead, it will be sent to a “handler” CGI program, which can be anywhere on the net, and whose address must be given in the form itself (1). Forms generally have a “submit” button such that, when pressed, the input provided through the menus, text areas, etc. is sent by the browser to the HTTP server corresponding to the handler (2). Two methods for sending this input exist: “GET” and “POST”. In the meantime, the sending browser waits for a response from that program, which should come in the form of a new HTML document. The handler program is invoked in much the same way as a cgi-bin application (3), except that the information from the form is supplied to the handler (in different ways depending on the system, the method of invocation, and the content type) (4). This information is encoded in a predefined format, which relates each piece of information to the corresponding field in the form, by means of a keyword associated with each field. The handler then identifies the information corresponding to each field in the original form, processes it, and then responds by writing an HTML document to its standard output (5), which is forwarded by the server to the waiting browser when the handler terminates (6). An important point to be noted is that, as with simple cgi-bin applications, the handler is started and should terminate for each transaction. The reader is referred, for example, to \[Grobe & Naseer, 1998\] for a more complete introduction to CGI scripts and HTML forms.

## 5 Writing Form Handlers with PiLLoW

The only complication in writing form handlers compared to writing simple CGI applications is the need to capture and parse the form data. As we said before, this data can be provided in several ways, depending on the system and the method used to invoke the form, and is encoded with escape sequences. It is relatively easy to write a Prolog program to parse such input (using, for example, definite clause grammars –DCGs). The PiLLoW library provides some predicates which do this and simplify the whole task, hiding the low-level protocol behind. The principal predicates provided include:

get\_form\_input(Dic) Translates input from the form (with either the POST or GET methods, and even with CONTENT\_TYPE multipart/form-data) to a dictionary Dic of attribute=value pairs. It translates empty values (which indicate only the presence of an attribute) to the atom ’$empty’, values with more than one line (from text areas or files) to a list of lines as strings, the rest to atoms or numbers (using name/2). This is implemented using DCG parsers.

get\_form\_value(Dic,Var,Val) Gets value Val for attribute Var in dictionary Dic. Does not fail: value is ’’ if not found (this simplifies merging form producers and form handlers, see later).

form\_empty\_value(V) Useful to check that a value V from a text area is empty (filters spaces, newlines, linefeeds, etc.).

form\_default(Val,Default,NewVal) Useful when a form is only partially filled (and also in the first invocation of a combined form handler/producer – see Section 7). If the value of Val is empty then NewVal=Default, else NewVal=Val.

my\_url(URL) Returns in URL the Uniform Resource Locator (WWW address) of this cgi executable.

form\_request\_method(Method) Returns in Method the method of invocation of the form handler (“GET” or “POST”).

For example, suppose we want to make a handler which implements a database of telephone numbers and is queried by a form including a single entry field with name person\_name. The handler might be coded as follows:

```
#!/usr/local/bin/ciao-shell

:- include(library(pillow)).

main(_) :-
    get_form_input(Input),
    get_form_value(Input,person_name,Name),
    write(’Content-type: text/html’), nl, nl,
    write(’<HTML><TITLE>Telephone database</TITLE>’), nl,
    write(’<IMG SRC="phone.gif">’),
    write(’<H2>Telephone database</H2><HR>’),
    write_info(Name),
    write(’</HTML>’).

write_info(Name) :-
    form_empty_value(Name) ->
       write(’You have to provide a name.’)
  ; phone(Name, Phone) ->
       write(’Telephone number of <B>’),
       write(Name),
       write(’</B>: ’),
       write(Phone)
  ; write(’No telephone number available for <B>’),
    write(Name),
    write(’</B>.’).

phone(daniel, ’336-7448’).
phone(manuel, ’336-7435’).
phone(sacha,  ’543-5316’).

