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# The Evolution of Tidal Debris

## 1. The Physics of Tidal Tails

The large-scale dynamical evolution of tidal debris is governed largely by simple gravitational physics. As first elegantly shown in simulations by Toomre & Toomre (1972) and Wright (1972), the tidal forces acting on spiral galaxies during a close encounter, coupled with the galaxies’ rotational motion, draw out long slender “tidal tails” of gas and stars. An example of this process is shown in Figure 1. As the galaxies pass by each other on the first passage, tidal forces give disk material sufficient energy to escape the inner potential well. The symmetric nature of tidal forces means that streams are torn off both the near side and far side (with respect to pericenter) of the disks; the near side material forms a tidal “bridge” between the disks (which typically does not physically connect, depending on orbital geometry) while the far side material forms the tidal tails. The formation of tidal tails is a strong function of the orbital geometry – tidal tails are strongest in prograde encounters where the spin and orbital angular momentum vectors are (even moderately) aligned, while retrograde encounters yield weak tails at best. The length of the tidal tails is further pronounced due to the orbital decay of the merging pair (e.g., Barnes 1988), which causes the galaxies to “fall away” from their tails as they merge together.

Once launched, tidal tails are not in simple expansion. Figure 2 shows the kinematic structure of the tidal tails shown in Figure 1, observed 1/2 Gyr after the merger is complete. Most of the material remains bound to the remnant on loosely bound elliptical orbits, with only the relatively small fraction at the tip of the tails being unbound. The radial velocity curve shows this orbital structure well: the loosely bound outer portion of the tails are still expanding, while material at the base of the tails has already reach apocenter and has started falling back in towards the merger remnant. This velocity structure results in a continual stretching of the tidal tails – they are long-lived and do not simply expand away, although their surface brightness drops rapidly due to this dynamical evolution (Mihos 1995). One important caveat to this description is the depth of the galaxies’ potential well: a deep potential well provided by extended dark matter halos will result in less unbound material and a more rapid fall-back of the tidal debris to the parent galaxy (Dubinski et al. 1996, 1999; Springel & White 1999).

The material forming the tidal tails comes from a wide range of initial radii in the progenitor disks. During close passages, tidal forces are effective at dredging up material from the inner disk and expelling it into the tidal debris. In the simulation shown in Figure 1, scaled to Milky Way sized progenitors, the extended tidal tails are formed from material originally outside the solar circle, while the loops and shells which fall back in the first Gyr after the merger include a significant amount of material from the solar circle and inwards. This “tidal dredge-up” means that tidal debris will be moderately metal rich, since it is not simply the outer parts of the disks involved. To demonstrate this effect, we imprint a metallicity distribution on the stellar disk model of d\[Fe/H\]/dR = $`0.05`$ kpc<sup>-1</sup>, normalized to solar metallicity at the solar circle. Observed 1/2 Gyr after the merger is complete, we see that a significant amount of the debris in the outer (stellar) tidal tails has metallicities above 1/3 solar. A similar exercise for the gas skews the results towards lower metallicities, for a number of reasons. Gas disks are typically more extended than stellar disks; for a similar radial gradient there will be more low metallicity material in the gas than the stars. Additionally, the gas from the inner regions, which would have provided higher metallicity gas in the tails, does not survive the tidal expulsion process; instead shocks and gravitational torques drive the gas inwards to the center of the remnant where it fuels the merger-induced starburst instead (Mihos & Hernquist 1996; Barnes & Hernquist 1996).

## 2. Galactic Recycling

While on large scales the evolution of tidal debris is largely a gravitational phenomenon, on smaller scales a variety of mechanisms can drive structure formation within the tidal tails. Overdensities can form in the tidal tails either through gravitational collapse of small scale instabilities in the progenitor disks (Barnes & Hernquist 1992) or by cooling and fragmentation of structure in the tidal expelled gas (Elmegreen et al. 1993). This has led to the suggestion that dwarf galaxies may form within the tidal debris of merging galaxies. Observations have detected a number of discrete, often star-forming, sources in the tidal debris of interacting galaxies (e.g., Duc, these proceedings); whether or not these are truly bound objects destined to become dwarf galaxies remains to be seen.

We can use simulations of interacting galaxies to make predictions for the properties of any tidally spawned dwarfs. Coming from material stripped from their progenitor disks, they should have moderate metallicities and travel on loosely bound, highly eccentric orbits (Hibbard & Mihos 1995). They are unlikely to have significant amounts of dark matter, since the kinematically hot dark matter will not collapse into the shallow potential wells (Barnes & Hernquist 1992) formed from small-scale instabilities in the tails. Finally, these tidal dwarfs may well show different generations of stellar populations, as they arise in a mixed medium of old stellar disk material and young stars formed from the gaseous tidal debris.

The dynamical stretching of the tidal debris means that it should be hard for these condensations to grow continuously. On small scales, bound structures can form, but continual accretion onto these structures will be limited by shear in the surrounding material. In this context, it is important to make a cautionary note about claims that large, tidally spawned HI complexes are often found preferentially at the end of optical tidal tails. Dynamically it is unclear why this would be – HI tails often extend much further out than the optical tails do, and there is not clear reason why the “end of the optical tails” should be a dynamically important spot. It is more likely that many of these objects are the result of projection effects. Tidal tails are curved, and a sightline which passes along the tangent point to a curving tail will not only give the appearance of marking the end of the tail, but also will project along a large column of HI, artificially giving the impression that a massive HI complex lives at the end of a tidal tails (see e.g., Hibbard, these proceedings, but also Bournaud et al. 2003 for an alternative view).

The other context in which tidal debris is important in galactic recycling is the return of gas from the infalling tidal debris. As shown in §1, material in the tidal tails remains bound, and will continue to fall back to the remnant over many Gyr. The return is ordered (Hibbard & Mihos 1995); the first material to return is the most bound, lowest angular momentum material, which will fall back to small radius. As the remnant evolves, high angular momentum, loosely bound material will fall back to increasingly larger radius.

This long-lived “rain” of tidal debris on the merger remnant manifests itself in a number of ways. Diffuse loops and shells form as the stars fall back through and wrap around the remnant, while the infalling gas can dissipate energy and settle into a warped, rotating disk (Mihos & Hernquist 1996; Naab & Burkert 2001; Barnes 2002), such as those found in the nearby elliptical galaxies NGC 4753 (Steiman-Cameron et al. 1992) and Centaurus A (Nicholson et al. 1992). The most loosely bound tidal material forms less-well organized structures outside of a few effective radii as it falls back, and may be the source of the extended HI gas found in shells and broken rings around many elliptical galaxies (e.g., Schminovich & van Gorkom 1997). More speculatively, if the returning gas can efficiently form stars, this process provides a mechanism for rebuilding stellar disks. For example, the gaseous disk inside the merger remnant NGC 7252 is rapidly forming stars (Hibbard et al. 1994), and may ultimately result in a kiloparsec-scale stellar disk embedded in the $`r^{\frac{1}{4}}`$ spheroid formed in the merger. If significant amount of tidal material exists to reform a stellar disk, it may even be possible for the remnant to eventually evolve towards a bulge-dominated S0 or Sa galaxy (e.g., Schweizer 1998).

## 3. Tidal Debris in Clusters

Many dynamical avenues are available to drive tidal evolution in cluster galaxies. The most obvious is the cluster potential itself, particularly for galaxies whose orbit takes them close to the cluster center (e.g., Henriksen & Byrd 1996). More recently, the importance of repeated, fast collisions in stripping cluster galaxies has been emphasized by Moore et al. (1996, 1998). However, because of the large velocity dispersion within galaxy clusters, conventional wisdom held that strong interactions and mergers between cluster galaxies were rare (Ostriker 1980).

More recently, a greater understanding of the nature of hierarchical clustering is changing this view. While slow encounters are rare for an individual galaxy falling into a well-established environment (e.g., Ghigna et al. 1998), many galaxies are accreted onto clusters from within the small group environment. Clusters show ample evidence for substructure in X-rays, galaxy populations, and velocity structure (see, e.g., reviews by Buote 2002; Girardi & Biviano 2002). Interactions within infalling groups can be strong – witness, for example, the classic interacting pair “the Mice” (NGC 4676), found in the outskirts of the Coma cluster. Clearly strong interactions can and do occur during the evolution of clusters, either early as the cluster forms, or late as groups are accreted from the field.

The effects of the cluster potential on the evolution of tidal debris during a slow encounter can be dramatic. To illustrate this, Fig 3 shows the evolution of the same merger shown in Fig 1, except this time occurring in a Coma-like cluster potential. The orbit of the galaxy pair in the cluster carries it within 0.5 Mpc of the cluster core, with an orbital period of $``$ 3.5 Gyr. As the galaxies merge, the very loosely bound material forming the tidal tails is now subjected to the large scale tidal field of the cluster, and is very efficiently stripped out of the galactic potential altogether.

An extremely important facet of this kind of encounter is the enhanced efficiency of the tidal stripping. This is shown in Figure 4, which shows the fraction of material stripped to large radius ($`r>35`$ kpc, or approximately 5 $`R_e`$ in the simulation) in the field and cluster versions of the simulations, as well as in a single disk galaxy on the same cluster orbit. The combination of the local and cluster tides causes significant stripping – encounters of galaxies in small infalling groups effectively “prime the pump” for the cluster tides to do their work. Indeed, the individual disk galaxy is hardly tidally stripped at all, suggesting that estimates of tidal stripping based on the tidal radius of individual galaxies falling into a cluster potential may significantly underestimate the effect.

The combined effects of galactic and cluster tides not only raise the efficiency of tidal stripping, they also result in particularly deep stripping. That is, the stronger galactic tides can strip material out from deep in the galaxies’ potential well, which is then vulnerable to the gentler but long-lived cluster tides that liberate it entirely. As a result, the stripped material will be relatively high in metallicity, coming from the inner parts of the disk, and has a mean metallicity of \[Fe/H\]=$`0.25`$, with a significant spread. This has important consequences for studies of the intracluster light (ICL), particularly in terms of searches for individual intracluster stars which are sensitive to the metallicity of the population (e.g., Durrell etal 2002).

In terms of galactic recycling, the cluster has the effect of essentially shutting down various recycling paths. The ability for tidal tails to grow large tidal dwarfs may be extremely limited, as the cluster tides rapidly disperse the tidal material. The hot intracluster medium may also act to heat the tidal gas, making it difficult to form stars. If any dwarfs or, on smaller scales, star clusters do form in the tidal debris, they will be rapidly stripped from their hosts, perhaps contributing to the populations of cluster dwarfs or intracluster globular clusters.

The cluster will also shut down reaccretion from the tidal tails spawned during a merger. The combination of cluster tides and ram pressure stripping from a hot intracluster medium will “sweep clean” the tidal debris and any low density gas that might remain in the remnants. For example, the diffuse HI disk in the merger remnant Centaurus A (Nicholson et al. 1992) is unlikely to survive any passage through the hot ICM of a dense cluster. Models for forming S0 galaxies from mergers of galaxies followed by reformation or survival of a gaseous disk (e.g., Bekki 1998, or see the discussion in Schweizer 1998) seem difficult to envision in the dense cluster environment. However, the S0 classification is a very diverse one, and the mechanism which gives rise to disky cluster S0’s may well be quite different than the merger mechanisms hypothesized to give rise to bulge-dominated S0’s in the field environment.

