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# Theoretical expectations for clump red giants as distance indicators

### Introduction

Any measurement of distance modulus using red clump stars requires the determination of four quantities:

$$(mM)_0=I^{\mathrm{RC}}(\mathrm{galaxy})M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}(\mathrm{Hipp})A_I+\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}.$$
(1)
The first two – the apparent clump magnitude in an external galaxy, $`I^{\mathrm{RC}}(\mathrm{galaxy})`$, and its absolute magnitude in the Solar Neighbourhood sampled by Hipparcos, $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}(\mathrm{Hipp})`$ – can be accurately measured, with $`1\sigma `$ errors typically $`<0.03`$ mag (e.g. Paczyński & Stanek 1998). Differently, determinations of the total absorption, $`A_I`$, are often controversial at the level of about 0.2 mag, as demonstrated by the case of the LMC field population (Udalski 1998; Romaniello et al. 1999; Zaritsky 1999). Even more controversial is the assessment of the intrinsic differences in magnitude between Hipparcos and the external populations of clump stars, $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$. In this regard, the dependence of $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ on age and metallicity has been claimed to be either (i) small and empirically-calibrated (Udalski 1998ab, 2000), or (ii) more significant as suggested by stellar models (Cole 1998; Girardi et al. 1998) and observations of open clusters (Twarog et al. 1998; Sarajedini 1998). Moreover, Girardi & Salaris (2000) conclude that present empirical calibrations for $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ (Udalski 1998ab, 2000) do not represent general relations, and hence are not suitable for being used in eq. (1). The discussion about $`A_I`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ is especially important in the case of the LMC, because the red clump method has been claimed to provide strong evidence for a “short” distance scale (Udalski 2000, and references therein).

In the limited space of this review, I just recall the main reasons why theoretical models predict non-negligible (up to 0.4 mag) $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ values. For a detailed discussion – based on the same kind of analysis as here – of the related observational data, I refer to Girardi & Salaris (2000).

### Why $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ changes with age and metallicity

Firstly, I recall that in the interval of effective temperatures that characterize red clump stars ($`3.8<T_{\mathrm{eff}}<3.6`$; see Girardi et al. 1998), bolometric corrections in the $`I`$-band are almost constant (to within 0.1 mag) and depend very little on metallicity. This means that $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ reflects very well the behaviour of $`\mathrm{log}L`$, a quantity directly predicted by stellar evolution models.

And stellar models have since long predicted that core He-burning stars (CHeB) of low-mass (say $`M<2`$ $`M_{}`$), for a given metallicity, should cover a small interval of $`\mathrm{log}L`$ – as pointed out by e.g. Cannon (1970) and Castellani et al. (1992) – as a consequence of the similar core masses $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ that they have at the He-flash. In fact, similar $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ values imply nearly the same luminosities coming from their He-burning cores, i.e. $`L_{\mathrm{He}}\mathrm{const}`$. However, it has not been much emphasized that, for the same $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ and metallicity, the luminosity of the H-burning shell increases monotonicaly with the envelope mass, so that $`L_\mathrm{H}M`$ (roughly). Since $`L=L_\mathrm{H}+L_{\mathrm{He}}`$ with $`L_\mathrm{H}2L_{\mathrm{He}}`$ at $`M=1`$ $`M_{}`$, it follows that low-mass clump stars must become some tenths of a magnitude brighter at larger masses/smaller ages. Another trend is that $`L`$ should decrease with \[Fe/H\], due to the decrease of both $`M_{\mathrm{core}}`$ and efficiency of the H-burning shell.

Some CHeB intermediate-mass stars do also occupy the clump region of the HR diagram (Girardi 1999). Their luminosities change a lot with age, reflecting mainly the proportionality between the core mass at He-ignition and the initial mass, that is followed by stars that do not develop e<sup>-</sup>-degenerate He cores.

These behaviours are shared by most (if not all) sets of evolutionary tracks of CHeB stars present in the literature (e.g. Pols et al. 1998; Charbonnel et al. 1996; Girardi et al. 2000, among others), and are schematically presented in Fig. 1: $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ is expected to change by as much as $`0.4`$ mag with age at a fixed \[Fe/H\], and by $`0.4`$ mag with \[Fe/H\] at a fixed age. A few theoretical uncertainties (e.g. overshooting, mass-loss, the helium-to-metal enrichment ratio, as shown in Fig. 1) can change the details of this behaviour by $`0.1`$ mag, but cannot change the general trends.

### Why $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ changes among galaxies

Assessing the changes of $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ with age and metallicity is only half of the problem in determining the $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ values to be used in eq. (1). The other half corresponds to answering “What are the age and metallicity distributions of clump stars in galaxies ?”

This question finds quantitative answers from basic population synthesis theory, once we know the past star formation rate (SFR) and age-metallicity relation (AMR) of the galaxies considered (see Girardi & Salaris 2000). Fig. 2 shows two illustrative cases:

(i) In a late-type galaxy that has formed stars at a nearly constant rate since its formation until now (e.g. the disks of spirals, or irregulars), the age distribution of clump stars strongly concentrates at relatively young ages ($`13`$ Gyr). This effect comes out because: (i) the rate at which stars leave the main sequence decreases with age; and (ii) the He-burning lifetime has a maximum for stars of $`1`$ Gyr. Notice that a predominantly young clump implies a somewhat narrow \[Fe/H\] distribution, since, in general, galaxies have experienced little chemical evolution in the last few gigayears.

(ii) In an early-type galaxy where star formation ceased after just a few Gyr (e.g. ellipticals and the bulges of spirals), clump stars younger than $`8`$ Gyr simply do not exist and the clump age distribution is narrow. These old populations, in general, present a broader distribution of \[Fe/H\] values.

Of course, any intermediate (and even more extreme) behaviour can occur. The general situation is that quite different distributions of ages/metallicities of clump stars are expected among different galaxies. The local sample of stars that define the Hipparcos clump, is also expected to be quite different from those found in other Local Group systems.

### Conclusions about $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$

If we consider Figs. 1 and 2 together, the conclusions are almost immediate: non-neglegible values of $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ are expected among different galaxies. Girardi et al. (1998) and Girardi & Salaris (2000) find $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ values as large as $`0.20.3`$ mag for the Magellanic Clouds. When one uses these theoretical population corrections, and the Romaniello et al. (1999) or Zaritsky (2000) determinations for $`A_I`$, it turns out that the red clump method is still compatible with a “long” distance scale, with $`(mM)_0^{\mathrm{LMC}}=18.55\pm 0.05`$ mag for the LMC.

These conclusions seem to be in contradiction with Udalski (1998ab, 2000), who, on observational grounds, finds a small dependence of $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ on both age and metallicity. However, Girardi & Salaris (2000) clarify that (i) larger dependences, compatible with theoretical models, are found by Twarog et al. (1998) and Sarajedini (1999); (ii) Udalski’s empirical relations do not have general validity, since they reflect the particular distributions of ages and metallicities of clump stars included in the observational samples, and express the clump behaviour by means of a too simple relation between $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ and \[Fe/H\] (which, cf. Figs. 1 and 2, is not expected to be satisfactory, for both star clusters and galaxies). According to Girardi & Salaris, theoretical models still provide the most reliable $`\mathrm{\Delta }M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ values, provided that the SFR and AMR of the galaxies under scrutiny are sufficiently well known.

In summary, theoretical predictions seem to survive to most tests provided by observational data (cf. Girardi & Salaris 2000), and yet lead to an interpretation of the data that is substantially different – and much more complete ! – than the one sketched in present empirical $`M_I^{\mathrm{RC}}`$ versus \[Fe/H\] calibrations. Can we really do without theoretical models ?

#### Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to Maurizio Salaris, Martin Groenewegen and Achim Weiss, my collaborators in the clump work.

## References

Cannon R.D., 1970, MNRAS 150, 111

Castellani V., Chieffi A., Straniero O., 1992, ApJS 78, 517

Charbonnel C., Meynet G., Maeder A., Schaerer D., 1996, A&AS 115, 339

Cole A.A., 1998, ApJ 500, L137

Girardi L., 1999, MNRAS 308, 818

Girardi L., Groenewegen M.A.T., Weiss A., Salaris M., 1998, MNRAS 301, 149

Girardi L., Salaris M., 2000, MNRAS in press (astro-ph/0007343)

Girardi L., Bressan A., Bertelli G., Chiosi C., 2000, A&AS, 141, 371

Paczyński B., Stanek K.Z., 1998, ApJ 494, L219

Pols O.R., Schröder K.-P., Hurley J.R., et al. 1998, MNRAS 298, 525

Romaniello M., Salaris M., Cassisi S., Panagia N., 2000, ApJ 530, 738

Sarajedini A., 1999, AJ 118, 2321

Twarog B.A., Anthony-Twarog B.J., Bricker A.R. 1999, AJ 117, 1816

Udalski A., 1998a, Acta Astr. 48, 113

Udalski A., 1998b, Acta Astr. 48, 383

Udalski A., 2000, ApJ 531, L25

Zaritsky D., 1999, AJ 118, 2824


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# Long-time behavior and relaxation of power-law correlation in one-dimensional self-gravitating system

## 1 Introduction

Spatial structure in many-body systems is an important subject in many branches of physics, such as molecular systems, gravitational systems, and so on. For various types of such structures, their origins are interesting subject of study. Some of them may be realized as equilibrium distribution, and others may be already set at initial conditions.