```

The code above is quite simple. On the other hand, the interspersion throughout the text of calls to write with HTML markup inside makes the code somewhat inelegant. Also, there is no separation between computation and input/output, as is normally desirable. It would be much preferable to have an encoding of HTML code as Prolog terms, which could then be manipulated easily in a more elegant way, and a predicate to translate such terms to HTML for output. This functionality, provided by the PiLLoW library, is presented in the next section.

## 6 Handling HTML as Prolog Terms

Since LP/CLP systems perform symbolic processing using Herbrand terms, it seems natural to be able to handle HTML code directly as terms. Then, such structures only need to be translated by appropriate predicates to HTML code when they need to be output. In general, this relationship between HTML code and Prolog terms allows viewing any WWW page as a Herbrand term. The predicates which provide this functionality in PiLLoW are:

output\_html(F) Accepts in F an HTML term (or a list of HTML terms) and sends to the standard output the text which is the rendering of the term(s) in HTML format.

html2terms(Chars,Terms) (also, xml2terms/2) Relates a list of HTML (resp. XML) terms and a list of ASCII characters which are the rendering of the terms in HTML format. This predicate is reversible (but it normalizes in the reverse direction –see later). output\_html/2 uses this predicate to transform HTML terms in characters. Again, this is implemented via DCG parsing.

In an HTML term certain atoms and structures represent special functionality at the HTML level. An HTML term can be recursively a list of HTML terms. The following are legal HTML terms:

```
hello
[hello, world]
["This is an ", em(’HTML’), " term"]

```

When converting HTML terms to characters, html2terms/2 translates special structures into the corresponding format in HTML, applying itself recursively to their arguments. Strings are always left unchanged. HTML terms may contain logic variables, provided they are instantiated before the term is translated or output. This allows creating documents piecemeal, back-patching of references in documents, etc.

In the following sections we list the meaning of the principal Prolog structures that represent special functionality at the HTML level. Only special atoms are translated, the rest are assumed to be normal text and will be passed through to the HTML document.

### 6.1 General Structures

Basically, HTML has two kinds of components: HTML elements and HTML environments. An HTML element has the form \<NAME Attributes \> were NAME is the name of the element and Attributes is a (possibly empty) sequence of attributes, each of them being either an attribute name or an attribute assignment as name="Value".

An HTML environment has the form \<NAME Attributes \> Text `</NAME>`” were NAME is the name of the environment an Attributes has the same form as before.

The general Prolog structures that represent these two HTML constructions are:

Name $Atts (‘$/2’ is defined as an infix, binary operator.) Represents an HTML element of name Name and attributes Atts, were Atts is a (possibly empty) list of attributes, each of them being either an atom or a structure name=value. For example, the term

> `img$[src=’images/map.gif’,alt="A map",ismap]`

is translated into the HTML source

> `<img src="images/map.gif" alt="A map" ismap>`

Note that HTML is not case-sensitive, so we can use lower-case atoms.

name(Text) (A term with functor name/1 and argument Text) Represents an HTML environment of name name and included text Text. For example, the term

> `address(’clip@dia.fi.upm.es’)`

is translated into the HTML source

> `<address>clip@dia.fi.upm.es</address>`

name(Atts,Text) (This is a term with functor name/2 and arguments Atts and Text) Represents an HTML environment of name name, attributes Atts and included text Text. For example, the term

> `a([href=’http``://www.clip.dia.fi.upm.es/’],"Clip home")`

represents the HTML source

> `<a href="http://www.clip.dia.fi.upm.es/">Clip home</a>`

env(Name,Atts,Text) Equivalent to Name(Atts,Text).

begin(Name,Atts) It translates to the start of an HTML environment of name Name and attributes Atts. There exists also a begin(Name) structure. Useful, in conjunction with the next structure, when including in a document output generated by an existing piece of code (e.g. Name = pre). Its use is otherwise discouraged.

end(Name) Translates to the end of an HTML environment of name Name.