## 4. The Formation of Intracluster Light

As galaxies orbit in the cluster environment, they are subject to tidal stripping from a variety of sources – interactions with individual galaxies, with groups of galaxies, or with the global cluster potential itself (see, e.g., the discussion in Gnedin 2003). Over time, this stripped starlight builds up the diffuse intracluster light found in clusters of galaxies. The properties of this ICL – its luminosity, morphological structure, metallicity, and kinematics – and their correlation with cluster properties can help unravel the dynamical history of cluster collapse, accretion, and evolution. To date, theoretical work has largely focused on tidal stripping from individual galaxies orbiting in an evolved cluster potential (e.g., Merritt 1983; Richstone & Malamuth 1983; Moore et al. 1996; Calcáneo-Roldán et al. 2000) and ignored two important effects: preprocessing in groups, and heating by substructure (Gnedin 2003). Full cosmologically-motivated simulations are needed to study the phenomenon in detail (e.g., Dubinski et al. 2001; Napolitano et al. 2003; Mihos et al. 2004).

An example of these models is shown in Figure 5 (from Mihos et al. 2004). In this simulation, we have excised a cluster from a flat $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmological simulation and traced it back to $`z=2`$. At that point we identify dark matter halos more massive than $`10^{11}`$ M$`_{_{\mathrm{}}}`$ which destined to end up in the $`z=0`$ cluster and replace them with composite (collisionless) disk/halo galaxy models. The simulation is then run forward to the present day to examine the formation of tidal debris and the ICL. In essence, this simulation follows the contribution to the ICL from luminous galaxies, rather than from the stripping of low mass dwarfs. In this simulation, we see significant kinematic and spatial substructure at early times; at late times much of this substructure has been well mixed into a diffuse intracluster light. However, at low surface brightnesses, significant substructure remains even at $`z=0`$.

Detecting this ICL has proved difficult, as at its brightest, the ICL is only $``$1% of the brightness of the night sky. Efforts to detect this ICL include deep surface photometry to look for the diffuse ICL (e.g., Uson et al. 1991; Bernstein et al. 1995; Gonzalez et al. 2000; Feldmeier et al. 2002), as well as imaging of individual stars and planetary nebulae in nearby clusters (Ferguson et al. 1998; Feldmeier et al. 1998; Arnaboldi et al. 2002). Recently, these surveys have begun to reveal interesting substructure in the ICL, often in the form of diffuse arcs or streaks of material from tidally stripped galaxies (Trentham & Mobasher 1998; Gregg & West 1998; Calcáneo-Roldán et al. 2000).

To quantify the prevalence and properties of ICL as a function of cluster properties, we have begun a deep imaging survey of clusters using the KPNO 2m (Feldmeier et al. 2002, 2004). We target a variety of clusters, from cD-dominated Bautz-Morgan Type I clusters to Type III clusters which are typified by a more irregular distribution of galaxies. Examples from this survey are shown in Figure X. The massive cD cluster Abell 1413 is marked by regular distribution of diffuse light, well-fit by a $`r^{\frac{1}{4}}`$ distribution over a large range of radius, with only a moderate excess at large radius and little substructure. In contrast, Abell 1914 shows a variety of features: a fan-like plume projecting from the eastern clump of galaxies, another diffuse plume extending from the galaxy group to the north of the cluster, and a narrow stream extending to the northwest from the cluster center. We see similar behavior in other Abell clusters we have surveyed.

Although the sample size is small, these results are consistent with the expectations that substructure in the ICL is correlated with the dynamical state of the cluster as a whole. As clusters are assembled, the ICL is built up though the significant tidal stripping that occurs during interactions within the accreting groups, and between galaxies and substructure within the cluster. Does the total amount of ICL also correlate with Bautz-Morgan cluster type? Examining ICL measurements from a variety of sources, Ciardullo et al. (this conference) find only a weak dependence – the ICL fraction rises as expected from Type III to Type II clusters, but Type I (cD-dominated) clusters show fractionally less ICL than do the Type II’s. However, the drop in the Type I’s is likely due to the difficulty in distinguishing the ICL from the diffuse envelope of the cD galaxy itself; indeed, such distinction may not even be well motivated, since the cD envelope itself likely is formed from tidally stripped material. Including the luminosity of the cD envelope in the ICL budget would raise the fractional amount of ICL in Type I clusters and bring the trend in line with expectations from the dynamical models for generating ICL in clusters.

### Acknowledgments.

My numerous collaborators have all made many contributions to this work. In particular, I thank Cameron McBride for his work generating and visualizing the cluster ICL simulations. This work has been supported in part by the NSF through a CAREER award AST-9876143 and by a Research Corporation Cottrell Scholarship.

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# On the oxygen abundance of HE 0107-5240Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory, Paranal, Chile (Proposal Number 70.D-0009).

## 1 INTRODUCTION

HE 0107$``$5240 has been found by Christlieb et al. (2002, 2004, hereafter Paper I and Paper II, respectively) to be a giant with an iron abundance of $`\text{[Fe/H]}_{\text{NLTE}}=5.3`$, and large overabundances of carbon and nitrogen ($`\text{[C/Fe]}=+4.0`$ dex; $`\text{[N/Fe]}=+2.3`$). These authors discuss possible origins of the abundance patterns of this star. Complementary ideas and additional scenarios were presented by Shigeyama et al. (2003), Bonifacio et al. (2003), Umeda & Nomoto (2003), Schneider et al. (2003), and Limongi et al. (2003).

Bonifacio et al. emphasized that the oxygen abundance of HE 0107$``$5240 would be a critical observation for constraining possible scenarios. They propose that if $`\text{[O/Fe]}>+3.5`$, HE 0107$``$5240 was formed from a gas cloud which has been enriched by the yields of at least two supernovae of type II (hereafter SN II) of zero metallicity. In contrast, if $`\text{[O/Fe]}<+3.0`$, the high CN abundances at the surface of HE 0107$``$5240 could be caused by internal or external pollution. In the latter case, HE 0107$``$5240 would have a formerly more massive companion which transferred material to the surface of HE 0107$``$5240 during its AGB phase.

Umeda & Nomoto proposed that the abundance pattern of HE 0107$``$5240 arises from material that has been enriched by a single $`25M_{}`$ Population III star exploding as a supernova with an explosion energy of only $`E_{\text{exp}}=310^{50}\text{erg}`$. By assuming that the material produced during the SN event is homogeneously mixed over a wide range of the mass coordinate, and a large fraction of the material falls back onto the compact remnant, Umeda & Nomoto are able to reproduce the abundance pattern of HE 0107$``$5240 remarkably well (see their Figure 1). Their model predicts that the oxygen abundance of HE 0107$``$5240 is $`\text{[O/Fe]}2.8`$ dex.

In this paper we report on new radial velocity measurements for HE 0107$``$5240, and the analysis of OH lines from newly-obtained ultra-violet VLT/UVES spectra for this star and CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$ for comparison. The LTE oxygen abundance was derived by means of spectrum synthesis. Plane-parallel MARCS model atmospheres were used with atmospheric parameters 5100 K, $`\mathrm{log}g=2.20`$, $`\text{[M/H]}=5.4`$ and $`\text{[C/Fe]}=+4.0`$, $`\text{[N/Fe]}=+2.3`$ for HE 0107$``$5240 and 4900 K, $`\mathrm{log}g=2.0`$, and $`\text{[M/H]}=4`$ for CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$. A microturbulence value of 2.0 km s-1 was indicated for HE 0107$``$5240 and 2.5 km s-1 for CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$. When deriving CNO and other metal abundances, the atomic and molecular equilibria and opacities were recomputed for the different abundances but the temperature structure of the models were not changed. The newly derived abundances of elements other than O will be reported in a later paper.

## 2 OBSERVATIONS

New spectra for HE 0107$``$5240 and CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$ were secured in the period 30 September to 27 December 2002 at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), Paranal, Chile, with the Ultraviolet-Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES; Dekker et al. 2000) mounted on the 8 m Unit Telescope 2 (Kueyen) of the Very Large Telescope (VLT). UVES was used in dichroic mode and with various settings. With the BLUE 346 nm setting covering 3050–3870 Å, a total of 20 h were spent on HE 0107$``$5240, with individual exposures not exceeding 1 h in order to facilitate removal of cosmic ray hits. A $`1^{\prime \prime }`$ slit was used in the blue arm, yielding a resolving power of $`R=40,000`$. The coadded and rebinned spectra have $`S/N30`$ per 0.05 Å pixel. The spectra of CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$ have a comparable resolution and $`S/N`$.

Including these new spectra, radial velocity ($`v_{\text{rad}}`$) measurements for HE 0107$``$5240 based on high-resolution spectra now cover a period of 373 days. Over this period the radial velocity was constant at $`44.5`$ km/s with a $`1\sigma `$ scatter of the measurements of 0.5 km/s (see Figure 1).

## 3 THE LINE LISTS

Data for atomic and molecular lines for the spectrum synthesis were taken from several sources. For preference, LIFBASE (Luque & Crosley 1999), based on a selection of recent molecular constants, was used for the molecular lines. LIFBASE was used to generate the wavelengths and transition probabilities for the various lines associated with different branches for the A-X OH band, but the corresponding upper and lower energy levels for each line were obtained by cross-correlating the wavelengths, branches and $`J`$ values of the transitions with those in the Kurucz (1994) molecular database. For $`J`$ values higher than provided by Kurucz, energy levels were extrapolated.

## 4 THE OXYGEN ABUNDANCES

The median filtered UV spectra for HE 0107$``$5240 and CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$ were flattened by eye over 50 Å sections and normalized. In HE 0107$``$5240, the spectrum below 3200 Å is dominated by strong lines of the CH C-X band, however where the CH lines thin out between 3090 Å and 3120 Å unblended lines due to OH are clearly visible. In CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$ where only the CH band head at 3144 Å is visible, many strong unblended OH lines are evident between 3090 Å and 3200 Å. In HE 0107$``$5240 we fitted an oxygen abundance of $`\text{[O/Fe]}=+2.4`$ as shown in Fig. 2; for CD $`38^{}\mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}245}`$ we derive $`\text{[O/Fe]}=+1.0`$. We adopted a solar oxygen abundance of $`\mathrm{log}ϵ(\text{O})=8.66`$ dex (on a scale where $`\mathrm{log}ϵ(\text{H})=12`$ dex), as determined by Asplund et al. (2004) from \[O I\], O I and OH lines using 3D simulations of the solar atmosphere, and we adopted a solar iron abundance of $`\mathrm{log}ϵ(\text{Fe})=7.45`$ dex (Asplund et al. 2000). Concerning the Fe abundance of HE 0107$``$5240, we use our previously determined value of $`\text{[Fe I/H]}_{\text{NLTE}}=5.3`$, i.e., $`\mathrm{log}ϵ(\text{Fe})=2.2`$ dex (Paper I and II). We note in passing that this value agrees to within $`0.03`$ dex with the Fe I abundance measured from 49 lines detected in the newly-obtained UV spectra of HE 0107$``$5240 (Bessell et al. 2004, in preparation).