Recently we have discovered that spatial structure with power-law correlation spontaneously emerges from uniformly random initial conditions in one-dimensional self-gravitating system . What is important in this novel phenomenon is that the spatial structure is not given at the initial condition, but dynamically created from a state without spatial correlation. Succeeding research clarified that the structure is created first in small spatial scale then grows up to large scale through hierarchical clustering .

The question to be discussed now is the properties of the state which has power-law correlation. In particular we have to clarify whether the state persists for long time, or just a short transient and disappears quickly. If the state lasts for long time, we have good chance to observe it and it has much importance. On the other hand, if the state disappears quickly, it may not be observable easily and it is less important to the whole dynamics of the system.

Another important question is on the relaxation process ( See  and references therein.). Since the system is an isolated many-body system without dissipation, one would expect that the system will eventually relax to thermal equilibrium for sufficiently long time scale. Hence relation between decay (if it does) of power-law structure and relaxation processes of thermalization is also important.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the long-time behavior of the power-law structure; its lifetime and mechanism of relaxation. The model is introduced in the next section. In section 3 we introduce several quantities which represent relaxation and investigate their dynamics to clarify the mechanism by which the power-law structure disappears. The final section is devoted to summary and discussions.

## 2 Model

The model we use in this paper is the self-gravitating one-dimensional system . It represents a system of particles on one-dimension interacting through Newtonian gravity. It can also be interpreted as a system consists of equivalent mass-sheets placed parallel in 3-dimensional space, hence it is also called as the sheet model.

The Hamiltonian of the model is

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{p_i^2}{2m}}+2\pi Gm^2{\displaystyle \underset{i>j}{}}\left|x_ix_j\right|,\mathrm{}<x_i<\mathrm{},`$ (1)
where $`x_i`$ and $`p_i`$ represent coordinate and momentum of $`i`$’th particle, $`N`$ is the number of particles, $`m`$ stands for mass of each particle, and $`G`$ is a positive constant. Force between two particles is attractive and long-ranged.

In this paper we set $`m1/N`$ and $`4\pi G1`$ . Time is measured in unit $`t_c1/\sqrt{4\pi GM/L}`$ , where $`MmN`$ is total mass, $`L`$ is the spatial length on which particles are distributed initially.

## 3 Numerical results

Now we show temporal evolution of the power-law correlation. Since the formation process is already studied in our previous work , here we focus on the long-time behavior.

In what follows we use a typical example whose initial condition and parameters are defined as follows:

system size $`:`$ $`N=2048,`$
initial condition $`:`$ $`iv_i=0,`$
$`x_i=\text{uniformly random in }[0,1).`$
### 3.1 Power-law correlation

In our previous works we showed that spatial structure where two-point correlation function obey power-law

$$\xi (r)r^\alpha $$
(3)
is formed in the model (1) from uniformly-random initial conditions . Here the the two-point correlation function $`\xi (r)`$ is defined as

$$dP=ndV(1+\xi (r))$$
(4)
where $`dP`$ stands for probability to find another particle in volume $`dV`$ at distance $`r`$ from a particle. $`n`$ is the average number density.

Using this correlation function we found that the model (1) with initial conditions with zero velocity dispersion evolves into a state where $`\xi (r)`$ obeys power-law (3). In Figure 1 we show a typical example of such power-law correlation.

### 3.2 $`V_r`$ : virial ratio

The main question we would like to discuss in this paper is whether the power-law structure lasts for long time or not. For that purpose we need to define a time scale for reference.

As for the one-dimensional self-gravitating system (1), it is known that relaxation proceeds through three stages; first virialization process occurs, then “microscopic relaxation”, then “macroscopic relaxation” . (Each process is explained later.) We will compare the decay of power-law structure and each relaxation process.

First we adopt a time scale called virial time $`t_{vr}`$ defined from virial ratio $`V_r(t)`$. Virial ratio is defined as

$$V_r(t)2E_{kin}(t)/E_{pot}(t),$$
(5)
where $`E_{kin}(t)`$ and $`E_{pot}(t)`$ are kinetic and potential energy of the system at time $`t`$, respectively.

Since the total energy is conserved and finite, it follows from virial theorem that

$$2\overline{E_{kin}}/\overline{E_{pot}}=1,$$
(6)
where $`\overline{E_{kin}}`$ and $`\overline{E_{pot}}`$ are long time average of $`E_{kin}(t)`$ and $`E_{pot}(t)`$, respectively. Thus convergence of $`V_r(t)`$ to 1 is one good measure of relaxation of the system, and the time scale $`t_{vr}`$ at which $`V_r(t)`$ converges to 1 is a good reference timescale. We call $`t_{vr}`$ virial time.

Figure 2 shows temporal evolution of the virial ratio (5). It is seen that the virial ratio $`V_r(t)`$ converges to 1 at about $`t150`$. At this time it can be said that the system has relaxed to a state in the sense of energy partition. The important point to note is that the power-law correlation shown in Fig.1 exists after the virial ratio is converged to 1. (Remember that the figure is taken at $`t=250`$. Also it is confirmed in other examples.) That is, power-law correlation lasts longer than virial time. In this sense the power-law correlation persists long.

### 3.3 $`\alpha (t)`$ : exponent of power-law

The next problem is the length of time it lasts. For that purpose we investigate the long-time behavior of the exponent $`\alpha `$ of power-law (3).

Fig. 3 represents temporal evolution of the exponent $`\alpha `$ for time scale much longer than the one shown in Fig. 2 for 10 independent orbits. Initial conditions are the same as (3) with different realization of random numbers. From this figure we see that the power-law structure is not stationary but transient and gradually fading in this time scale. Decrease of the exponent $`\alpha (t)`$ can be considered as relaxation process.

### 3.4 $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ : energy exchange

Next we investigate the process of relaxation of power-law correlation. For that purpose we measure $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ defined below, by which we can see the degree of energy exchange between particles .

$`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ is defined as follows. First we define $`\epsilon _i(t)`$, 1-particle energy per unit mass as

$$\epsilon _i(t)\frac{1}{2}v_i^2(t)+2\pi Gm\underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left|x_j(t)x_i(t)\right|.$$
(7)
If the system is ergodic the long time average of $`\epsilon _i(t)`$ converges to a unique value

$$\underset{T\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{1}{T}_0^T\epsilon _i(t)𝑑t=5E_{total}/3\epsilon _0$$
(8)
for all $`i`$.

Using this $`\epsilon _0`$ , $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ is defined as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }(t)\frac{1}{\epsilon _0}\sqrt{\frac{1}{N}\underset{i=1}{\overset{N}{}}\left[\frac{1}{t}_0^t\epsilon _i(t^{})𝑑t^{}\epsilon _0\right]^2}.$$
(9)
$`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ represents deviation from equipartition of energy among particles. At each time step $`\epsilon _i(t)`$ varies from particle to particle. A particle which initially has high energy may give the energy to particles which initially have low energy, and vice versa. Hence, in the course of time evolution, if the value $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{t}}{\displaystyle _0^t}\epsilon _i(t^{})𝑑t^{}\epsilon _0\right)`$ decays to zero for most of the particles, we can say that energy is well exchanged among particles. On the other hand, $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ remains constant if energy is not exchanged between particles and every $`\epsilon _i(t)`$ is kept constant. Thus decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ indicates energy exchange among particles.

Fig. 4 shows temporal evolution of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ for the parameters (3). Initial increase of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ represents that, instead of becoming equipartitioned, differences of one-particle energy among particles are temporarily enhanced. Let us turn our attention to behavior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ in later time. We see that $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$ begins to decrease from $`t1500`$, which is of the same order of the time when the power-law fades away as seen in Fig. 3. Hence we can say that the power-law structure relaxes as energy is exchanged among particles.

### 3.5 $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ : cumulative energy distribution

Now we investigate further the process of relaxation of power-law structure. We have seen that the power-law structure begins to disappear as energy exchange among particle begins, as indicated by the decrease of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(t)`$. If, through this relaxation, energy distribution is kept constant, this relaxation phase corresponds to “microscopic relaxation” discussed by Tsuchiya et al. . If, on the other hand, energy distribution is also relaxed to that of thermal equilibrium, then the phase corresponds to “macroscopic relaxation”.

We measure energy distribution by $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ defined as follows:

$$\nu (\epsilon )\frac{1}{N}\left(\text{number of particles whose energy }\epsilon _i\text{ is less than }\epsilon \right),$$
(10)
where $`N`$ is the total number of particles. Since $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ is a cumulative distribution, $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ increases monotonically with respect to $`\epsilon `$. If the graph of $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ does not change with respect to time through relaxation, then the relaxation is microscopic relaxation.

Figs. 5 and 6 show $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ for two temporal intervals. Two well-known quasi-stationary state, water-bag distribution and isothermal distribution  are also shown as references.

Fig. 5 represents $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ for $`250<t<2000`$, when the system has power-law correlation and the system is virialized (see Fig. 2). Please note that $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ does not change for this time.