Now we can rewrite the previous example as follows (note how the use of the logic variable Response allows injecting the result of the call to response/1 into the output term, using unification):

```
#!/usr/local/bin/ciao-shell

:- include(library(pillow)).

main(_) :-
    get_form_input(Input),
    get_form_value(Input,person_name,Name),
    response(Name,Response),
    output_html([
        ’Content-type: text/html\n\n’,
        html([title(’Telephone database’),
              img$[src=’phone.gif’],
              h2(’Telephone database’),
              hr$[],
              Response])]). %% Using the logic variable.

response(Name, Response) :-
    form_empty_value(Name) ->
       Response = ’You have to provide a name.’
  ; phone(Name, Phone) ->
       Response = [’Telephone number of ’,b(Name),’: ’,Phone]
  ; Response = [’No telephone number available for ’,b(Name),’.’].

phone(daniel, ’336-7448’).
phone(manuel, ’336-7435’).
phone(sacha,  ’543-5316’).

```

Any HTML construction can be represented with these structures (except comments and declarations, which could be included as atoms or strings), but the PiLLoW library provides additional, specific structures to simplify HTML creation.

### 6.2 Specific Structures

In this section we will list some special structures for HTML which PiLLoW understands. While in many cases using the general structures (with the native HTML names) is probably good practice, using specific structures such as these can sometimes be convenient. Also, some of these structures have special functionality (e.g., prolog\_term/1). A predicate html\_expansion/2 is provided which allows defining new structures (tables, layers, etc). Specific structures include (the reader is referred to the PiLLoW manual for a full listing):

start Used at the beginning of a document (translates to `<html>`).

end Used at the end of a document (translates to `</html>`).

-- Produces a horizontal rule (translates to `<hr>`).

\\ Produces a line break (translates to `<br>`).

$ Produces a paragraph break (translates to `<p>`).

comment(Comment) Used to insert an HTML comment (translates to \


text:
# Studies of DVCS and photoproduction of photons at high 𝑡 with the H1 Detector

## 1 Introduction

The hard diffractive scattering of a photon off a proton: $`\gamma ^{()}p\gamma Y`$ (where $`Y`$ denotes the proton dissociative system or the elastically scattered proton) is an important process for the understanding of high energy diffraction. Its study allows to investigate the applicability and the relevance of perturbative Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) and provides unique information on the proton structure. It gives access to new class of parton distribution functions, the Generalised Parton Distributions (GPD) that can be interpreted as parton correlation functions in the proton. Compared to vector meson production, the photon scattering is theoretically simpler because the theoretical predictions avoid uncertainties due to unknown meson wave functions.

In the present report, the process is studied in two different kinematic regimes.
i) the photoproduction of photons at high $`t`$ (also called high $`t`$ Virtual Compton Scattering)
ii) the Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering (DVCS).
In the first case, the hard scale needed for perturbative QCD predictions is provided by the large $`t`$ value, where $`t`$ is the squared 4-momentum transfer at the proton vertex, in the second, by the large $`Q^2`$ value. In the first case due to large $`t`$ values, the cross section is largely dominated by the proton dissociation, while in the second, the measurement is performed in the elastic case ($`Y=p`$). The measurements can be compared to QCD predictions, respectively, in the two asymptotic limits BFKL and DGLAP.

## 2 Photoproduction of photons at high $`t`$.

The data for this analysis were collected with the H1 detector during the 1999-2000 running period, when HERA collided 27.6 GeV positrons with 920 GeV protons. An integrated luminosity of 47.6 $`\mathrm{pb}^1`$ is used.

Photoproduction events were selected by detecting the scattered positron in the electron tagger of the luminosity system restricting the virtuality of the photon to $`Q^2<0.01`$ GeV2 and the photon-proton centre of mass energy to $`175<W<247\mathrm{GeV}`$.