In order to compare our \[O/Fe\] value for HE 0107$``$5240 with the prediction of Umeda & Nomoto, we have to take into account that they use (Nomoto 2003, private communication) the solar photospheric abundances of Anders & Grevesse (1989), i.e., $`\mathrm{log}ϵ(\text{O})=8.93`$ dex and $`\mathrm{log}ϵ(\text{Fe})=7.51`$ dex. Hence, we need to add $`0.21`$ dex to their value of $`\text{[O/Fe]}=+2.8`$ to place it on our scale.

The most serious error in the oxygen abundance derived for HE 0107$``$5240 is most probably a result of our use of a one-dimensional model atmosphere. Asplund & García Pérez (2001) discuss the use of OH lines for abundance analysis of metal-poor stars close to the turn-off point, with application of 3D hydrodynamical model atmospheres. They found severely reduced oxygen abundances (i.e. enhanced OH line strenghts) for the 3D models by up to $`1`$ dex. The effects increase with increasing effective temperature and with decreasing metallicity. They reflect the basic fact that in the 3D models the gas of the upper atmosphere is cooled by adiabatic expansion from “convective overshoot”, and that the heating by radiation absorbed by spectral lines is reduced due to the low metallicity. Along numerous vertical rays through the 3D model atmosphere, the temperature is lowered and starts the photospheric temperature rise at greater optical depths and with steeper temperature gradients. This strongly enhances formation of molecules with relatively low dissociation energies, such as hydrides. For stars cooler than those investigated by Asplund & García Pérez, somewhat smaller effects are expected: the convective instability is at greater optical depths, and the temperature sensitivity of the molecular abundance is reduced.

Guided by preliminary 3D hydrodynamical models for metal-poor giants by Collet & Asplund (2003, private communication), we have constructed a number of artificially cooled plane-parallel models, keeping the temperature constant at the surface temperature to optical depths ranging from $`\tau _{5000}=0.01`$ to $`0.03`$, and then increasing $`T(\tau )`$ gradually to the values of the standard model. Such models lead to reductions of the oxygen abundance by $`0.3`$$`0.4`$ dex, yielding $`\text{[O/Fe]}=2.0\text{}2.1`$ for HE 0107$``$5240. However, we note that one must await taylored 3D models for HE 0107$``$5240 before one may exclude that the effects are even greater.

## 5 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We have not detected any $`v_{\text{rad}}`$ variations exceeding 0.5 km/s ($`1\sigma `$ level) over a period of 373 days. On the one hand, it can not yet be ruled out that HE 0107$``$5240 is a very long period and/or low amplitude binary, but on the other hand, apart from a few exceptions, typical periods and $`v_{\text{rad}}`$ amplitudes of extremely metal-poor stars with strong carbon-enhancements known to be binaries are $`\text{P}=1.5\text{}8.5`$ years and $`A=5\text{}15`$ km/s (e.g. Preston & Sneden 2001). The physical reason for this is that in closer systems, mass-transfer would occur already before the formerly more-massive companion reaches the AGB state, and in very wide systems, mass-transfer will not occur at all (see e.g. Ryan 2003, and references therein). It thus does not seem very likely that the large overabundances of CNO in the atmosphere of HE 0107$``$5240 have been produced in a medium-mass AGB star which later evolved to a white dwarf.

The supernova model of Umeda & Nomoto (2003) of a $`25M_{}`$ Population III star that explodes with low explosion energy ($`E_{\text{exp}}=310^{50}\text{erg}`$) followed by mixing and fallback do produce element yields that fit the overall abundance pattern of HE 0107$``$5240 rather well; in particular the high C to N and light to heavy element ratios. However, the oxygen abundance predicted for HE 0107$``$5240 is $`\text{[O/Fe]}3.0`$ dex (on our scale), while we measure $`\text{[O/Fe]}2.4`$ dex, and the observed value might need to be reduced to $`\text{[O/Fe]}=2.0\text{}2.1`$ dex to take into account 3D effects. In other words, the predicted and observed value might disagree by as much as 1 dex. It remains to be studied, however, whether this disagreement can be reduced by modifying one of the free parameters of the Umeda & Nomoto model, e.g., the progenitor mass, and/or the mass coordinate range in which mixing occurs.

Limongi et al. (2003) propose that the gas cloud from HE 0107$``$5240 formed has been pre-enriched by two supernovae of type II (SN II) with masses of $`35M_{}`$ and $`15M_{}`$, respectively. They predict an oxygen abundance of $`\text{[O/Fe]}=+4.1`$ for HE 0107$``$5240 (see their Figure 3), in strong contradiction with the observed value. It remains to be explored if a lower oxygen abundance can be achieved by combining the yields of two SN II of different masses.

As also discussed by Limongi et al. (2003), a self-enrichment explanation for the CNO abundances of HE 0107$``$5240, based on the effects of a He convective shell that forms at the core He flash and penetrates into the H-rich envelope, appears to be ruled out due to several independent arguments, including the high C/N and carbon isotopic ratio of $`{}_{}{}^{12}\text{C}/^{13}\text{C}>50`$ observed in HE 0107$``$5240, as well as evolutionary timescale arguments.

We conclude that the scenarios suggested for the abundance pattern of HE 0107$``$5240, based on one or two supernovae, and possibly in combination with self-enrichment by the star, are in their present realizations ruled out by observations. Also, the lack of detections of variations in radial velocity makes pollution by a companion increasingly improbable. It remains to be seen if the scenarios can be modified to fit the observations better, or whether other ideas must be invented and explored.

We would like to express our gratitude to the ESO staff on Paranal and Garching for carrying out the observations with VLT-UT2, and reducing the data, respectively. Thanks are due to Martin Asplund and Remo Collet for discussion on 3D models, and to Bengt Edvardsson for computational assistance. M.S.B. and N.C. acknowledge support through a *Linkage International Fellowship* of the Australian Research Council, making possible a 6 months stay of N.C. at Mt. Stromlo Observatory, where part of the work described in this paper has been carried out. B.G. thanks the Swedish Research Council for financial support.


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# 1 What is Quantum Mechanics?

## 1 What is Quantum Mechanics?

In this talk we would like to 1) give a line by line derivation of canonical quantum mechanics (QM) founded on the compatibility of the statistical geometry of distinguishable observations with the canonical Poisson structure of Hamiltonian dynamics and 2) describe a natural extension of this viewpoint so as to provide a conceptually novel approach to the problem of a non-perturbative formulation of quantum gravity, one which should reduce in the correspondence limit to general relativity (GR) coupled to matter degrees of freedom. The presentation is based on our recent work .

To understand the fundamental structure of QM we reason as follows: Assume that individual quantum events are statistical and statistically distinguishable (Postulate I). (This premise is of course a huge conceptual leap in comparison to classical physics, but it is absolutely crucial for the structure of QM.) On the space of probability distributions there is a natural metric, called Fisher metric, which provides a geometric measure of statistical distinguishability

$$ds^2=\underset{i}{}\frac{dp_i^2}{p_i},\underset{i}{}p_i=1,p_i0.$$
(1)
(This distance naturally arises as follows: to estimate probabilities $`p_i`$ from frequencies $`f_i`$, given $`N`$ samples, when $`N`$ is large, the central limit theorem states that the probability for the frequencies is given by the Gaussian distribution $`\mathrm{exp}(\frac{N}{2}\frac{(p_if_i)^2}{p_i})`$. Thus a probability distribution $`p_i^{(1)}`$ can be distinguished from a given distribution $`p_i`$ provided the Gaussian $`\mathrm{exp}(\frac{N}{2}\frac{(p_i^{(1)}p_i)^2}{p_i})`$ is small. Hence the quadratic form $`\frac{(p_i^{(1)}p_i)^2}{p_i}`$, or its infinitesimal form $`_i\frac{dp_i^2}{p_i}`$, the Fisher distance, is the natural measure of distinguishability.) Now, upon setting $`p_i=x_i^2`$, making $`p_i`$ manifestly non-negative, the Fisher distance reads $`ds^2=_idx_i^2`$ with $`x_i^2=1`$ i.e. the Euclidean metric on a sphere. Therefore the latter distance is nothing but the shortest distance along this unit sphere

$$ds_{12}=cos^1(\underset{i}{}\sqrt{p_{1i}}\sqrt{p_{2i}}).$$
(2)
Next, we demand that on this metric space of probabilities one can define a canonical Hamiltonian flow (Postulate II). So the dimensionality of such a symplectic space of $`x_i`$ must be $`even`$ (hence, $`x_i^2=1`$ defines an odd-dimensional sphere). Then the Hamiltonian flow is given (locally) as

$$\frac{df(x_i)}{dt}=\omega _{ij}\frac{h(x_i)}{x_i}\frac{f(x_i)}{x_j}\{h,f\},$$
(3)
where $`\omega `$ is a closed non-degenerate 2-form. The compatibility of the symplectic form $`\omega `$ and the metric $`g`$ allows for the introduction of an almost complex structure $`J\omega g^1`$ (in the matrix notation), $`J^2=1`$ (since the compatibility demands $`\omega _{ij}g^{jk}\omega _{kl}=g_{il}`$). Given this constant complex structure we may introduce complex coordinates on this space $`\psi _a`$ (and their conjugates $`\psi _a^{}`$), so that $`_ix_i^2_a\psi _a^{}\psi _a=1`$, and thus $`p_a=\psi _a^{}\psi _a`$. This statistical distance is invariant under $`\psi e^{J\alpha }\psi `$, $`J`$ being the above integrable almost complex structure. Thus $`\psi `$ can be identified with $`e^{J\alpha }\psi `$. Indeed an odd dimensional sphere can be viewed as a $`U(1)`$ Hopf -fibration of a complex projective space $`CP(n)`$, a coset space $`\frac{U(n+1)}{U(n)\times U(1)}`$. $`CP(n)`$ is a homogeneous, isotropic and simply connected Kahler manifold with a constant holomorphic sectional curvature. The unique metric on $`CP(n)`$ is the Fubini-Study (FS) metric (which is but the above statistical Fisher metric up to a multiplicative constant, the Planck constant $`\mathrm{}`$). In the Dirac notation (using (2) and the derived Born rule, $`p_a=\psi _a^{}\psi _a`$), this FS metric reads :

$$ds_{12}^2=4(cos^1|\psi _1|\psi _2|)^2=4(1|\psi _1|\psi _2|^2)4(d\psi |d\psi d\psi |\psi \psi |d\psi ),$$
(4)
Thus $`CP(n)`$ is the underlying manifold of statistical events with a well defined Hamiltonian flow and as such provides a kinematical background on which a Hamiltonian dynamics is defined. The only Hamiltonian flow compatible with the isometries of $`CP(n)`$ (which are the unitaries $`U(n+1)`$) is given by a quadratic function of $`x_i`$ or, alternatively, a quadratic form in the pair $`q_aRe(\psi _a)`$ and $`p_aIm(\psi _a)`$), $`h=\frac{1}{2}_a[(p^a)^2+(q_a)^2]\omega _a`$, or in the usual notation, $`h=\widehat{H}`$, $`\omega _a`$ being the eigenvalues of $`\widehat{H}`$. The Hamiltonian equations for the $`\psi _a`$ and its conjugate then give the linear evolution equation (Schrödinger equation), $`\frac{dp_a}{dt}=\{h,p_a\},\frac{dq^a}{dt}=\{h,q^a\}`$, that is $`J\frac{d|\psi }{dt}=H|\psi `$. Any observable, consistent with the isometries of the underlying space of events, is given as a quadratic function in the $`q_a,p_a`$. These are just the usual expectation values of linear operators.