Fig. 6 represents $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ for $`8000<t<9750`$ overlaid on the previous figure. In this temporal interval power-law correlation is lost (see Fig. 3). It is clearly seen that the energy distribution remains the same regardless of the existence of power-law correlation. Thus we can say that the relaxation process of power-law structure can be explained by the microscopic relaxation caused by energy exchange among particles while keeping the global energy distribution fixed.

## 4 Summary and discussions

In this paper we numerically investigated the long-time behavior of power-law correlation structure  in one-dimensional self-gravitating system. The power-law correlation exists even after the system is virialized. In this sense the structure persists for long time. The lifetime of the structure is, however, not infinite and it gradually fades away. By comparing the timescale of the lifetime with other time scales of relaxation we see that the decay of the power-law structure is not caused by virialization process but by energy exchange among particles. The one-particle energy distribution $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ is invariant through the relaxation of the structure, hence it is the microscopic relaxation . The system is not stationary if we see it by the exponent $`\alpha `$ of correlation, but it is at the same time quasi-stationary if we see it by the energy distribution $`\nu (\epsilon )`$ after the system is virialized.

The fact that power-law correlation structure lasts long implies that the structure is important in the whole dynamical evolution of the system and we may be able to observe such structure in other systems even if the system is virialized.

Relation between the decay of power-law correlation and microscopic relaxation has an important consequence. It is known that the microscopic relaxation time depends linearly on the system size $`t_{micro}N`$ . Hence it is likely that the average lifetime of the power-law correlation has similar dependence on $`N`$, which is quite long for large $`N`$.

Let us now summarize schematically the entire life of the spatial power-law correlation structure in the model (1) clarified through a series of our works.

1. From initial condition with zero velocity dispersion , spatial structure with power-law correlation emerges in small spatial scale . Typical example of such initial condition is $`iv_i=0`$ , $`x_i=\text{random}`$.
2. The power-law correlation structure grows up to large scale through hierarchical clustering .
3. The system is virialized. Power-law correlation structure persists.
4. Microscopic relaxation takes place and power-law correlation structure disappears. Energy distribution remains invariant.

Related models with a uniform background or friction  are investigated from cosmological interest. In those models similar fractal structure has been observed and is more persistent. Comparison with our results may be helpful to understand mechanism by which the structure is retained in their models.

It should also be noted that the structure formation we have studied have origin in dynamics. It is interesting that, instead of monotonously relaxing to thermal equilibrium the system, initially does not have spatial correlation, creates spatial correlation of power-law type through dynamics. It seems difficult to explain it in terms of thermodynamics or equilibrium statistical physics, since the structure appears in states which are not thermally relaxed. Recently dynamical formation of spatial structure in long-range interacting systems is actively investigated. Relation between our results and other examples of structure formation with dynamical origin  will be interesting.

In this paper we have focused on typical behavior of the system. Several problems related to details of the behavior remain unsolved. Among them there are, for example, initial condition dependence, system size dependence, and so on. These are beyond the scope of this short paper and of important subjects of future study.

In this paper we have studied the behavior of the system until power-law structure disappears through energy exchange and energy distribution. It will be interesting to investigate whether there are other relaxation processes effectively working , and the behavior of the system in the course of approach to equilibrium .

The spontaneous emergence of power-law correlation we have studied so far is a novel phenomenon with rich implication. We hope our research serves as a foundation for future study, both fundamental and applied.


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# NFS-ITP-00-118hep-th/0010251 Fluxons and Exact BPS Solitons in Non-Commutative Gauge Theory

## 1 Introduction

Introducing the notion of non-commutative space in string theories have made fruitful and remarkable results in these years. Among them, solitons in various non-commutative theories have played a central role in understanding the physics of non-commutative theories and certain situations of string theories. One of the applications is the string field theories in which introducing the non-commutativity makes it possible to construct D-branes as solitons . On the other hand, the non-commutative field theories are interesting subjects by themselves, especially when they are realized as the low energy description of D-branes in string theories. Solitons in these theories have interpretation of the brane configurations, and using the brane configuration techniques new phenomena such as the non-locality of the non-commutative monopoles  and the resolution of the small instanton singularity in the moduli space of the non-commutative instantons  have been investigated.

In the sequence of the above study, some exact solutions for finite non-commutativity parameters have been constructed . Among them, the transformation proposed recently by Harvey, Kraus and Larsen (HKL)  is particularly interesting, because it transforms a trivial solution (such as a vacuum solution) into a non-trivial classical solution of equations of motion. We summarize their method briefly here. Let us consider a general action written in terms of various fields $`\varphi _i`$ which are represented by operators on the the non-commutative space. The equations of motion are

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi _i}}=0.`$ (1.1)
The HKL transformation is defined using the “almost” unitary operator U as

$`\varphi _iU\varphi _iU^{},`$ (1.2)
where $`U^{}U=I`$, however $`UU^{}I`$. Under this transformation, the equations of motion remain intact:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi _i}}U{\displaystyle \frac{\delta S}{\delta \varphi _i}}U^{}=0.`$ (1.3)
Since to show the invariance of the equations of motion one uses only $`U^{}U=I`$, the opposite combination $`UU^{}`$ is not necessarily a unity. Because $`(UU^{})(UU^{})=U(U^{}U)U^{}=UU^{}`$, the combination $`UU^{}`$ must be a projection operator. Therefore, if we adopt some non-trivial projector $`UU^{}`$, the transformation (1.2) generates new solitons of equations of motion. Note that we have assumed that there is no source term for the field $`\varphi _i`$ in the action. If the source term is present, then a part of the equations of motion coming from the source term is not invariant under the HKL transformation.

In general, the HKL transformation generates non-BPS solutions. This is because the BPS equations in non-commutative gauge theories generally contain a constant term which becomes a source term in the BPS equations mentioned above. However, in this paper, using a simple trick, we show that the BPS fluxon solution  which represents a D-string piercing a D3-brane can be reconstructed by the HKL method. A virtue of this reconstruction is that we can find variations of the fluxon solutions. These solutions have interesting brane interpretation. Using the Seiberg-Witten map  which relates the non-commutative description to the ordinary description, we study the width of the fluxon and clarify the reason why there is no corresponding solution in the ordinary description.

## 2 BPS equation and solution

Let us consider the 1+3 dimensional non-commutative gauge theory with a scalar field $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$. We introduce non-commutativity only in the $`x^1`$-$`x^2`$ plane: $`[x^1,x^2]=i\theta `$. The equations of motion in the operator representation are written as

$`[D_\nu ,[D_\nu ,D_\mu ]]+[\mathrm{\Phi },[\mathrm{\Phi },D_\mu ]]=0,`$ (2.1)
$`[D_\mu ,[D_\mu ,\mathrm{\Phi }]]=0.`$ (2.2)
We have defined covariant derivatives $`D_\mu _\mu +A_\mu `$ ($`\mu =0,\mathrm{},3`$) where the gauge field $`A_\mu `$ is anti-Hermitian. One recognizes that this equations of motion are that of IKKT IIB Matrix model . When written in terms of operator language, the equations of motion can be expressed always in the form of matrix models. This indicates a close relation between non-commutative gauge theories and matrix models.

Assuming static configurations $`_0=0`$ and no electric field excitation $`A_0=0`$, the above equations of motion are consistent with the following first order BPS equation

$`B_i+[D_i,\mathrm{\Phi }]=0,`$ (2.3)
where $`B_i`$ is the magnetic field and $`i=1,2,3`$. Taking the gauge $`A_3=0`$, the BPS equations become

$`_3\mathrm{\Phi }=i[D_1,D_2]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }},_3D_1=i[D_2,\mathrm{\Phi }],_3D_2=i[\mathrm{\Phi },D_1].`$ (2.4)
Defining $`D(D_1+iD_2)/\sqrt{2}`$ and $`\overline{D}D^{}`$, we write these equations in a simple form for the latter convenience as

$`_3\mathrm{\Phi }=[D,\overline{D}]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }},_3D=[D,\mathrm{\Phi }].`$ (2.5)
The HKL transformation applied to this theory is

$`DUDU^{},\mathrm{\Phi }U\mathrm{\Phi }U^{}.`$ (2.6)
So as to keep the $`A_3=0`$ gauge, the transformation operator $`U`$ has to be independent of $`x^3`$.

One notices immediately that, though this transformation keeps the equations of motion (2.2) invariant, it changes the BPS equations (2.5). This is simply because the constant term $`1/\theta `$ exists in eqs. (2.5). This constant term behaves as if it is a source term in the equation. Generally, BPS equations are the first order equations and contain field strengths which are not in commutators. So the BPS equations in the non-commutative space have the constant term which is not invariant under the HKL transformation. This shows that the HKL transformation generates non-BPS solutions of equations of motion in general.

However, in our case, there is a certain method to obtain BPS solutions using the HKL transformation. Note that above BPS equations (2.4) are precisely the Nahm’s equations for the non-commutative monopoles . The trick used in the papers was to redefine one of the ingredients as

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\mathrm{P})}\mathrm{\Phi }{\displaystyle \frac{z}{\theta }}.`$ (2.7)
In terms of this $`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\mathrm{P})}`$, the BPS equations (2.5) do not include the constant term $`1/\theta `$ and they look as if they are in the commutative space.