Photons with an energy of at least 8 GeV were identified in the electromagnetic part of the SPACAL calorimeter (covering the polar region $`153^{}<\theta <177.8^{}`$ 111$`\theta `$ is measured relative to the outgoing proton beam direction.). The hadronic final state, if visible, is measured in a liquid argon (LAr) calorimeter covering the range in polar angle $`4^{}<\theta <153^{}`$. Diffractive events were selected by requiring that $`y_{IP}<0.018`$, where

$$y_{IP}=\frac{p.(qq^{})}{q.p}\frac{_Y(EP_z)}{2E_\gamma }.$$
(1)
$`p`$ and $`q`$ being the 4-vectors of the incoming proton and photon respectively and $`q^{}`$ the 4-vector of the scattered photon. The quantity is calculated experimentally by summing the $`EP_z`$ of all hadronic final state objects in the event (i.e. all measured particles except the scattered electron and high $`p_t`$ photon), and dividing by twice the incoming photon energy $`E_\gamma `$. As $`y_{IP}e^{\mathrm{\Delta }\eta }`$, this cut ensures that there is a large rapidity gap between the photon and the proton dissociative system 222To ensure efficient background rejection, a minimum rapidity gap of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta =2`$ is required between the photon candidate and the edge of the proton dissociative system.. However, no proton dissociative system is required to be seen in the detector.

In addition to the kinematic variables defined above, the variable $`x_{IP}`$ is defined as

$$x_{IP}=\frac{q.(pY)}{q.p}\frac{(E+P_z)_\gamma }{2E_p},$$
(2)
where $`Y`$ is the 4-vector of the proton dissociative system, $`(E+P_z)_\gamma `$ is the $`E+P_z`$ of the photon candidate and $`E_p`$ is the energy of the incident proton.

The $`\gamma p`$ cross section differential in $`x_{IP}`$, in the range $`175<W<247`$ GeV, $`p_{t(\gamma )}>2`$ GeV, $`y_{IP}<0.018`$, is shown in Fig. 1 (upper). The largest systematic error is due to the uncertainty on the noise subtracted from the LAr calorimeter. The total systematic uncertainty is small compared to the statistical error. Also shown are the Monte Carlo prediction based on the leading logarithmic approximation (LL) of BFKL Cox:1999kv . The data are sensitive to the choice of the $`\overline{\alpha _s}`$ parameter in the prediction through the slope in $`x_{IP}`$ related to the BFKL pomeron intercept and the normalisation. A choice of $`\overline{\alpha _s}=0.17`$ gives a reasonable description of the data in both normalisation and shape. This is in comparison to the value $`\overline{\alpha _s}=0.18`$ as used for recent H1 measurements on $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ production Aktas:2003zi ; Gaps .

The $`\gamma p`$ cross section differential in the squared 4 momentum transfer $`t`$ between proton and the incoming photon (where in photoproduction $`tp_{t(\gamma )}^2`$), in the range $`175<W<247`$ GeV, $`0.0001<x_{IP}<0.0007`$, $`y_{IP}<0.018`$, is shown in Fig. 1 (lower). In this case, the agreement in the shape of the cross section between the Monte Carlo predictions and the data is perhaps more questionable, for all values of $`\overline{\alpha _s}`$ chosen here.

It is worth bearing in mind that there may be important contributions from higher order effects beyond the LL, so strong statements about the agreement may be premature. However, the fact that the measured cross section exhibits such a dramatic rise with energy ($`W1/x_{IP}`$) is a striking result, and there is an reasonable overall agreement with the LL BFKL predictions.

## 3 Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering

First cross section measurements of the DVCS process were published by H1 h1-dvcs  and ZEUS zeus-dvcs . Here, the new H1 measurement is reported, in an extended kinematic range: $`4<Q^2<80`$ GeV2, $`30<W<140`$ GeV and $`|t|<1`$ GeV2, using integrated luminosity of 26 $`\mathrm{pb}^1`$ of data taken during the year 2000 (i.e. 3.5 times larger than the previously published by H1 h1-dvcs ).