Everything we know about quantum mechanics is in fact contained in the geometry of $`CP(n)`$ , : entanglements come from the embeddings of the products of two complex projective spaces in a higher dimensional one; geometric phases stem from the symplectic structure of $`CP(n)`$, quantum logic, algebraic approaches to QM etc, are all contained in the geometric and symplectic structure of complex projective spaces , . (While we only consider here the finite dimensional case, the same geometric approach is extendable to generic infinite dimensional quantum mechanical systems, including field theory.) Finally, the following three lemmas are important for the material of the next section: (A) The Fisher-Fubini-Study quantum metric (4) in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit becomes a spatial metric provided the configuration space for the quantum system under consideration is space. For example, consider a particle moving in 3-dimensional Euclidean space. Then the quantum metric for the Gaussian coherent state $`\psi _l(x)\mathrm{exp}(\frac{(\stackrel{}{x}\stackrel{}{l})^2}{\delta l^2})`$ yields the natural metric in the configuration space, in the $`\mathrm{}0`$ limit, $`ds^2=\frac{d\stackrel{}{l}^2}{\delta l^2}.`$ (B) Similarly, the time parameter of the evolution equation can be related to the quantum metric via

$$\mathrm{}ds=\mathrm{\Delta }Edt,\mathrm{\Delta }E^2\psi H^2\psi (\psi H\psi )^2$$
(5)
(C) Finally, the Schrodinger equation can be viewed as a geodesic equation on a $`CP(n)=\frac{U(n+1)}{U(n)\times U(1)}`$

$$\frac{du^a}{ds}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bc}^au^bu^c=\frac{1}{2\mathrm{\Delta }E}Tr(HF_b^a)u^b.$$
(6)
Here $`u^a=\frac{dz^a}{ds}`$ where $`z^a`$ denote the complex coordinates on $`CP(n)`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bc}^a`$ is the connection obtained from the FS metric, and $`F_{ab}`$ is the canonical curvature 2-form valued in the holonomy gauge group $`U(n)\times U(1)`$.

The above geometric structure describing canonical QM, beautifully tested in numerous experiments, is also very robust from the purely geometric point of view . A consistent generalization of QM would doubtlessly be interesting from both the experimental and theoretical viewpoints. Unlike various generalizations proposed in the past (which in many instances have lead to difficult conceptual problems) the one put forward in  extends the kinematical structure so that it is compatible with the generalized dynamical structure! The quantum symplectic and metric structure, and therefore the almost complex structure become fully dynamical. The underlying physical reason for such a more general dynamical framework of the above geometric formalism is found in the need for a quantum version of the equivalence principle, a fundamental physical underpinning of a non-perturbative formulation of quantum theory of gravity.

## 2 And What is Quantum Theory of Gravity?

The main intuition behind a quantum version of the equivalence principle is to demand the validity of the canonical QM, as laid out in the previous section, in every local neighborhood, in the space of quantum events. Here we envision a larger geometric structure whose tangent spaces, viewed as vector spaces by definition, are just canonical Hilbert spaces. (In this picture  the tangent spatial transverse metric emerges from the quantum metric, as in the lemma (A), by assuming that the underlying configuration space is space and time appears as a measure of the geodesic distance in this general space of statistical events (the events do not have to be necessarily distinguishable!), as in lemma (B). Finally, the longitudinal spatial coordinate corresponds to the dimensionality of the tangent Hilbert spaces.) The crucial point is to allow for any metric and symplectic form in the geodesic version of the evolution equation (lemma (C)). These are in turn determined dynamically .

Our postulates (I) and (II) as stated above can indeed be naturally extended by allowing both the metric and symplectic form on the space of quantum events to be no longer rigid but fully dynamical entities. In this process, just as in the case of spacetime in GR, the space of quantum events becomes dynamical and only individual quantum events make sense observationally. Specifically, we do so by relaxing the first postulate to allow for any statistical (information) metric while insisting on the compatibility of this metric with the symplectic structure underlying the second postulate. Physics is therefore required to be diffeomorphism invariant in the sense of information geometry such that the information geometric and symplectic structures remain compatible, requiring only a $`strictly`$ (i.e non-integrable) almost complex structure $`J`$. This extended framework readily implies that the wave functions labeling the event space, while still unobservable, are no longer relevant. They are in fact as meaningless as coordinates in GR. There are no longer issues related to reductions of wave packets and associated measurement problems. At the basic level of our scheme, there are only dynamical correlations of quantum events. The observables are furnished by diffeomorphism invariant quantities in the space of quantum events.

To find the kinematical arena for this generalized framework we seek as coset of $`Diff(C^{n+1})`$ such that locally the latter looks like $`CP(n)`$ and allows for a compatibility of its metric and symplectic structures, expressed in the existence of a (generally non-integrable) almost complex structure. The following nonlinear Grassmannian

$$Gr(C^{n+1})=Diff(C^{n+1})/Diff(C^{n+1},C^n\times \{0\}),$$
(7)
with $`n=\mathrm{}`$ fulfills these requirements . $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$ is a nonlinear analog of a complex Grassmannian since it is the space of (real) co-dimension 2 submanifolds, namely a hyperplane $`C^n\times [0]`$ passing through the origin in $`C^{n+1}`$. Its holonomy group $`Diff(C^{n+1},C^n\times \{0\})`$ is the group of diffeomorphisms preserving the hyperplane $`C^n\times \{0\}`$ in $`C^{n+1}`$. Just as $`CP(n)`$ is a co-adjoint orbit of $`U(n+1)`$, $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$ is a coadjoint orbit of the group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms of $`C^{n+1}`$. As such it is a symplectic manifold with a canonical Kirillov-Kostant-Souriau symplectic two-form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ which is closed ($`d\mathrm{\Omega }=0`$) but not exact. Indeed the latter 2-form integrated over the submanifold is nonzero; its de Rham cohomology class is integral. This means that there is a principal 1-sphere, a $`U(1)`$ or line bundle over $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$ with curvature $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$. This is the counterpart of the $`U(1)`$-bundle of $`S^{2n+1}`$ over $`CP(n)`$ of quantum mechanics. It is also known that there is an almost complex structure given by a 90 degree rotation in the two dimensional normal bundle to the submanifold. While $`CP(n)`$ has an integrable almost complex structure and is therefore a complex manifold, in fact a Kahler manifold, this is $`not`$ the case with $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$. Its almost complex structure $`J`$ is strictly $`not`$ integrable in spite of its formally vanishing Nijenhius tensor. While the vanishing of the latter implies integrability in the finite dimensional case, such a conclusion no longer holds in the infinite dimensional setting. However what we do have in $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$ is a strictly (i.e. non-Kahler) almost Kahler manifold since there is by way of the almost structure $`J`$ a compatibility between the closed symplectic 2-form $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ and the Riemannian metric $`g`$ which $`locally`$ is given by $`g^1\mathrm{\Omega }=J`$. Clearly, it would be very interesting to understand how unique is the structure of $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$.

Just as in standard geometric QM, the probabilistic interpretation should be found in the definition of geodesic length on the new space of quantum states/events. Notably since $`Gr(C^{n+1})`$ is only a strictly almost complex, its $`J`$ is only locally complex. This fact translates into the existence of only local time and local metric on the space of quantum events. The local temporal evolution equation is a geodesic equation on the space of quantum events $`\frac{du^a}{d\tau }+\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bc}^au^bu^c=\frac{1}{2E_p}Tr(HF_b^a)u^b`$ where now $`\tau `$ is given through the metric $`\mathrm{}d\tau =2E_pdt`$, where $`E_p`$ is the Planck energy. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bc}^a`$ is the affine connection associated with this general metric $`g_{ab}`$ and $`F_{ab}`$ is a general curvature 2-form in the holonomy gauge group $`Diff(C^{n+1},C^n\times \{0\})`$. This geodesic equation follows from the conservation of the energy-momentum tensor $`_aT^{ab}=0`$ with $`T_{ab}=Tr(F^{ac}g_{cd}F^{cb}\frac{1}{4}g_{ab}F_{cd}F^{cd}+\frac{1}{2E_p}Hu_au_b).`$ Since both the metrical and symplectic data are also contained in $`H`$ and are $`\mathrm{}0`$ limits of their quantum counterparts , , we have here a non-linear “bootstrap” between the space of quantum events and the generator of dynamics. The diffeomorphism invariance of the new quantum phase space is explicitly taken into account in the following dynamical scheme :

$$R_{ab}\frac{1}{2}g_{ab}R\lambda g_{ab}=T_{ab}$$
(8)
($`\lambda =\frac{n+1}{\mathrm{}}`$ for $`CP(n)`$; in that case $`E_p\mathrm{}`$). Moreover we demand for compatibility

$$_aF^{ab}=\frac{1}{E_p}Hu^b.$$
(9)
The last two equations imply via the Bianchi identity a conserved energy-momentum tensor, $`_aT^{ab}=0`$ . The latter, taken together with the conserved “current” $`j^b\frac{1}{2E_p}Hu^b`$, i.e. $`_aj^a=0`$, results in the generalized geodesic Schrödinger equation. As in GR it will be crucial to understand both the local and global features of various solutions to the above dynamical equations. The kinematical structure of ordinary QM is compatible with our general dynamical formulation and thus we naturally expect that our general formalism is compatible with all known cases in which quantum theories of gravity have been non-perturbatively defined, albeit in fixed asymptotic backgrounds (such as string theory in asymptotically $`AdS`$ spaces).

What determines the form of the Hamiltonian $`H`$? The only requirement is that $`H`$ should define a canonical quantum mechanical system whose configuration space is space and whose dynamics defines a consistent quantum gravity in an asymptotically flat background. We are aware of only one example satisfying this criterion: Matrix theory ! Thus our proposal defines a background independent, non-perturbative, holographic formulation of Matrix theory . This choice of the Hamiltonian might at first appear artificial given the generality of our proposal. Yet we note that, from the suggestive geodesic form of the Schrödinger equation, $`H`$ can be viewed as a “charge”, and thus may be determined in a quantum theory of gravity by being encoded in the non-trivial symplectic topology of the space of quantum events. Such a realization may well be possible here since our non linear Grassmannian is non-simply connected .