$`_3\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\mathrm{P})}=[D,\overline{D}],_3D=[D,\mathrm{\Phi }].`$ (2.8)
Hence we can apply the HKL transformation on these equations without the constant term.

Before applying the transformation, let us see simple solutions to be transformed. One of them is

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\mathrm{P})}=\mathrm{\Phi }_0\mathrm{\Phi }_1x^3,D=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Phi }_1}a,`$ (2.9)
where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1(0)`$ are real constant parameters and $`a`$ is a creation operator: $`a(x^1+ix^2)/\sqrt{2\theta }`$. Some particular choices of these parameters exhibit interesting solutions. First, the choice (i) $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1=1/\theta ,\mathrm{\Phi }_0=0`$ provides us with a trivial vacuum solution with $`\mathrm{\Phi }=0`$, $`B=0`$. The second choice (ii) $`\mathrm{\Phi }_1=0`$, $`\mathrm{\Phi }_00`$ is interesting. In this case $`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }_0+z/\theta `$ (see fig. 1-(ii)) and we have a constant field strength $`B_3=([D,\overline{D}]+\frac{1}{\theta })=1/\theta `$. Note that the surface expressed by the scalar $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ has the constant slope which is exactly the same slope as the one that a fluxon solution  has. The fluxon solution represents a D-string piercing the D3-brane, therefore our solution (ii) represents a brane configuration that all the world volume is filled with many parallel piercing D-strings. We cannot see the D3-brane! How this situation is possible in the non-commutative theory and impossible in the equivalent ordinary theory will be addressed later.

Then let us perform the HKL transformation on this solution (2.9). Taking the simplest nontrivial transformation $`U=_{n0}|n+1n|`$, the result for the choice (i) is

$`\mathrm{\Phi }=U\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{original}}^{(\mathrm{P})}U^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{z}{\theta }}={\displaystyle \frac{z}{\theta }}P_0,B_3={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\theta }}P_0,`$ (2.10)
where $`P_0`$ is the projection operator onto the state $`|0`$. This is precisely the BPS fluxon  (see fig. 2-(i)). Thus we have reproduced the BPS fluxon solution using the HKL transformation. For the choice (ii), the result is

$`\mathrm{\Phi }=\mathrm{\Phi }_0(1P_0)+z/\theta ,B_3=1/\theta .`$ (2.11)
Note that the magnetic field is not changed from the one before the HKL transformation. From the configuration of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ depicted in fig. 2-(ii), we interpret this solution as the smeared many parallel D-strings with a single D-string protruded out of them in parallel. This solution is similar to the non-BPS solutions found in ref. : a certain moduli of the solution is corresponding to the transverse separation of the object from the main brane. In our case, the parameter $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ measures the separation of a single D-string from the other smeared surface of the D-strings. Again, we cannot see the D3-brane surface. To our best knowledge, no similar solution has been found in the ordinary theories.

We can generalize the above construction easily to the non-Abelian case. Adopting a simple solution (we are working in $`U(2)`$ gauge group for simplicity)

$`\mathrm{\Phi }^{(\mathrm{P})}=\mathrm{\Phi }_1z\text{ }\text{ ̵}+\mathrm{\Phi }_0\sigma _3,D=\sqrt{\mathrm{\Phi }_1}a\text{ }\text{ ̵},`$ (2.12)
after the HKL transformation we obtain a generalized fluxon which represents a D-string piercing two parallel D3-branes.

## 3 Width of the fluxon and Seiberg-Witten Map

The fluxon solution was originally constructed by observing an asymptotic behavior of the non-commutative $`U(1)`$ monopole solution in ref. . At $`x^3=+\mathrm{}`$, the non-commutative monopole solution becomes extremely simple and have the form of eq. (2.10). The asymptotic value of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is given by the projection operator $`P_0`$ which is a Gaussian of the width $`\sqrt{\theta }`$ whose center is located at the origin of the non-commutative plane ($`x^1`$-$`x^2`$ plane). Therefore the fluxon has the width of $`\sqrt{\theta }`$.

According to ref. , this non-commutative theory has an equivalent ordinary description with the NS-NS 2-form $`b`$-field, not with the non-commutativity. This is the ordinary Dirac-Born-Infeld theory with the $`b`$-field, and in this theory a solution corresponding to the non-commutative monopole through the Seiberg-Witten map was constructed . The construction of this solution is due to the performance of the rotation in the target space. In fact, the solution satisfies a non-linear BPS equation, and this rotation in the target space relates the non-linear BPS equation to the linear one,

$`B_i+b_i+_i\mathrm{\Phi }=0,`$ (3.1)
where $`b_i=ϵ_{ijk}b_{jk}/2=b\delta _{i3}`$ is the $`b`$-field. The solution of this linear equation is

$`\mathrm{\Phi }={\displaystyle \frac{1}{r}}bx^3.`$ (3.2)
The first term (“spike” of the BIon) shows the D-string ending on the D3-brane . The second term represents a slope of the D3-brane surface. Performing on the above linear solution (3.2) the rotation in the target space so that the D3-brane surface become horizontal, one obtains the solution of the non-linear BPS equations . This configuration with the horizontal D3-brane corresponds to the non-commutative monopole of ref.  through the Seiberg-Witten map.

As is seen in the following, in the ordinary description, we cannot obtain a solution representing a D-string piercing the D3-brane. If one wants to pierce the D3-brane, one has to add $`1/r`$ to the above solution (3.2). This $`1/r`$ term represents the D-string elongating in the $`\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{}`$ direction. However, this term cancels the first term in (3.2) and the whole spike vanishes.

Another argument is as follows: The fluxon solution is obtained by seeing the asymptotic behavior ($`x^3\mathrm{}`$) of the non-commutative monopole. If one see the corresponding asymptotic behavior of the solution of the ordinary side in refs. , it is easy to find that at the positive infinity of $`x^3`$ the solution becomes singular. The width of the BIon is getting thinner and thinner in this asymptotic region.

These arguments show that the fluxon solution in the ordinary description does not exist. However, if one believes the validity of the Seiberg-Witten map, the fluxon can be mapped to some configuration in the ordinary description. Then what happens to the Seiberg-Witten map?

The hint for answering this question is in the solution of the choice (ii) above (fig. 1-(ii)). That solution consists simply of many parallel D-strings, no D3-brane. Let us pay attention to the field strength of that solution. As in ref. , the Seiberg-Witten map can be exactly solved for constant field strength. Particularly, when $`B_3=1/\theta `$, it was shown that there is no corresponding ordinary description: $`F_{\mathrm{ordinary}}=\mathrm{}`$. This is the case for the choice (ii). Thus there is no solution like this (ii) in the ordinary description. In this sense, this solution (ii) is proper to the non-commutative gauge theory.

Now, let us see the Seiberg-Witten map of the monopole solution (3.2). As in the same manner, when $`B_3+b=0`$ in the ordinary description, the Seiberg-Witten map becomes singular and the non-commutative field strength diverges . At the infinity $`r=\mathrm{}`$ the solution (3.2) satisfies $`B_3+b>0`$ (we have assumed $`b>0`$ for simplicity). So we cannot reach the region $`B_3+b<0`$ in the non-commutative description because at the point $`B_3+b=0`$ the Seiberg-Witten map becomes singular.

The region $`B+b<0`$ is almost a ball with a radius $`1/\sqrt{b}`$ in the world volume. At the surface of this ball the non-commutative field strength is diverging. So this radius corresponds to the size of the flux tube in the non-commutative description. Using the essential relation $`b\theta ^1`$  in the Seiberg-Witten map, we expect that the width of the fluxon is $`\sqrt{\theta }`$. This is in agreement with the explicit solution of the fluxon (2.10).

This argument shows also that the non-commutative monopole solution of ref.  corresponds to only a part of the D3-brane surface of the solution in the ordinary description*** In the above argument, we have applied naively the result of the Seiberg-Witten map of the constant field strength to the non-constant case. However, we believe that the qualitative argument survives even in the case of the non-constant field strength. Another assumption used above is that we can rotate the D3-brane surface in the target space even in the non-commutative theories, as in the case of ordinary Dirac-Born-Infeld theory . This assumption is not negligible: though the global rotation in the target space has to be accompanied by the diffeomorphism, in the non-commutative theories how the diffeomorphism acts on gauge fields is not well-defined. There exists the ordering ambiguities. This difficulty is precisely the same as the one of non-Abelian Dirac-Born-Infeld theory. : in the region $`B+b<0`$ of the solution (3.2) there is no non-commutative counterpart which is properly defined also at $`r=\mathrm{}`$.

## 4 General argument and discussion

In sec. 2, we have applied the HKL transformation to the BPS equations of the non-commutative monopoles. It needs the trick of redefinition of the scalar field to apply the transformation.

Usually BPS equations are the first order equations, and therefore contain terms consisting merely of field strengths $`F`$. On non-commutative space the field strength is defined using the commutator of the derivatives which now gives a constant term. Due to this constant term in the field strength, the BPS equations are not left intact under the HKL transformation, though the equations of motion are invariant on the contrary because they are usually the second order equations. Taking a commutation of $`F`$, then the troublesome constant terms is always dropped. Hence, usually the HKL transformation does not generate solutions satisfying BPS equations.