At these small values of $`t`$ the reaction $`epe\gamma p`$ is dominated by the purely electromagnetic Bethe-Heitler (BH) process whose cross section, depending only on QED calculations and proton elastic form factors, is precisely known and therefore can be subtracted. To enhance the ratio of selected DVCS events to BH events the outgoing photon is selected in the forward, or outgoing proton, region with transverse momentum larger than $`2\mathrm{GeV}`$. Large values of the incoming photon virtuality $`Q^2`$ are selected by detecting the scattered electron in the SPACAL calorimeter with energy larger than $`15\mathrm{GeV}`$. The outgoing proton escapes down the beam-pipe in the forward direction.

The $`\gamma ^{}p`$ cross section for the DVCS process is shown in Fig. 2 as a function of $`Q^2`$ for $`W=82`$ GeV, and in Fig. 3 as a function of $`W`$ for $`Q^2=8`$ GeV2. In the upper plot of Fig. 2 the measurement is compared to the NLO QCD prediction Freund:2001hm ; Freund:2001hd  using two different GPD parametrisations Freund:2002qf . The $`t`$ dependence is parametrised as $`e^{b|t|}`$, with $`b=b_0(10.15\mathrm{log}(Q^2/2))`$ GeV-2. The classic PDF $`q(x,\mu ^2)`$ of MRST2001 and CTEQ6 are used in the DGLAP region ($`x>\xi `$) such that $``$, which is the only important GPD at small $`x`$ is given at the scale $`\mu `$ by: $`^q(x,\xi ,t;\mu ^2)=q(x;\mu ^2)e^{b|t|}`$ for quark singlet and $`^g(x,\xi ,t;\mu ^2)=xg(x;\mu ^2)e^{b|t|}`$ for gluons, i.e. independent of the skewing parameter $`\xi `$. Keeping this parametrisation in the ERBL region ($`|x|<\xi `$) would lead to a prediction overshooting the data by a factor 4-5. Therefore, a parametrisation is proposed by the authors to suppress the region of very small $`x`$ (for details see Freund:2002qf ). This emphasises the interesting sensitivity to the ERBL region. The NLO QCD predictions are in good agreement with the data, for both GPD parametrisations. Since the main difference between the two parametrisations resulting in the normalisation, it emphasizes the need for a direct $`t`$ dependence measurement.

In the lower plots of Fig. 2 the measurement is compared to two different Colour Dipole models predictions, by Donnachie and Dosch Donnachie:2000px  and by Favart and Machado Favart:2003cu . They are based on a factorisation into the incoming photon wave function, a $`q\overline{q}`$-p cross section and the outgoing photon wave function. The models differ in the way the quark dipole cross section is parametrised. Donnachie and Dosch Donnachie:2000px  basically connect a soft Pomeron with large dipole size and a hard Pomeron with small dipole size. Favart and Machado Favart:2003cu  apply the saturation model of Golec-Biernat et al. Golec-Biernat:1999qd  to the DVCS process, with a possible DGLAP evolution Bartels:2002es  quoted BGBK on the plot. In both cases an exponential $`t`$-dependence, $`e^{b|t|}`$, is assumed. All presented Colour Dipole model predictions describe well the data in shape and in normalisation for the same value of $`b=7`$ GeV-2.

The new measurement is also compared to the previous measurement by H1 h1-dvcs  and to the ZEUS measurement zeus-dvcs . The two H1 measurements are in good agreement. The new H1 measurement is in fair agreement with ZEUS results except for $`W70`$ GeV, where H1 points are lower by about two standard deviations.


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# Comment on “Metallization of Fluid Nitrogen and the Mott Transition in Highly Compressed Low-Z Fluids”

The physical behavior and microscopic nature of highly compressed fluids continue to be unsolved and actively debated topics. The experimental data presented by Chau et al. on the electrical conductivity of nitrogen at high pressures are a welcome addition to the field. Unfortunately, in their desire to achieve a unifying picture of the behavior of low-Z fluids the authors oversimplify the interpretation of their data and de facto overlook the unique features of the systems they discuss.