Finally, among the possible observational implications of our proposal, those we are currently attempting to understand are: 1) possible deviations from the Planck law involving primordial gravitational waves, or Hawking radiation; 2) deviations from the classic QM formula for the vacuum energy (which underlies the cosmological constant problem); 3) relativity of the double slit experiment: once we relax postulate I, so that any information metric is allowed, the relativity (observer dependence) of canonical QM experiments (such as the double-slit experiment) becomes possible; 4) highly constrained deviations from linearity (superposition principle), and canonical QM entanglement; 5) the fact that in our proposal the generalized geometric phase is in $`Diff(C^{n+1},C^n\times \{0\})`$, is also amenable to experimental tests.

Acknowledgments: We thank Tom Banks, Raphael Bousso, Ram Brustein, Lay Nam Chang, Marty Einhorn, Willy Fischler, Jim Hartle, Bob McNees, Joan Simon and Tatsu Takeuchi for recent discussions of our work. D.M. would like to thank the organizers of the QTS3 conference for providing him with an opportunity to present this work. DM was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract DE-FG05-92ER40677 and by NSF grant PHY-9907949 at KITP, Santa Barbara, the stimulating atmosphere of which is gratefully acknowledged.


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# Improved storage of coherent and squeezed states in imperfect ring cavity

## I Introduction

Recently, quantum information processing and quantum communication experiments utilizing photons as information carrier (for a review book ) are performed without an utilizing advantage of quantum memories. The quantum memories can store a quantum state carrying information for a further processing as well as they can store an entanglement resource for an actual time quantum communication. However, the photons are relatively difficult to store and an implementation of a practical quantum memory for photons remains a challenging problem. Earlier proposals for a quantum memory were mainly dedicated to a storing quantum states of individual photons in a high-Q cavity cav , in collective atomic excitations atom  or in a fiber loop memory . To enhance storing individual photon in the fiber loop, a linear-optical quantum computing circuit that runs an error-correction code qec  was proposed Gingrich03 . To protect a qubit against decoherence, the schemes based on the decoherence-free subspace dfs  were also proposed and implemented for trapped ions dfsexp .

Quantum information processing with continuous variables (CVs) based on a manipulation with Gaussian states of many-photon systems CV  represents an interesting alternative to the quantum information and communication protocols exploiting individual photons. In the CV quantum information protocols, the coherent states are mainly utilized as the information carrier and the squeezed states are basic resource for a production of the CV entangled states. To perform more complex and collective CV quantum information protocols we would like to implement a quantum memory which is able to store unknown coherent state or known squeezed state for a long time. To store a continuous-variable information encoded as simultaneous amplitude and phase modulation of coherent state for a long time we can utilize a simple quantum memory device based on optical-fiber loop or a ring cavity. We lock the continuous-wave field into the high-fidelity fiber loop or ring cavity and release it when we need. Recently, a similar method has been proposed to store the polarization qubit in a long length fiber memory . However, in the ring cavity an unavoidable losses at mirrors deteriorate information encoded in the coherent state and typically restricts the storage time. Further, to produce a pronouncedly squeezed state for efficient CV quantum information processing, a ring cavity containing a nonlinear crystal is frequently used in a continuous-wave optical parametric oscillator/amplifier (OPO/OPA) ring . Here an unavoidable losses of the imperfect mirrors restricts a maximal value of the produced squeezing. A method of the squeezing generation in the ring cavity was used, for example, to produce entangled state for a teleportation of coherent states tele .

In this paper we propose a method how to increase the quality of the ring cavity if we are able to inject an auxiliary squeezed light to the cavity through the imperfect mirror and detect a field leaving outside from the mirror by a homodynne detection in every cycle of the field in the ring cavity. According to the measured data, a simply joint feed-forward correction by a modulation of the final state can be performed after many cycles in the ring cavity and we can preserve an unknown coherent or known squeezed state for a long time as will be shown in Sec. II. For the storing of the coherent state it is even necessary only to perform an additional squeezing operation to obtain a fidelity of the storing which is independent on unknown input amplitude. The presented method is based on CV quantum erasing procedure Filip03e  which allows us to restore at least partially the input state after an interaction. Thus a reflectivity of the mirror is in fact enhanced using the erasing procedure. It can also used to enhance maximal amount of the squeezing generated in OPO/OPA in which the ring cavity is filled by a nonlinear crystal as will be demonstrated in Sec. III. Thus we could consequently stimulate an increase of fidelity of CV quantum information protocols. This method is different to the error correcting codes since it works only with information which leaves from the memory unit.

## II Protection of CV state

In this Section, we demonstrate usefulness of quantum erasing to achieve an enhancement of a time of the storage of unknown coherent state or known squeezed state. We consider an empty imperfect ring cavity (without the crystal $`C`$) depicted in Fig. 1 which consists of two mirrors $`M1,M2`$ with almost unit reflectivity at a frequency of stored field. The third imperfect mirror $`M(R)`$ has a less reflectivity $`R`$ than $`M1,M2`$ however still $`R>0.99`$ as is typical in this kind of experiments experiments. The rest of the losses and imperfections are assumed to be negligible in our analysis.

To demonstrate a protection by the erasing effect, the standard setup of imperfect cavity (in the box) is completed by the generator $`S`$ of squeezed states, balanced homodynne detection $`HD`$, displacement correction $`D_T`$ and squeezing correction $`S_T`$. The erasing procedure can be performed as follows. In every round-trip of the quantum field in cavity, a state squeezed in the quadrature variable $`X_M`$ is mixed with a state of an internal cavity mode and the output state leaving from the mirror $`BS`$ is detected by homodyne measurement producing the current $`i_P`$ proportional to a measured quadrature of the field. During many cycles in the cavity, the currents $`i_{P1},i_{P2},\mathrm{},i_{PN}`$ corresponding to every cycle are registered in a computer memory. After $`N`$ cycles corresponding to storage time, a quantum state leaving the cavity by a reducing the reflectivity of the mirror $`M2`$ can be corrected by a total displacement $`D_T`$ calculated from the measured values $`i_{P1},i_{P2},\mathrm{},i_{PN}`$, known reflectivity $`R`$ and total number $`N`$ of the round trips. In addition, we can convert the corrected state to another having the same mean values as the input state by total squeezing operation $`S_T`$, depending on the reflectivity $`R`$ and number $`N`$ of the cycles.

Now, let us look at this procedure in detail. Using Heisenberg picture representing each mode of light by a pair of the conjugate quadrature operators $`X`$ and $`P`$ satisfying the commutation relations $`[X,P]=i`$, the k-th pass through the cavity mirror $`M(R)`$ can be represented by transformation relations

$`X_k=RX_{k1}+TX_{Mk},`$ $`P_k=RP_{k1}+TP_{Mk}`$
$`X_{Mk}^{}=TX_{k1}RX_{Mk},`$ $`P_{Mk}^{}=TP_{k1}RP_{Mk},`$ (1)
where $`X_k`$, $`P_k`$ denote the quadrature variables of the signal mode after $`k`$-th round and $`X_{Mk}`$, $`P_{Mk}`$ stand for the quadrature variable of the meter mode used to inject a squeezed state into the mirror. Detecting a field from the mirror by the homodyne detection, the operator $`P_{Mk}^{}`$ collapses on a real number $`i_{Pk}`$. Using relation (II) we can straightforwardly derive an evolution of the quadrature operators

$`X_N=R^NX_{in}+T{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}}R^{k1}X_{Mk},`$
$`P_N=R^NP_{in}T{\displaystyle \underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}}R^ki_{Pk}`$ (2)
after $`N`$ round trips in the cavity. Here $`X_{in}`$ and $`P_{in}`$ describe the initial quadrature operators of the signal mode which we are trying to protect. Now to suppress the decoherence effect in the signal mode after the series of the $`N`$ passages through the mirror, we can use all measured values $`i_{P1},\mathrm{},i_{PN}`$ and implement on signal mode the total displacement operation

$$X_N^{}=X_N,P_N^{}=P_N+T\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}R^ki_{Pk},$$
(3)
followed by additional squeezing operation

$$X_{out}=\frac{X_N^{}}{R^N},P_{out}=R^NP_N^{}$$
(4)
to achieve an universal character of the protection. Universality means that the mean values of both complementary variables are preserved. Thus the resulting universal transformation

$$X_{out}=X_{in}+\frac{T}{R^N}\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}R^{k1}X_{Mk},P_{out}=P_{in}$$
(5)
of the quadrature operators is obtained. Through our activities any unknown input state was fully restored in the momentum. Further, the mean value of both the coordinate and momentum are unchanged if the injected states have vanishing mean values of the quadratures. However the variance of the quadrature $`X_{out}`$ will differ from the variance $`X_{in}`$. If we consider the injected states to be independent and having the same variance $`\sigma _{XM}`$ , we can write the variance of $`X_{out}`$ in the following form

$$\sigma _{Xout}^2=\sigma _{Xin}^2+(R^{2N}1)\sigma _{XM}^2.$$
(6)
From this follows that we can reduce the noise in the quadrature $`X_{out}`$ as well if we use a state squeezed in the coordinates $`X_{Mk}`$ and thus achieve almost perfect protection of an unknown coherent or known squeezed state. The reason is that the mixing the signal with appropriately squeezed states on the mirror $`M(R)`$ approaches the ideal quantum non-demolition measurement of the certain field quadrature, which can be reversed perfectly by the erasing procedure Filip03e . Note that an amount of fluctuations in the complementary variables $`P_{Mk}`$ does not influence the proposed protection procedure and only the squeezing of single quadrature is relevant.

For a comparison, without any measurements performed, the resulting variances would look as

$`\sigma _{Xout}^2=R^{2N}\sigma _{Xin}^2+(1R^{2N})\sigma _{XM}^2,`$
$`\sigma _{Pout}^2=R^{2N}\sigma _{Pin}^2+(1R^{2N})\sigma _{PM}^2,`$ (7)
if the protected state has mean values equal to zero. However, if this was not true, we would have to perform phase-insensitive amplification to achieve universality and the variances would be

$`\sigma _{Xout}^2=\sigma _{Xin}^2+(R^{2N}1)\sigma _{XM}^2+(R^{2N}1)\sigma _{Xz}^2,`$
$`\sigma _{Pout}^2=\sigma _{Pin}^2+(R^{2N}1)\sigma _{PM}^2+(R^{2N}1)\sigma _{Pz}^2,`$ (8)
with $`X_z`$, $`P_z`$ being the operators of ancillary mode of the amplifier. Qualitatively, the protection method reduces noise completely in the quadrature $`P_{out}`$ and also partially in the quadrature $`X_{out}`$ as can be seen from Eq. (II,II)

To demonstrate an usefulness of the protection quantitatively we fix the reflexivity $`R`$ of the mirror $`M(R)`$ and the squeezing in the auxiliary modes $`Mk`$ since we will compare different strategies with the same resources. In CV quantum computing there are important two basic types of quantum states, coherent and squeezed vacuum state, and our aim was to show how the protection we proposed increases efficiency of storage of these states. We consider and compare four different strategies: (A) protection with vacuum squeezed in $`Xk`$ injected into the modes $`Mk`$ and homodynne detections, (B) protection with unsqueezed vacuum injected in the modes $`Mk`$ and homodynne detections, (C) unprotected storing and (D) only injecting vacuum squeezed in $`Pk`$ in into the modes $`Mk`$ without the homodynne detections.