A natural question is the following: when can we apply the HKL transformation to BPS equations? In sec. 2, we have used the trick to absorb the constant term by noting that the Nahm’s equation is in the same form as the BPS equations of the non-commutative monopoles (2.4). This coincidence is because these two are related with each other by a non-commutative analogue of the Nahm’s transform . (The Nahm’s equation can be understood as a BPS equation on D-string worldsheet gauge theory . To deal with the non-commutative monopoles in string theory, one needs to put D-strings ending on parallel D3-branes, in the $`b`$-field . The above Nahm’s transform is possibly understood as T-dualities with the $`b`$-field in terms of string theory (see, for example, ref. ), which exchange the roles of D-strings and D3-branes.) The Nahm’s equation parameterize the moduli space of monopoles. The trick in sec. 2 was used to show that the non-commutativity does not affect the moduli space . Hence, this suggests that if the non-commutativity does not change the moduli space then we can use the HKL transformation to obtain BPS solutions.

This argument is consistent with the self-dual instanton solution  which is BPS but can be obtained by the HKL transformation. Note that in this case the non-commutativity $`\theta ^{\mu \nu }`$ is also self-dual, thus the self-dual equation describing this non-commutative instanton is not modified. Consistently with the Nahm’s transform, the ADHM equation is not modified by the self-dual non-commutativity parameter , thus the moduli space of this instanton is not changed and includes a small instanton singularity .

This shows that the BPS solution generated by the HKL transformation has the moduli space which is precisely the same as the ordinary version of that.

The above argument is applied only for the BPS equations which can be obtained by the dimensional reduction of the self-dual instanton equation in 4-dimensional Yang-Mills theory. One of the other examples of such theories is the BPS non-Abelian vortex described by the Hitchin equation. The non-commutative version of this BPS equation contains a constant term explicitly which cannot be removed by any field redefinition. So this BPS vortex cannot be treated by the HKL transformation.

One of the other types of the BPS equations is on the vortex of the 1+2-dimensional non-commutative Abelian-Higgs model :

$`[D,\overline{\varphi }]=[\overline{D},\varphi ]=0,B=\varphi \overline{\varphi }\varphi _0^2.`$ (4.1)
Here $`|\varphi |=\varphi _0`$ is the bottom of the potential for the complex scalar field $`\varphi `$, and only for the special choice of the coefficient of this potential we can achieve the saturation of the BPS bound with the above equations . Since the definition of the magnetic field in the non-commutative space is $`B=[\overline{D},D]1/\theta `$, we observe that if and only if $`\theta =1/\varphi _0^2`$, the constant term in eq. (4.1) vanishes and we can apply the HKL transformation to obtain BPS solutions. We shall not write the explicit solutions here because a similar solution has already been obtained in ref. .

Not only the fluxons, but also the BPS non-commutative monopole solution itself  is possibly generated by the HKL transformation using the trick of sec. 2. The non-commutative monopole solution depends on $`x^3`$, thus accordingly the soliton-generating operator $`U`$ should be $`x^3`$-dependent. In sec. 2 we have chosen a $`x^3`$-independent $`U`$ so as to keep the $`A_3=0`$ gauge. However, we can choose another prescription of the application of the HKL transformation: assume that $`A_3`$ is not transformed by any $`U`$. Then the remaining equations (2.8) is invariant under the HKL transformation if

$`[\mathrm{\Phi },U^{}_3U]=[D,U^{}_3U]=0.`$ (4.2)
In this way one can generate $`x^3`$-dependent BPS solutions. However, the above constraint (4.2) on $`U(x^3)`$ is turned out to be difficult to be solved even for a specific choice of $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ and $`D`$ (such as the vacuum solution). We leave this issue for the future study.

Note added

After the completion of this paper, we became aware of the paper  which contains the overlapping results.

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank D. J. Gross and P. Kraus for useful comments. This work is supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture of Japan (#02482), and by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under the Postdoctoral/Predoctoral Research Program.


text:
# Prospects of observing pulsed radiation from gamma-ray pulsars with H.E.S.S.

## .1 Introduction

Whereas gamma-ray pulsars are known to count amongst the brightest sources in the 1 - 30 GeV range (Lamb & Macomb, 1997), only their plerions, supernova shells and extragalactic sources appear to be visible at TeV energies. This is not unexpected, since pulsed $`\gamma `$-rays are known to be created in strong magnetic fields and magnetic pair production results in a superexponential cutoff above a characteristic energy $`E_o`$. Simulations of pair cascades have shown that $`E_o`$ is usually in the 10 GeV region (Daugherty & Harding, 1996), but this cutoff depends on several parameters, such as the altitude of $`\gamma `$-ray production above the polar cap, the observer’s viewing angle relative to the spin axis, and the magnetic inclination angle relative to the spin axis. A $`\gamma `$-ray/e+/- cascade develops and those photons which escape pair creation (with $`E<E_o`$) are observable, resulting in a pulsed spectrum which is typically harder than $`E^2`$ for $`E<E_o`$. Based on this consideration, Nel & de Jager (1995) modelled the high energy $`\gamma `$-ray pulsed spectra of pulsars as

$$dN_\gamma /dE=k(E/E_n)^gexp((E/E_o)^b).$$
(1)
Whereas pulsar photon spectral indices between $`g=1.4`$ and 2.1 are observed, harder spectra are theoretically possible (A.K. Harding, 2000, personal communication to O.C. de Jager). The constant $`k`$ represents the monochromatic flux at the normalising energy $`E_nE_o`$. We will normalise spectra at $`E_n=1`$ GeV.

In the case of the outergap model for pulsars (Cheng, Ho, & Ruderman 1996), $`\gamma `$-ray production is expected to occur near the pulsar light cylinder, and the cutoff is expected to result from energetics arguments, rather than from magnetic pair production. In this case a larger $`E_o`$ may be observable. Ground-based TeV $`\gamma `$-ray observations however provide firm upper limits on $`E_o`$. (Nel et al. (1993) gave a detailed discussion on this topic; see also Catanese & Weekes 1999.)

## .2 Gamma-Ray Pulsar Spectral Parameters above 1 GeV

Table 1 shows the parameter results of a fit to the total pulsed spectra of the six brightest EGRET $`\gamma `$-ray pulsars. These spectral parameters reproduce the EGRET flux up to 30 GeV, and are consistent with the TeV pulsed limits. They also reproduce the GeV source catalog flux (Lamb & Macomb 1997). In the case of Vela and Geminga the cutoffs are well defined by the EGRET data and the errors on $`E_o`$ are relatively small ($`20\%`$). In the case of Crab and PSR B1055-52, some evidence of a turnover is seen in the spectra above 10 GeV, although it is difficult to obtain reliable measures of $`E_o`$ and $`b`$. In the case of PSR B1951+32 and PSR B1706-44 we see no evidence of a turnover up to 30 GeV, and a minimum value of $`E_o=40`$ GeV (consistent with EGRET) was selected. This value is conservative with respect to the H.E.S.S. response. For those cases where $`E_o`$ is not well defined, we have selected $`b=2`$ (a value typical for a spectrum attenuated by magnetic pair production) to give conservative H.E.S.S. rates.

Using the H.E.S.S. collection area vs. energy $`A(E)`$ for any 2-telescope triggers (Konopelko 2000), we were able to calculate the expected rates $`R_p`$ for pulsed $`\gamma `$-rays by integrating the product of $`A(E)dN_\gamma /dE`$ over all energies. The results for the six EGRET pulsars are shown in Table 1 (indicated by “$`R_p`$”). It is clear that the rate for PSR B1706-44 is the largest of all pulsars if $`E_o`$ is not smaller than 40 GeV.

## .3 H.E.S.S. Sensitivity for Pulsed $`\gamma `$-Ray Mission

It was shown by de Jager, Swanepoel & Raubenheimer (1987) and de Jager (1994) that the basic scaling parameter for any test for uniformity on the circle (given a test period) is given by $`x=p\sqrt{n}`$, where $`p=R_p/(R_b+R_p)`$ is the pulsed fraction, with $`R_p`$ the pulsed rate and $`R_b`$ the background rate. The total number of events is given by $`N=(R_p+R_b)T`$, with $`T`$ the observation time. In this case the test statistic for uniformity for the general Beran (1969) class of tests is given by $`B=x^2\mathrm{\Phi }_B+c`$, where $`\mathrm{\Phi }_B`$ is derived from the intrinsic pulse profile, and c is the noise term. It was shown by Thompson (2000) that the pulse profiles above 5 GeV consist mostly of a single narrow peak, and it can be shown that $`\mathrm{\Phi }_B=5.8`$ for a 5% FWHM (single peak), if $`B`$ is taken as the $`Z_m^2`$ test statistic with $`m=10`$ harmonics (see e.g. de Jager, Swanepoel & Raubenheimer 1987). In this case $`c=20`$.