The main hypothesis of the “low Z-systematics” introduced by Chau et al. is that nitrogen, hydrogen and oxygen are completely dissociated in the shock reverberation experiments that lead to their metallization. This is hardly a reasonable assumption for oxygen. The results and analysis of electrical conductivity experiments presented in Ref. bastea-O2  indicate that metallization of fluid oxygen occurs in the molecular phase, and not in an atomic regime as stated in chau-N2 . This conclusion is supported by recent ab initio simulations of fluid oxygen at the conditions of the shock reverberation experiments galli-O2 . The simulations also reveal unique features of fluid oxygen under pressure e.g., the role of the triplet spin state in the metallization transition and an unusual behavior of the molecular bond galli-O2 .

Complete dissociation of nitrogen at $`80GPa`$, the lowest pressure in the experiments of chau-N2 , is not in fact supported by previous work. The authors arguments are loosely based on two theoretical calculations but overlook their explicit caveats and disagreements with experiments. The QMD simulations invoked in chau-N2  report “noticeable disagreement from the second shock” experiments in the dissociation region LANL-N2reshock . It is therefore clear that any extrapolation of this work to the multiple-shock states relevant for the conductivity experiments has to be done with caution LANL-N2reshock . As additional evidence for an atomic state assumption the authors use a dissociation energy calculated by Ross ross-N2  along with an empirical criterion introduced in nellis-h2 . However, by consistently following the treatment of ross-N2 , the first shock ($`14GPa`$) and reshock ($`41GPa`$) dissociation fractions corresponding to the $`80GPa`$ final pressure can be estimated to about $`10^{10}`$ and $`3\times 10^3`$ respectively. Since temperature reaches over $`90\%`$ of its final value upon reshock it is reasonable to assume that the fluid retains a significant molecular component. After all even on the Hugoniot at $`80GPa`$ and temperatures over $`1.2eV`$ in both theoretical studies the fluid appears to be $`3040\%`$ molecular LANL-N2reshock ; ross-N2 .

A discussion of the hydrogen metallization experiments and Mott scaling analysis can be found in nellis-96 , where evidence is presented in support of a molecular fluid, in contradiction with the approach taken in chau-N2 .

We would also like to point out several other inconsistencies of the “low-Z fluids systematics” presented in chau-N2 . For example, we calculate a Mott scaling parameter of $`.27`$ for nitrogen at the metallization conditions defined in the paper, in disagreement with the .35 value quoted by the authors. This comes simply from an average distance between atoms of $`1.81\AA `$ at a density of $`3.9g/cm^3`$, and a Bohr radius (location of the maximum in the valence charge distribution $`r^2\psi \psi ^{}`$ averaged over the solid angle) of $`.91bohr`$, Ref.  of chau-N2 . The authors use of an empirical atomic radius meant to fit interatomic distances in a variety of crystalline compounds, see Ref.  of chau-N2 , is puzzling and unnecessary. For example the quoted reference gives a $`.5bohr`$ radius for hydrogen, in large disagreement with the accepted $`1bohr`$ value. It should also be noted that although using zero pressure charge distributions to gain insight into the behavior at high pressure is perhaps reasonable, shifting the curves in the radial direction as done in Fig. 3 of chau-N2  in order to compare their spatial extent is a rather meaningles exercise. Scaling all distributions to unity would allow the intended comparison and make it more apparent that the radial extent of hydrogen exceeds that of atomic nitrogen in contradiction with the statements by Chau et al.

Nitrogen is a complex system with one of the largest dissociation energies known in its diatomic state, a multitude of chemical bonding configurations and a high pressure polymeric phase hemN2-mcmah . An accurate interpretation of electrical conductivity data for nitrogen around its high pressure metallization transition will probably need to account for this complexity.

This work was performed under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Energy by University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. W-7405-Eng-48.