To compare the different strategies we use the fidelity of protection

$$F=\left[(\sigma _{Xin}^2+\sigma _{Xout}^2)(\sigma _{Pin}^2+\sigma _{Pout}^2)\right]^{1/2},$$
(9)
which is the overlap between initial and resulting Gaussian state. Due to universality of storage only the variances of the initial and resulting state must to be calculate to infer the fidelity. For unknown initial coherent state, the fidelity of protection strongly depends on squeezing of meter mode. In Fig. 2 we use for illustration a feasible squeezed state generated with the variance $`\sigma _M^2=0.5\mathrm{exp}(2)`$ corresponding to 3dB squeezing injected to the imperfect mirror with $`R=0.99`$. It is evident that using erasing with the squeezed state is the best strategy for a long time preservation of unknown coherent state. We can see a qualitative change from an exponential decoherence in the case $`C`$ to the non-exponential one in the case $`A`$. The strategy of squeezed vacuum injection (D) is counterproductive since any unbalancing noise in the complementary quadratures at output results in formidable decrease of fidelity.

On the other hand, squeezed states are asymmetrical in the variances so that we can greatly benefit from asymmetry of our method, if we know the orientation of the squeezed state which could be protected. In our method, a noise in a quadrature is suppressed at the cost of blurring the other one. Since our correction completely preserves the squeezed quadrature and the noise added into the conjugate one is diminutive compared to noise already present, the fidelity is almost unity. Also the squeezing of the mode $`Mk`$ is not of great importance for almost perfect reflectivity $`R`$, as can be seen in Fig. (3). A larger distinction between the strategies (A) and (B) arises for a large number $`N`$ of the rounds in the cavity. Both other strategies (C,D) are worse than (A,B). Here the fidelity strongly depends on the proportion of variances of squeezed quadratures of the signal and meter modes. If we consider the input state is squeezed substantially more then the meter modes, what is reasonable demand, we never find the fidelity for strategy (D) comparable with the protected one. It turned out that for both unknown coherent and known squeezed state protection is always the best strategy.

## III  Protection of squeezing generation

Because of a strong squeezing producing a large entanglement is required for the CV quantum information protocols, the optical cavity often used to form OPO/OPA so that the down-converted fields pass the nonlinear medium numerous times. For the single pass case, the interaction in continuous-wave regime is weak and requested gain is obtained after sufficient number of rounds in the cavity, thus equivalently lengthening the interaction distance. As an example we assume ring cavity filled by a nonlinear crystal exhibiting (degenerate or non-degenerate) down-conversion process. It consists of two mirrors $`M1,M2`$ with almost unit reflectivity at a frequency of down-converted beams and almost unit transitivity for the pump beam. This setup operating as a continuous-wave frequency degenerate but polarization non-degenerate subtreshold OPO with collinear phase-matched type-II down-conversion in KTP was frequently used in the many experiments ring . It produces a squeezed state in two linear polarization modes which can be simply converted to single mode squeezing by $`\lambda /2`$-wave plate along a direction $`\pi /4`$ relative to these polarizations. The nonlinear crystal is pumped by a pulse from the ring laser with intra-cavity frequency doubling. For simplicity, a pumping part of the experimental setup was omitted in Fig. 1.

Next we consider that a nonlinear crystal $`C`$ producing squeezed light pumped by an intensive laser pulse is inserted into the cavity to obtain a source of a sufficiently squeezed state. Here the imperfection of the cavity mirror decreases the efficiency of the squeezing generation, possibly hindering the cumulation of effect at all. We can use the previous method of protection to effectively reduce a losses in mirror $`M(R)`$ and thus enhance an efficiency of the squeezing generation.

To protect the operation we apply a slight modification of above described procedure. The ring cavity containing nonlinear medium performing a weak squeezing of the signal field during each trip in the cavity can be described by the following transformation relations

$`X_k=RGX_{k1}+TX_{Mk},`$ $`P_k={\displaystyle \frac{R}{G}}P_{k1}+TP_{Mk}`$
$`X_{Mk}^{}=GTX_{k1}RX_{Mk},`$ $`P_{Mk}^{}={\displaystyle \frac{T}{G}}P_{k1}RP_{Mk},`$ (10)
for the quadrature operators after the $`k`$-th cycle. Here $`G`$ is a gain of squeezing per single cycle in the cavity which is typically small. In an analogy with the previous case, after the displacement operation

$$X_N^{}=X_N,P_N^{}=P_N+\frac{T}{R}\underset{k=1}{\overset{N}{}}(RG)^{1k}i_{Pk},$$
(11)
we find the resulting state have the variances

$`\sigma _{Xout}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(RG)^{2N}+T^2{\displaystyle \frac{1(RG)^{2N}}{1(RG)^2}}\sigma _{XM}^2,`$
$`\sigma _{Pout}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(RG)^{2N}.`$ (12)
if we consider unsqueezed vacuum to be the initial state. Note, in contrast to protection of the state, we have not performed any additional squeezing $`S_T`$ of the signal mode after it leaved the cavity.

Again we will compare few different strategies, so for evaluation is needed to find the variances of signal field quadrature operators

$`\sigma _{Xout}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(RG)^{2N}+T^2{\displaystyle \frac{1(RG)^{2N}}{1(RG)^2}}\sigma _{XM}^2,`$ (13)
$`\sigma _{Pout}^2={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}({\displaystyle \frac{R}{G}})^2+T^2{\displaystyle \frac{1(\frac{R}{G})^{2N}}{1(\frac{R}{G})^2}}\sigma _{PM}^2`$ (14)
if no active protection was performed. Recall now, we are trying to protect the squeezing operation. That is, if our initial state was vacuum then our target state should be a minimal uncertainty squeezed state. There are two criteria of a quality that we have taken into our account. First one is overall fidelity between the target and actually produced state, the second one is an amount of achievable single quadrature squeezing. Again, four different strategies (A,B,C,D) were considered as in the previous Section.

Consider a pure squeezed state as a target state and ask how is it close to our prepared state. To quantify it we can count the fidelity

$$F=\left[(\sigma _{Xout}+\sigma _{Xtarget})(\sigma _{Pout}+\sigma _{Ptarget})\right]^{1/2}.$$
(15)
between target and obtained state and compare it using the strategies (A,B,C,D). The result is depicted in Fig. 4. For a small number of cycles the strategy of squeezed vacuum injection (D) looks better but only because meter mode squeezing is still comparable or even better than the squeezing of signal field, so interaction on the mirror actually improves the state in the cavity. However, at some point the relevant quadrature cannot be squeezed further due to the cavity losses and each cycle in cavity only adds additional noise to the conjugate quadrature what results in a fidelity decrease. If we apply the correction procedure the squeezing buildup is slower, but inevitable. We can represent squeezing protected by our method as nearly ideal (squeezed quadrature ideal, antisqueezed quadrature slightly disturbed), but with the gain $`RG`$. From this interpretation is apparent we need reflexivity and gain choose so that $`RG>1`$ to obtain high fidelity results.

Next we can study how the evolution of noise in the quadrature which we are trying to squeeze depend on the number $`N`$ of cycles. The results can be understand from Fig. 5. The logarithmic scale was chosen to clearly show what is happening. First, for protected case (A,B), the variance of momentum is not dependent on squeezing in modes $`Mk`$ and it has obviously no theoretical lower bound. Here also is not necessary to use a squeezed meter modes for a generation of the squeezing in a single quadrature with no respect to the noise in the complementary one. On the other hand, for the strategies (C,D) when the protection is not performed the squeezed variances saturate at a point

$$\underset{N\mathrm{}}{lim}\sigma _{Pout}=G^2\frac{1R^2}{G^2R^2}\sigma _{PM}$$
(16)
determined by the proprieties of the cavity and the used squeezing in the modes $`Pk`$. In Fig. 5 we use in the case (D) the same amount of squeezing $`\sigma _MP=0.5\mathrm{exp}(2)`$ as in the cases (A,B) however in the complementary quadrature.

From this follows, if we are interested only in achieving squeezing in one quadrature, what is often sufficient in the CV quantum information protocols, such as optimal CV teleportation, or protection of state depicted in previous section, it is not necessary use a squeezing in the modes $`Mk`$ to protect the squeezing. We need only perform an effective homodyne measurement followed by a single displacement operation at the end.

## IV Conclusion

We have shown how collective quantum erasure performed on single mode in different times can be used to increase the quality of the cavity and the efficiency of storing and squeezing generation processes within. Our method formidably increases the fidelity of storing of unknown coherent state, but due to its asymmetrical nature allows almost perfect storage of known squeezed state. If our protocol is applied to process of squeezing generation it removes the lower bound for one quadrature squeezing attainable and also allows production of pure squeezed states with high fidelity.

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by project 202/03/D239 of The Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, by the projects LN00A015 and CEZ: J14/98 of the Ministry of Education of Czech Republic.


text:
# Supergiant halos as an integral record of natural pionic radioactivity

## Abstract

In this paper an unified interpretation of the supergiant halos (SGH), discovered by Grady, Walker and Laemmlein, is discussed. So, it is proved that SGH‘s can be considered as integral records of the nuclear pionic radioactivity.

The radioactive halos (see Ref. ) were first reported between 1880 and 1890 and their origin was a mystery until the discovery of radioactivity and its power of coloration. The radioactive halos are spherical, microscopic-sized discolourations in crystals. In cross sections on a microscope slide, they appear as a series of tiny concentric rings, usually surrounding a central core (see Fig. 1). This central core is (or at least initially was) an radioactive inclusion in crystal. The $`\alpha `$ -particles, emitted from the radioactive inclusion during radioactive decay, damage the mineral and discolor it, with most of the damage occurring where the particle stop. How far this $`\alpha `$-particle travels depend on its energy. Since all the $`\alpha `$-particles from a particular parent nucleus have the same energy and the particles are fired in all directions, a spherical shell of discolouration will produced, appearing circular in cross-section. Radioactive uranium 238U from inclusions generates multi-ringed halo (see Fig. 1) because its radioactive decay series:

| $`{}_{}{}^{238}U\left(\alpha \right)^{234}Th\left(\beta \right)^{234}Pa\left(\beta \right)^{234}U\left(\alpha \right)^{230}Th\left(\alpha \right)`$ |
| --- |
| $`{}_{}{}^{226}Ra\left(\alpha \right)^{222}Rn\left(\alpha \right)^{218}Po\left(\alpha \right)^{214}Pb\left(\beta \right)^{214}Bi\left(\beta \right)`$ |
| $`{}_{}{}^{214}Po\left(\alpha \right)^{210}Pb\left(\beta \right)^{210}Bi\left(\beta \right)^{210}Po\left(\alpha \right)^{206}Pb\left(stable\right)`$ |

(1)
Hence, of the 15 parent nuclei in this 238U-decay chain, eight emit alpha particles when they decay forming eight rings. However, due to overlap, only five of eight rings of a 238U halo are normally visible. If, instead of radioactive uranium 238U, the inclusion was composed of an radioactive isotope along the decay chain, there would be only fewer rings. So, omitting the first few isotopes in the decay series it is quite simple to work out which isotope was originally in the inclusion by counting the rings. Hence, 218Po forms three rings, 214Po form two rings while 210Po forms only one.