A value of $`x=3`$ would introduce a $`3\sigma `$ DC excess in a spatial analysis, but assuming that we have no imaging capability for $`E_o`$ near the detection threshold, we have to rely on a timing analysis, which would give $`Z_{10}^273`$, or a chance probability of $`7\times 10^8`$ if the period is known, but 0.03 after multiplying with the number of trials for a 6 hour observation if searching for periods as short as 50 ms. A confirming run (e.g. on a second night) should always be made to see if one of the few most significant periods from the previous run have repeated itself - in this case at the $`10^7`$ level.

Using an additional topological software trigger, and selecting events by image size and angular shape, we were able to reject $`99.2\%`$ of the triggered background events, while retaining 95% of the source events. From a total background rate of 1 kHz (Konopelko 2000), we get $`R_b=8`$ Hz. This allows us to calculate detection sensitivities for periodicities:

From the GeV source catalogue, we find that the galactic unidentified EGRET source (some may be pulsars - Lamb & Macomb 1997) fluxes range from $`F(>1\mathrm{GeV})`$ = 1 to 25 $`\times 10^8`$ cm-2s-1. Figures 1 and 2 give the H.E.S.S. sensitivity for a wide range of possible pulsar photon spectral indices between 1 and 2, and requiring a marginal detection within $`T=3`$ to 6 hours (assuming a minimum “DC significance” of $`x=3`$): Figures 1 and 2 respectively show $`E_o`$ and $`T`$ vs $`k`$, with the latter within the EGRET range as discussed above. Table 1 also shows $`T`$ calculated in the same way, but assuming the spectral parameters of individual pulsars.

## .4 Conclusions

It is clear that H.E.S.S. can only detect pulsars if $`E_o`$ exceeds $`30`$ GeV. Even weak EGRET sources may be detectable if the spectra are as hard as $`E^1`$, provided that $`E_o`$ exceeds the levels prescribed by Figure 1. PSR B1706-44 (for which $`E_o`$ is known to be at least as large as $`40`$ GeV) should be a H.E.S.S. candidate and other similar pulsars (such as PSR B1951+32) may be similarly detectable within one night. If one cannot detect a clear signal within a single night, an exact timing solution would be required to do a coherent analysis over a long period of time.

Whereas we have addressed the conservative polar cap model, any outergap component is expected to give a large value for $`E_o`$ (which is no challenge for H.E.S.S.), but $`k`$ may be small for such pulsars. This will be treated in a separate paper.

## References

Beran, R.J. 1969, Ann. Math. Statist., 40, 1196.

Catanese, M. & Weekes, T.C. 1999, PASP,111(764), 1193.

Cheng, K.S., Ho, C. & Ruderman, M.A. 1986, ApJ, 300, 500.

Daugherty, J.K. & Harding, A.K. 1996, ApJ, 458, 278.

de Jager, O.C., Swanepoel, J.W.H. & Raubenheimer, B.C. 1986, A&A, 170, 187.

de Jager, O.C. 1994, ApJ, 436, 239.

Konopelko, A. 2000, these proceedings.

Lamb, R.C. & Macomb, D.J., 1997, ApJ, 488, 872

Macomb, D.J. & Gehrels, N. 1999, ApJ Suppl, 120, 335.

Nel, H.I. et al. 1993, ApJ, 418, 836.

Nel, H.I. & de Jager, O.C. 1995, Astr. Space Science, 230, 299.

Thompson, D.J. 2000, these proceedings.


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# Centrality dependence of 𝐾⁺ produced in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 GeV per nucleon

## 1 Introduction

The quark-gluon plasma phase transition predicted by QCD  may occur and manifest itself in ultrarelativistic heavy ion collisions through discontinuities in the temperature and energy density dependence of relevant observables. A major example of such a discontinuity is seen in the $`J/\mathrm{\Psi }`$ to Drell Yan ratio . The NA52 collaboration searches for discontinuities in strangeness production measuring charged kaons as a function of the impact parameter. Results from the 1995 NA52 run are published in . We report here on new preliminary results from the 1998 run of the NA52 experiment, on $`K^+`$ at rapidity 4.1 and transverse momentum near 0 produced in Pb+Pb collisions at 158 A GeV. In this run a new electromagnetic lead/quartz fiber calorimeter (QFC) with improved acceptance and resolution  was used.

## 2 Results and discussion

For the kaon measurement we modified the 1998 set up of NA52  by placing the target 0.6 m upstream of the calorimeter. The results have been corrected for empty target contributions. The number of participant nucleons N has been estimated from the energy measured with the calorimeter (figure 1, (a)) in the way described in . Particle identification is described in  and references there. The positive kaon yield divided by N is independent of N, for N $`>`$ 100 (figure 1, (b)) in agreement with previous NA52 results . Assuming that N is proportional to the volume of the particle source, figure 1, (b) shows that the kaon number density exhibit a discontinuity, saturating above N=100. This indicates a transition to a phase characterized by a high degree of chemical equilibrium and enhancement  of kaons from the point N=100 on, corresponding to energy density $`ϵ`$ $``$ 1.3 GeV/fm3 , near $`ϵ_c`$ . This change marks the onset of strangeness enhancement seen in kaons in an equilibrated phase, which may be suggestive for a QCD phase transition, depending on the simultaneous appearance of thresholds in other signatures at the relevant $`ϵ`$ values and their theoretical understanding .

## References


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# Equation of state of resonance-rich matter in the central cell in heavy-ion collisions at √𝑠=200A GeV

## I Introduction

The assumption that strongly interacting hadronic (or rather partonic) matter, produced in nucleus-nucleus collisions at high energy, can reach a state of local equilibrium (LE)  is one of the most important topics in relativistic heavy-ion program . The degree of equilibration can be checked by fitting the measured particle yields and transverse momentum spectra to that of the thermal model in order to extract the conditions of the fireball at the chemical and thermal freeze-out (see, e.g.,  and references therein). Here the equilibrium particle abundances, which correspond to a certain temperature, $`T`$, baryon chemical potential, $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$, and strangeness chemical potential, $`\mu _\mathrm{S}`$, can be determined. However, the analysis is complicated, e.g., by the presence of collective flow of particles and the non-homogeneity of the baryon charge distribution in the reaction volume. The volume of the fireball is also taken as a free parameter in the thermal model. Various non-equilibrium microscopic transport-, string-, partonic-, etc. models have been applied to verify the appearance of at least local equilibrium in the course of heavy-ion collisions at relativistic and ultrarelativistic energies . To reduce the number of unknown parameters and simplify the analysis it has been suggested  to examine the equilibrium conditions in the central cell of relativistic heavy-ion collisions, simulated by one of the microscopic models. For these purposes we employ the microscopic Ultra-relativistic Molecular Dynamics (UrQMD) transport model, which nicely describe the available experimental data on hadron-hadron and nucleus-nucleus collisions in a broad energy range .

The central cell of symmetric heavy-ion collisions is a convenient system because the velocity of its center of mass is essentially zero. The cell should be neither too small nor too large. Previous studies at energies from 10.7A GeV (AGS) to 160A GeV (SPS)  have shown that the cubic cell with volume $`V=5\times 5\times 5=125`$ fm3 is well suited for the analysis. The aim of the present paper is to study the relaxation of hot nuclear matter, simulated within the microscopic model, in the central cell in Au+Au interactions at RHIC ($`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV) energy.

The paper is organized as follows. The conditions of kinetic equilibrium in the cell are discussed in Sec. II. Section III describes the statistical model (SM) of an ideal hadron gas employed for the comparison with the microscopic calculations. The relaxation of hot nuclear matter in the cell to thermal and chemical equilibrium is studied in Sec. IV. Finally, conclusions are drawn in Sec. V.

## II Kinetic equilibrium

First, the kinetic equilibrium has to be verified. The collective flow in the cell should be isotropic and small, so it cannot significantly distort the momentum distributions of particles. As shown in Fig. 1, the average longitudinal velocity in the central cell at RHIC energies reaches its maximum at $`1`$ fm/$`c`$ after the Lorentz-contracted nuclei have completely passed through each other. The longitudinal flow rapidly drops and converges to the developing transverse flow. The longitudinal collective velocity of particles becomes smaller than $`v_{flow}=0.15c`$ at $`t=56`$ fm/$`c`$ at RHIC, while the similar process takes $`t=810`$ fm/$`c`$ at the AGS and SPS energies. This gives a small correction, only $`m_Nv_{flow}^2/27`$ MeV for the nucleon spectra, and less than a MeV for pions, whereas the characteristic temperatures are around 140 MeV.

Velocity distributions of hadron species become isotropic and nearly Maxwellian quite soon . Isotropy of the velocity distributions results in pressure isotropy. The pressure in the longitudinal direction in the cell, calculated according to virial theorem , is compared in Fig. 2(a) with the transverse pressure. The time of convergence of longitudinal pressure to the transverse one decreases from 10 fm/$`c`$ to 5 fm/$`c`$ with rising incident energy from AGS to RHIC, respectively. Thus, the kinetic equilibrium in the central cell in Au+Au collisions at RHIC energy is reached at $`t5`$ fm/$`c`$.

## III Statistical model of an ideal hadron gas

To verify that the matter in the cell is in thermal and chemical equilibrium one has to compare the snapshot of hadron yields and energy spectra in the cell with the equilibrium spectra of hadrons obtained in the statistical model (SM) of an ideal hadron gas containing essentially the same number of baryonic and mesonic degrees of freedom . We recall the procedure briefly: the values of energy density, $`\epsilon `$, baryon density, $`\rho _\mathrm{B}`$, and strangeness density, $`\rho _\mathrm{S}`$, extracted from the microscopic calculations in the cell, are used as an input to the system of nonlinear equations of the SM

$`\epsilon ^{\mathrm{mic}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}E_i^{\mathrm{SM}}(T,\mu _\mathrm{B},\mu _\mathrm{S}),`$ (1)
$`\rho _\mathrm{B}^{\mathrm{mic}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}B_iN_i^{\mathrm{SM}}(T,\mu _\mathrm{B},\mu _\mathrm{S}),`$ (2)
$`\rho _\mathrm{S}^{\mathrm{mic}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{V}}{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}S_iN_i^{\mathrm{SM}}(T,\mu _\mathrm{B},\mu _\mathrm{S}),`$ (3)
containing the baryon charge, $`B_i`$, and strangeness, $`S_i`$, of the hadron species $`i`$. This procedure enables one to determine temperature, $`T`$, baryon chemical potential, $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$, and strangeness chemical potential, $`\mu _\mathrm{S}`$. If the set of three parameters $`(T,\mu _\mathrm{B},\mu _\mathrm{S})`$ is fixed, all macroscopic characteristics of the equilibrated system can be determined unambiguously. For instance, the particle yields, $`N_i^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, total energy, $`E_i^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, and pressure, $`P^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, are calculated within the SM via the Gibbs distribution function

$$f_i(p,m_i)\mathrm{exp}\left(\sqrt{p^2+m_i^2}/T+\mu _i/T\right),$$
(4)
where $`p`$ and $`m_i`$ are the momentum and the mass of the hadron species $`i`$, respectively. Namely,

$`N_i^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Vg_i}{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}}{\displaystyle f(p,m_i)d^3p},`$ (5)
$`E_i^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{Vg_i}{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}}{\displaystyle (p^2+m_i^2)^{1/2}f(p,m_i)d^3p},`$ (6)
$`P^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{i}{}}{\displaystyle \frac{g_i}{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}}{\displaystyle \frac{p^2}{3(p^2+m_i^2)^{1/2}}f(p,m_i)d^3p},`$ (7)
with $`g_i`$ being the degeneracy factor. The entropy density $`s=S/V`$ can be determined either via the distribution function (4)

$$s=\underset{i}{}\frac{g_i}{\left(2\pi \mathrm{}\right)^3}_0^{\mathrm{}}f(p,m_i)\left[\mathrm{ln}f(p,m_i)1\right]d^3p,$$
(8)
or directly from Gibbs thermodynamical identity

$$Ts=\epsilon +P^{\mathrm{SM}}\mu _\mathrm{B}\rho _\mathrm{B}\mu _\mathrm{S}\rho _\mathrm{S}.$$
(9)
The chemical potential $`\mu _i`$ of the $`i`$th hadron is determined by its baryon and strangeness charge, $`\mu _i=\mu _\mathrm{B}B_i+\mu _\mathrm{S}S_i`$. Thermal and chemical equilibrium is assumed to occur in the cell when the spectra of hadrons in the microscopic cell calculations become close to the spectra predicted by the SM.

## IV Relaxation to chemical and thermal equilibrium

At the isotropic stage the total microscopic pressure is close to the grand canonical pressure, $`P^{\mathrm{SM}}`$, as shown in Fig. 2(a). Both pressures converge at about $`t=5`$ fm/$`c`$, which is chosen as a starting point for the comparison with the SM. The input, $`\{\epsilon ,\rho _\mathrm{B},\rho _\mathrm{S}\}`$, and output, $`\{T,\mu _\mathrm{B},\mu _\mathrm{S}\}`$, parameters are listed in Table I together with the microscopic pressure, entropy density, and entropy per baryon in the cell. The final time of the calculation, defined from conventional freeze-out conditions $`\epsilon 0.1`$ GeV/fm3 or $`\rho _{tot}0.5\rho _0`$ , corresponds to $`t=2021`$ fm/$`c`$. One may see that in spite of different initial conditions the freeze-out time in the central cell in heavy-ion collisions at RHIC energies is similar to corresponding freeze-out times at AGS  and SPS  energies. In accordance with general estimates  the baryochemical potential at RHIC energies is small while the temperatures are well above the anticipated temperature for the QCD phase transition, $`T160\pm 10`$ MeV. The entropy per baryon in the cell varies slightly after the beginning of the kinetic equilibrium stage. A comparison with $`s/\rho _\mathrm{B}`$ at lower energies is shown in Fig. 2(b). The hadron-string matter in the central cell seems to expand isentropically with $`s/\rho _\mathrm{B}S/A12`$ (AGS), 32 (SPS), and 150 (RHIC). Note that the results of the simulations at AGS and SPS energies are intriguingly close to the entropy per baryon values extracted from the thermal model fit to experimental data, namely, $`(S/A)^{AGS}14`$ and $`(S/A)^{SPS}36`$ . It is most interesting to compare the predicted value $`(s/\rho _\mathrm{B})^{\mathrm{RHIC}}=150170`$ to the upcoming RHIC data. Together, isotropy in the pressure sector, isotropic and nearly Maxwellian velocity distributions of hadrons, and almost isentropic expansion of matter in the central cell strongly support the idea that a hydrodynamic regime is established after a certain time. In the following, we extract the equation of state (EOS) of hadron-resonance-string matter from the microscopic simulations at the quasi-equilibrium stage of nuclear collisions, which is part of this hydrodynamic picture.

The evolution of the pressure with the energy density is depicted in Fig. 3(a) for AGS, SPS, and RHIC energies in the central cell, respectively. Several interesting facts can be gained from this figure. First, the pressure drops linearly with the decreasing energy density for all three energies. It means that the ratio $`P/\epsilon `$ remains constant for the whole time interval of the (quasi)equilibrium stage. Thus the equation of state in the $`(P,\epsilon )`$ plane has a very simple form: $`P=0.12\epsilon `$ at AGS, and $`P=0.15\epsilon `$ at SPS and RHIC. We see that despite the significant difference in the center-of-mass energy of the nuclei, colliding at $`\sqrt{s}=17`$A GeV vs. $`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV, the ratio $`P/\epsilon `$ in the central cell is saturated already at SPS energies.

Figure 3(b) presents the evolution of the EOS in the $`(T,\mu _B)`$ plane. The baryon chemical potential in the cell increases with decreasing temperature at AGS and SPS energies, but remains almost constant (and small) at RHIC. Also, all three curves can be well approximated by a simple linear dependence. This fact deserves explanation. Substituting $`P=a\epsilon `$ in Eq. (9) and omitting the term $`\mu _\mathrm{S}\rho _\mathrm{S}`$, because the net strangeness density in the cell is quite small, we get

$$T\frac{s}{\rho _\mathrm{B}}=\frac{\epsilon (1+a)}{\rho _\mathrm{B}}\mu _\mathrm{B}.$$
(10)
If the ratio $`\epsilon /\rho _\mathrm{B}`$ is constant, then the temperature $`T`$ would depend linearly only on the baryon chemical potential $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$, and vice versa. However, the energy per baryon slightly decreases within the considered time interval for all three energies. At the final stage it drops to approximately 80-90% of its initial value. Therefore, from Fig. 3(b) it follows that the evolution of temperature as a function of $`\epsilon /\rho _\mathrm{B}`$ and $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$ is mainly determined by the change of energy per baryon, and not the baryon chemical potential.

Energy spectra, $`dN/(4\pi pEdE)`$, of $`\pi `$’s, $`N`$’s, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s, $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$’s and $`K`$’s in the cell at the stage of kinetic equilibrium are shown in Fig. 4 at two different times, $`t=5`$ fm/$`c`$ and $`t=10`$ fm/$`c`$ at RHIC energies. At $`t=5`$ fm/$`c`$ the spectra of baryons seem to be in a reasonable agreement with those of the SM, while the slopes of the meson spectra are steeper compared to the predictions of the statistical model. This means, that the apparent temperatures of mesons, especially pions, are lower than the temperature given by the SM. Moreover, the energy spectra of pions can be decomposed on two components representing low and high energy pions. At $`t=5`$ fm/$`c`$ the fit by two exponents to the pion spectrum yields the temperatures $`T_{low}^\pi 114`$ MeV and $`T_{high}^\pi 158`$ MeV, while at $`t=10`$ fm/$`c`$ the results of the fit are $`T_{low}^\pi 100`$ MeV and $`T_{high}^\pi 150`$ MeV, respectively. Although the apparent temperature of pions from the high energy tail of the energy spectrum is closer to the temperature given by the SM, $`T_{t=10}^{SM}=171`$ MeV, one may conclude that the thermal equilibrium in the central cell is not reached yet. The slopes of baryon spectra in the microscopic calculations at $`t=10`$ fm/$`c`$ are also steeper than the SM slope. Since the energy density $`\epsilon `$ is the same in both models, the lower temperatures of hadronic spectra in the microscopic case indicate that the hot matter in the cell is not in chemical equilibrium. Therefore, one might expect that the fractions of mesons and resonances in the UrQMD cell are overpopulated. These extra-particles consume significant part of the total energy and effectively ”cool” the hadron cocktail. The reheating proceeds via the absorption of mesons in the processes like $`\pi \pi \rho ,\rho \rho \pi \pi `$, or $`\pi N\mathrm{\Delta },\mathrm{\Delta }NNN`$, etc. Thus, our next step is to study the time evolution of hadron abundances in the cell. Note also that the difference between the temperatures of meson and baryon spectra can be explained by the fact that baryons experience many more elastic collisions and interactions with the resonance production per particle, which drive the system toward thermal equilibrium, than mesons. The mean number of interactions per, e.g., nucleon or delta increases from 5 interactions at $`t=5`$ fm/$`c`$ to 10 interactions at $`t=10`$ fm/$`c`$. In contrast, pions (kaons), which are readily absorbed and produced by the resonance-string hadron matter, suffer only 0.5 (1) elastic collision per particle at $`t=5`$ fm/$`c`$ and 1.8 (2.5) ones at $`t=10`$ fm/$`c`$.