Therefore, aside from their interest as attractive mineralogical oddities, the halos are of great interest for the nuclear physics because they are an integral record of radioactive nuclear decay in minerals. This integral record is detailed enough to allow estimation of the energy involved in the decay process and to identify the decaying nuclide through genetic decay chain. This latter possibility is particularly exciting because there exist certain classes of halos, such as : dwarf halos, X-halos, giant halos and the supergiant halos \[3-4\], which cannot be identified with the ring structure of the known alpha-emitters. Hence, barring the possibility of a non radioactive origin, these new variants of halos can be interpreted as evidences for hitherto undiscovered alpha-radionuclide, as well as, signals for the existence of new types of radioactivities.

Therefore we must underline that in addition to the Laemmlein discovery , who found halos of rather diffuse boundaries with radii up to several thousand micrometers surrounding Thorium-containing monazite inclusions in quartz, Grady and Walker  found twenty-five extremely large halos called supergiant halos (SGH).

The SGH have the following essential characteristic features:

1. The SGH radii are between 50$`\mu m`$ and 410$`\mu m`$ . They have large oval to circular inclusions with radii of 20-52 $`\mu m.`$

2. SGH do not have sharp edges.

3. In thick sections ( $`>30\mu m`$ ) SGH are surrounded by approximately circular brown regions having the same color in unpolarized light as the normal halos and exhibiting the same colors of pleochroism..

4. The coloration of SGH gradually fades as they move away from inclusion.

5. The SGH, with inclusions removed and etched with HF, show an abundance of fossil fission tracks in immediate proximity to the inclusion.

6. Three-dimensional etching of the SGH revealed a complex pattern of extended fossil fission tracks distribution throughout the halo.

7. The SGH inclusions were found to be alpha-active.

Hence, barring the possibility of a non radioactive origin, these new variants of halos can be interpreted as evidences for hitherto undiscovered alpha-radionuclide, as well as, signals for the existence of new types of radioactivities.

In the papers  we discussed a completely new possibility for an unified interpretation of the supergiant halos (SGH), namely, that SGH‘s are the integral records of the nuclear pionic radioactivity \[5-7\]. Indeed, the nuclear pionic radioactivity of a parent nucleus (A,Z) can be considered as an inclusive reaction of form:

$$(A,Z)\pi +X$$
(2)
where X denotes any configuration of final particles (fragments, light neutral and charged particles, etc.) which accompany emission process. The inclusive NPIR (Nuclear PIonic Radioactivity) is in fact a sum of all exclusive nuclear reactions allowed by the conservation laws in which a pion can be emitted by a nucleus from its ground state. The most important exclusive reactions which give the essential contribution to the inclusive NPIR (1) are the spontaneous pion emission accompanied by two body fission:

$${}_{Z}{}^{A}X\pi +_{Z_1}^{A_1}X+_{Z_2}^{A_2}X$$
(3)
Charged pions $`\pi ^\pm `$ as well as neutral pions $`\pi ^0`$ can be emitted during two body or many body fission of parent nucleus. Therefore, we must show that a nuclear reaction (2) is able to produce the supergiant halos discovered by Grady and Walker  and Laemmlein .

Now, we remember that in order for a ”discolored” region in a transparent mineral truly to be a radioactive halo (RH), it must satisfy the following rules:

R1: It must have an inclusion that is, or at one time was, radioactive. The dimension of the pionic radiohalo (PIRH) inclusion must be sufficiently large in order to satisfy the dose rule R2.

R2: The dimension of a radioactive halo is given by that particle emission process with largest range with the condition that its dose satisfy the coloration threshold condition.

R3: In the nuclear reactions (1) from the PIRH-inclusions, the $`\pi ^{}`$\- yields should be about two orders of magnitude larger than the $`\pi ^+`$ yields (see Ref. )

A radioactive halo is called pionic radiohalo (PIRH) if its inclusion (R1) contains, or at one time has contained, a parent pionic radioactive (1) nuclide in such a concentration that produced a pionic dose satisfying the coloration threshold condition (R2). The PIRH by definition must be the integral record in time of the nuclear pionic radioactivity in some minerals such as biotite, fluorite, cordierite, etc. According to R3-rule (see Ref. ), we expect that, two types of PIRH are possible to be observed in nature. These will be the following:

* PIRH(-), when only $`\pi ^{}`$ satisfy the dose rule R2 ;
* SPIRH, which is defined just as a superposition of PIRH(-) and PIRH(+), when both $`\pi ^+`$ and $`\pi ^{}`$ satisfy the dose rule R2 .

PIRH(-) and SPIRH have the same signatures excepting a big difference (about 700-800 $`\mu m`$ in radius, in favor of SPIRH) in dimensions. This difference is given by the fact that $`\pi ^+`$ meson are mainly decaying via $`\pi ^+\mu ^++\nu _\mu `$, while the $`\pi ^{}`$ are stopped in mineral producing the fission of the mineral nuclei in two or more fragments.

The PIRH signatures are as follows :

* PIRH is a pionic radiohalo of supergiant dimensions which possess a large inclusion, sufficient to satisfy the rule R2. The supergiant PIRH dimension is essentially determined by the high ranges of $`\pi `$-mesons as well as of their product of decay $`\mu `$-mesons (see Fig. 2);
* The PIRH do not have sharps edges and their coloration gradually fades as moves away from inclusion;
* The PIRH, must show an abundance of fossil fission tracks in the immediate proximity to the inclusion. This signature is given just by the fission fragments of the pionic emitters (see reaction (1)) from the PIRH-inclusion.
* The PIRH inclusions, by definition, can be $`\alpha `$ -active. As a consequence of the alpha-activity of the nuclei from the PIRH inclusions they must be surrounded by approximately circular regions having the same color as normal halos and exhibiting the same colors of pleochroism;
* Extended fossil fission tracks distribution through the PIRH must be also present as a consequence of the fission of the mineral nuclei produced by the stopping $`\pi ^{}`$ mesons in mineral.

Next, comparing the PIRH signatures with the above essential characteristic features (1-7) of the SGH, it is easy to see that the PIRH(-) can be identified, with a surprising high accuracy, as being the SGH discovered by Grady and Walker  in biotite.

We note that a special investigation of the discovery of the Laemmlein-like  halos are necessary, since these SGH with dimensions around 1-1.5 mm can be identified as being the SPIRH produced by emission of $`\pi ^+`$-mesons during fission of the parent nuclei from the halos inclusions.

(a) (b)

Fig. 1: Examples of uranium radiohalos . (a) A fully-developed uranium radiohalo (dark mica). A uranium radiohalo comprises eight rings, but some rings are of similar size and cannot easily be distinguished. (b) A uranium radiohalos in which all four isotopes are from the 238U decay series.

(a) (b)

Fig. 2:(a) A photomosaic of a part of one supergiant halo (SGH) F-12 discovered by Grady and Walker . The essential characteristic features of this SGH are well reproduced by those of PIRH(-) supergiant halos (see the text); (b) A photo image of the mica surface showing fossil tracks next to inclusion pit.


text:
# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The collapse of perturbations onto local density maxima of the primordial density field is likely to have played a key role in the formation of galaxies and clusters of galaxies. The problem of the collapse has been investigated from several authors (Gunn & Gott 1972; Gunn 1977; Kaiser 1984; Davis et al. 1985; Hoffman & Shaham 1985 - hereafter HS; BBKS; Hoffman 1988; Efstathiou et al. 1988; Evrard et al. 1993; Navarro et al. 1995, 1996, 1997; Avila-Reese et al. 1998).
To overcome the problem of the excessively steep density profiles, $`\rho r^4`$, obtained in numerical experiments of simple gravitational collapse Gunn & Gott (1972), Gott (1975) and Gunn (1977) were able to produce shallower profiles, $`\rho r^2`$ through the $`\mathrm{𝑠𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑦}`$ $`\mathrm{𝑖𝑛𝑓𝑎𝑙𝑙}`$ process. HS considered a scale-free initial perturbation spectra, $`P(k)k^n`$ and assumed that local density extrema are the progenitors of cosmic structures and that the density contrast profile around maxima is proportional to the two-point correlation function. They thus showed that $`\rho r^\alpha `$ with $`\alpha =\frac{3(3+n)}{(4+n)}`$, thus recovering Bertschinger’s (1985) profile for $`n=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$. They also showed that, in an open Universe, the slopes of the density profiles steepen with increasing values of $`n`$ and with decreasing $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$, reaching a profile $`\rho r^4`$ for $`\mathrm{\Omega }0`$. Hoffman (1988) refined the calculations by HS and made a detailed comparison of the analytical predictions of the Secondary Infall Model (hereafter SIM) with the simulations by Quinn et al. (1986) and Quinn & Zurek (1988). The good results given by the SIM in describing the formation of dark matter halos seem to be due to the fact that in energy space the collapse is ordered and gentle, differently from what seen in N-body simulations (Zaroubi et al. 1996).
A great effort has been dedicated to study the role of initial conditions in shaping the final structure of the dark matter halos; but, if on large scales (evolution in the weakly non-linear regime) the growing mode of the initial density fluctuations can be recovered if the present velocity or density field is given (Peebles 1989; Nusser & Dekel 1992), on small scales shell crossing and virialization contribute to make the situation less clear. To study the problem, three-dimensional large-scale structure simulations were run with often conflicting results (Quinn et al. 1986; West et al. 1987; Efstathiou et al. 1988). More recent studies (Voglis et al. 1995; Zaroubi et al. 1996) showed a correlation between the profiles and the final structures. Besides Lemson (1995), Cole & Lacey (1996), Navarro et al. (1996, 1997) and Moore et al. (1997) found that dark matter halos do not follow a power law but develop universal profile, a quite general profile for any scenario in which structures form due to hierarchical clustering, characterized by a slope $`\beta =\frac{d\mathrm{ln}\rho }{dlnr}=1`$ near the halo center and $`\beta =3`$ at large radii. In that approach, density profiles can be fitted with a one parameter functional form:

$$\frac{\rho (r)}{\rho _b}=\frac{\delta _n}{\frac{r}{a}\left(1+\frac{r}{a}\right)^2}$$
(1)
where $`\rho _b`$ is the background density and $`\delta _n`$ is the overdensity \[below we shall refer to Eq. (1) (Navarro et al. 1997) as the NFW profile\]. The scale radius $`a`$, which defines the scale where the profile shape changes from slope $`\beta <2`$ to $`\beta >2`$, and the characteristic overdensity, $`\delta _n`$, are related because the mean overdensity enclosed within the virial radius $`r_{vir}`$ is $`180`$. The scale radius and the central overdensity are directly related to the formation time of a given halo (Navarro et al. 1997). The power spectrum and the cosmological parameters only enter to determine the typical formation epoch of a halo of a given mass, and thereby the dependence of the characteristic radius on the total mass of the halo. Also these last results are not universally accepted. In short, the question of whether galaxies and clusters mass density profiles retain information on the initial conditions and the evolutionary history that led to their formation remains an open question.
In this paper, we introduce a modified version by HS and Hoffman’s (1988) models to study the shapes of the density profiles that result from the gravitational collapse. In particular, we relax the hypothesis that the initial density profile is proportional to the two-point correlation function, and use the density profiles given by BBKS. The plan of the paper is the following: in Sect. 2 we introduce our model and in Sect. 3 we show our results and we draw our conclusions.

## 2 The model

In the most promising cosmological scenarios, structure formation in the universe is generated through the growth and collapse of primeval density perturbations originated from quantum fluctuations (Guth & Pi 1982; Hawking 1982; Starobinsky 1982; BBKS) in an inflationary phase of early Universe. The growth in time of small perturbations is due to gravitational instability. The statistics of density fluctuations originated in the inflationary era are Gaussian, and can be expressed entirely in terms of the power spectrum of the density fluctuation sP( k). In biased structure formation theory it is assumed that cosmic structures of linear scale $`R_f`$ form around the peaks of the density field, $`\delta (r)`$, smoothed on the same scale.
If we suppose we are sitting on a $`\nu \sigma `$ extremum in the the smoothed density field, we have that:

$$\delta (0)=\nu \xi (0)^{1/2}=\nu \sigma $$
(2)
together with:

$$\delta (r)_{r=0}=0$$
(3)
where $`\xi (r)`$ is the two-point correlation function given in $`r=0`$ If the Laplacian of $`\delta (r)`$ is unspecified, that means that the extremum may be a maximum or a minimum, the mean density at a distance $`r`$ from the peak is then:

$$\delta (r)=\nu \xi (r)/\xi (0)^{1/2}$$
(4)
(Peebles 1984; HS). If we calculate the mean density around maxima, as done by BBKS, by adding the constraint:

$$^2\delta (r)_{r=0}<0$$
(5)
we find that the mean density around a peak is given by:

$$\delta (r)=\frac{\nu \xi (r)}{\xi (0)^{1/2}}\frac{\vartheta (\nu \gamma ,\gamma )}{\gamma (1\gamma ^2)}\left[\gamma ^2\xi (r)+\frac{R_{}^2}{3}^2\xi (r)\right]\xi (0)^{1/2}$$
(6)
(BBKS; Ryden & Gunn 1987), where $`\nu `$ is the height of a density peak, $`\gamma `$ and $`R_{}`$ are two spectral parameters while $`\vartheta (\gamma \nu ,\gamma )`$ is:

$$\theta (\nu \gamma ,\gamma )=\frac{3(1\gamma ^2)+\left(1.2160.9\gamma ^4\right)\mathrm{exp}\left[\left(\frac{\gamma }{2}\right)\left(\frac{\nu \gamma }{2}\right)^2\right]}{\left[3\left(1\gamma ^2\right)+0.45+\left(\frac{\nu \gamma }{2}\right)^2\right]^{1/2}+\frac{\nu \gamma }{2}}$$
(7)
In order to calculate $`\delta (r)`$ we need a power spectrum, $`P(k)`$. In the following, we restrict our study to an Einstein-De Sitter ($`\mathrm{\Omega }=1`$) Universe with zero cosmological constant and scale-free density perturbation spectrum $`P(k)`$

$$P(k)=Ak^n$$
(8)
with a spectral index in the range $`1n0`$, and also to a CDM Universe with spectrum given by BBKS. We normalized the spectrum by imposing that the mass variance at $`8h^1Mpc`$ is $`\sigma _8=0.63`$. In the case of a free-scale power spectrum, it is easy to show that the two-point correlation function can be expressed in terms of the confluent hypergeometric function, $`{}_{1}{}^{}F_{1}^{}`$, and of the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (see Del Popolo et al. 1999) function. In the case that $`\nu `$ is very large Eq. (7) reduces to

$$\theta 3(1\gamma ^2)/(\nu \gamma )$$
(9)
and the mean density is well approximated by Eq. (4), which is the approximation used by HS to calculate $`\delta (r)`$. In reality, for peaks having $`\nu =2,3,4`$, the mean expected density profile is different from a profile proportional to the correlation function both for galaxies and clusters of galaxies (see BBKS). For example for galaxies the CDM profile is steeper than that proportional to $`\xi (r)`$ as shown by Ryden & Gunn (1987) with a discrepancy increasing with decreasing $`\nu `$. As shown by Gunn & Gott (1972), a bound mass shell having initial comoving radius $`x`$ will expand to a maximum radius:

$$r_m=x/\overline{\delta }(r)$$
(10)
where the mean fractional density excess inside the shell, as measured at current epoch $`t_0`$, assuming linear growth, can be calculated as:

$$\overline{\delta }=\frac{3}{r^3}_0^r\delta (y)y^2𝑑y$$
(11)
At initial time $`t_i`$ and for a Universe with density parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_i`$, a more general form of Eq. (10) (Peebles 1980) is :

$$r_m=r_i\frac{1+\overline{\delta }_i}{\overline{\delta }_i(\mathrm{\Omega }_i^11)}$$
(12)
The last equation must be regarded as the main essence of the SIM. It tells us that the final time averaged radius of a given Lagrangian shell does scale with its initial radius. Expressing the scaling of the final radius, $`r`$, with the initial one by relating $`r`$ to the turn around radius, $`r_m`$, it is possible to write:

$$r=Fr_m$$
(13)
where $`F`$ is a costant that depends on $`\alpha `$. (Zaroubi et al. 1996). If energy is conserved, then the shape of the density profile at maximum of expansion is conserved after the virialization, and is given by (Peebles 1980; HS; White & Zaritsky 1992):

$$\rho (r)=\rho _i\left(\frac{r_i}{r}\right)^2\frac{dr_i}{dr}$$
(14)
In the limit $`\nu >>1`$, the overdensity $`\delta (r)`$ is proportional to the two-point correlation function and the density profile is a function of $`n`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ only, and then the expected profile is that by HS.

## 3 Results and conclusions

By using the model introduced in the previous section we have studied the density profiles of halos in free-scale universes with $`1n0`$, and for a CDM model characterized by a BBKS spectrum. As previously quoted, the chosen range of $`n`$ is dictated by the limits of the SIM and by the values of $`n`$ interesting in the cosmological context.
In Fig. 1 we plot the slope of the density profile for several values of $`n`$ and $`\nu `$. We began by finding the HS solution, that was recovered as expected in the limit $`\nu >>1`$. This solution is represented by the short-dashed line which coincides with the result by HS, namely $`\alpha =\frac{3(3+n)}{(4+n)}`$, indicating an increase in the slope $`\alpha `$ with increasing $`n`$.

Because of the rarity of extremely high peaks, most galaxies and clusters will form from peaks of height 2 or 3 $`\sigma `$ (BBKS; Ryden & Gunn 1987): so we repeated the calculation of $`\alpha `$ for these values. For $`\nu =3`$, the logarithmic slope of the density profile, calculated at $`1h^1Mpc`$ is steeper for all values of $`n`$ (solid line) than that obtained by HS, and it is well approximated by Shet & Jain (1996) (dotted line), $`\alpha =\frac{3(4+n)}{(5+n)}`$, obtained using stable clustering and neglecting halo-halo correlations. At the same time the dependence of $`\alpha `$ on $`n`$ is weaker than that shown by HS.

For $`\nu =2`$ the slope is even steeper than the previous case (long-dashed line) and it is well approximated by Crone’s et al. (1994) result, which is also consistent with the results by Navarro et al. (1997) (see their Fig. 13). As in the previous case the dependence of $`\alpha `$ on $`n`$ is weaker with respect to that shown in HS.
In Fig. 2 we plot the variation of the scale parameters $`a`$ versus $`M/M_{}`$. Masses are normalized by the characteristic mass $`M_{}`$, which is defined at a time $`t`$ as the linear mass on the scale currently reaching the non-linear regime:

$$M_{}(t)=\frac{4\pi }{3}R_{}^3\rho _b(t)$$
(15)
where the scale $`R_{}`$ is such that the linear density contrast on this scale is $`\delta (R_{})=1.69`$ and $`\rho _b(t)`$ is the background density at the time $`t`$. Once known that the mass variance, $`\sigma _M`$, for a power spectrum $`P(k)k^n`$ is given by $`\sigma _MR^{(3+n)}`$ and remembering our normalization $`\sigma _M(8h^1Mpc)=0.63`$, the value of $`M_{}`$ for $`n=1`$ results to be $`M_{}=6\times 10^{13}M_{}`$. The value of the dimensionless scale radius $`a`$ correlates strongly with halo mass and with spectral index $`n`$. The solid line represents $`a`$ for $`n=1`$. As shown in Fig. 2, more massive halos have a larger scale radius $`a`$, or equivalently less massive halos are more concentrated. The dotted line shows $`a`$ for $`n=0`$. Also for this value of $`n`$ more massive halos are less centrally concentrated. Finally from Fig. 2 we also see that in models with more small-scale power (or equivalently larger values of $`n`$) the haloes tend to have denser cores. These results were expected because halos with mass $`M<<M_{}`$ form much earlier than haloes with $`M>>M_{}`$ and then are more centrally concentrated. Moreover, for a fixed value of $`M/M_{}`$, haloes form earlier in models with larger values of $`n`$ and then have denser cores. This result is in qualitative agreement with those by Navarro et al. (1997), Cole & Lacey (1996), Tormen et al. (1997). The filled squares and the filled exagons, in Fig. 2, represents $`a/r_v`$ for $`n=1`$ and $`n=0`$ respectively obtained by Navarro et al. (1997) in the case $`f=0.01`$ (see their paper for a definition of this parameter) which give the best fit to the results of their simulations.
The virial radius $`r_v`$ is obtained by using Navarro et al. (1997) equation and it determines the mass of the halo through:

$$M_v=200\rho _c\frac{4\pi }{3}r_v^3$$
(16)
In the case $`n=1`$, our model gives less concentrated halos till $`M10M_{}`$ and after this value the tendence is reversed. In the case $`n=0`$, our model gives halos sligthly more concentrated in the overall studied mass range.
The result obtained is remarkable. Our model is based on spherical simmetry, and as we previously stressed, halos accretion does not happen in spherical shells but by aggregation of subclumps of matter which have already collapsed. In other words it seems that the halos structures does not depend crucially on hierarchical merging, in agreement with Huss et al. (1998). The SIM seems to have more predictive power than that till now conferred to it.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Proff. E. Recami and E. Spedicato for stimulating discussions during the period in which this work was performed.