Figure 5 depicts the yields of the main hadron species in the cell within the time interval 5 fm/$`c`$ $`t`$ 19 fm/$`c`$. It is interesting that microscopic spectra of pions, which are underestimated by the SM in the central cell at lower energies , converge to the SM predictions at $`t15`$ fm/$`c`$. Also, the statistical model overestimates yields of nucleons, lambdas, and kaons, while the yields of both baryon and meson resonances are reproduced quite well. Since the baryon number and the strangeness are conserved in strong interactions, where is the rest of the hypercharge, $`Y=\mathrm{B}+\mathrm{S}`$, in the UrQMD calculations in the cell? As seen from Table II, where the partial densities of baryons $`R_\mathrm{B}`$ and antibaryons $`R_{\overline{\mathrm{B}}}`$ in the microscopic and macroscopic model are listed (the net values $`\rho _\mathrm{B}R_\mathrm{B}R_{\overline{\mathrm{B}}}`$ are listed in Table I), the total yields of baryons and antibaryons in the SM are larger than those of the UrQMD. The hadron-resonance-string matter in the cell is not in chemical equilibrium; that is why the density of antibaryons is 2-3 times smaller than the equilibrium values. The results on strangeness densities are listed in Table III for the strange baryons, mesons, and their antiparticles, respectively. Here the net strangeness is $`\rho _\mathrm{S}R_\mathrm{S}^\mathrm{B}+R_{\overline{\mathrm{S}}}^{\overline{\mathrm{B}}}+R_\mathrm{S}^\mathrm{M}+R_{\overline{\mathrm{S}}}^\mathrm{M}`$. In line with the previous observation, the SM predicts significantly larger abundances of both strange baryons and strange antibaryons at $`5t11`$ fm/$`c`$ in the cell, while the densities of strange mesons are pretty similar. It is worth noting here that strangeness is underpredicted by the UrQMD if compared to experimental data at SPS energies, see . At $`t12`$ fm/$`c`$ the situation turns around: microscopic yields of strange baryons become closer to those of the SM, but the predictions for strange mesons diverge. Note also that up to $`t=13`$ fm/$`c`$ the net strangeness of baryons in microscopic calculations is larger compared to the net strangeness of baryons in the SM at the expense of the net mesonic strangeness. After $`t=13`$ fm/$`c`$ the fractions of the net strangeness deposited in baryonic and mesonic sectors in the microscopic calculations coincide with the SM results.

Finally, the ratios of hadronic abundances are studied (see Fig. 6). Here the results are presented separately for non-strange and strange baryons and mesons. In the baryon sector the resonances dominate over the strange and non-strange baryons until the end of the simulations. This can be taken as an indication of the creation of long-lived resonance-rich matter. Recall that the formation of resonance abundant matter plays an important role in the evolution of the system produced in nuclear collisions at lower bombarding energies . It has been suggested that the significance of the resonances, mainly $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$’s, for the system development should be diminished with rising center-of-mass energy of the collisions. This assumption is not confirmed in our simulations. The fraction of baryon resonances is almost 70% of all baryons in the cell at RHIC at $`5t19`$ fm/$`c`$, while at SPS and AGS the number of baryon resonances decreases from 70% to 35%, and from 60% to 25%, respectively. The meson fractions of resonances shrink within the time interval $`5t19`$ fm/$`c`$ from 60% to 30% (RHIC), 50% to 20% (SPS), and 40% to 15% (AGS). But at RHIC energies the hot hadronic matter in the cell as well as in the whole volume of the reaction is meson dominated. The mesons, baryons, and antibaryons carry 90%, 7%, and 3% of the total number of particles in the RHIC cell at $`t10`$ fm/$`c`$ (cf. 85%, 14.5%, 0.5% at SPS and 50%, 50%, 0% at AGS). The microscopic ratios for mesons (Fig. 6, right panels) seem to be very close to the SM ratios. However, one has to keep in mind that the temperatures given by the SM fit are 40-50 MeV higher than the apparent temperatures of meson species. Since the freeze-out occurs at $`t21`$ fm/$`c`$ in the central cell at RHIC energies, the matter in the cell is frozen before reaching thermal and chemical equilibrium. This circumstance significantly complicates the extraction of the chemical and thermal freeze-out parameters by means of the standard thermal model fit.

But can the formation of the resonance-abundant matter be traced experimentally? To answer this question the rapidity distributions of baryon resonances are plotted in Fig. 7 for central ($`b=3`$ fm) Pb+Pb collisions at $`E_{lab}=160`$A GeV and Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV, respectively. (The UrQMD predictions for other global observables at RHIC energies can be found in ). Here only those resonances that decay into ground state hadrons, i.e. no final state interactions, have been accounted for. The rapidity distributions of baryon resonances at SPS energies have a characteristic Gaussian-like shape, while the $`dN/dy`$ distributions of those at RHIC energies are nearly flat in the rapidity interval $`|y|3.5`$ resembling the Bjorken scaling picture of nuclear matter expansion at ultra-relativistic energies . More than 80% of the baryon non-strange resonances at RHIC energies are still $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$’s (1232). One can see that the density of directly reconstructible baryon resonances, especially $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$’s and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s + $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$’s, per unit rapidity at RHIC energies is quite high. Therefore, the resonance-rich hadron matter produced in central Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV can be detected.

## V Conclusions

In summary, the microscopic transport model UrQMD is applied to study the equation of state of the hot meson-dominated hadron-string matter produced in the central cell ($`V=125`$ fm3) of Au+Au collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV. After the restoration of the isotropy of pressure gradients, the hadron spectra in the cell are compared with those of the statistical model of an ideal hadron gas. It is found that the expansion of matter in central collisions proceeds with constant entropy per baryon ratio in the central cell, $`S/A=s/\rho _\mathrm{B}150`$. Since the $`S/A`$ ratios for the central cell in A+A collisions, calculated at AGS and SPS energies, are very close to the ratios extracted from the analysis of the experimental data, the expected value of the entropy per baryon ratio at RHIC lies within the range $`150s/\rho _\mathrm{B}170`$. The microscopic pressure in the cell is also close to the SM pressure. It shows a linear dependence on the energy density in the cell, $`P=0.15\epsilon `$, which is similar to the $`P(\epsilon )`$ dependence in the central cell at SPS energies . The obtained result is in accord with the EOS $`P0.2\epsilon `$, derived for an ideal gas of hadrons and hadron resonances . The temperature $`T^{SM}`$ in the cell at RHIC energies is shown to be nearly independent of the baryon chemical potential $`\mu _\mathrm{B}`$.

The further comparison of the energy spectra and yields of hadrons with the SM predictions shows that the full thermal and chemical equilibrium is not reached even at the late stage of the reaction. This means that the times $`t20`$ fm/$`c`$ may be too short for the relaxation process. Particularly, the deceleration of the relaxation to equilibrium is attributed to the creation of the long-lived resonance-abundant matter. For instance, pions which are frequently absorbed and produced in various inelastic processes, including formation and decay of resonances, experience on average only two elastic collisions per particle. This appears to be insufficient to reach thermal equilibrium in the system of strongly interacting particles. In turn, inelastic collisions try to restore chemical equilibrium in the cell. Non-equilibrium densities of strange and non-strange baryons, like $`N`$’s, $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$’s, $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$’s, etc, and their antiparticles are still lower than the equilibrium values. Amazingly, the yields of resonances are in accord with the SM values from the very early times $`t5`$ fm/$`c`$. Even the abundances of pions are equalizing after $`t15`$ fm/$`c`$. However, this result should be taken with a grain of salt. The fitting temperature of the thermal model is higher than the inverse slope parameters of the energy spectra of particles in the cell, i.e., the temperature of the chemical freeze-out will be overestimated by the SM fit.

According to microscopic calculations, resonance-rich matter survives until the thermal freeze-out when the contact between the hadrons is lost. It remains a challenging task to verify the formation of long-lived resonance-abundant matter in heavy-ion collisions at $`\sqrt{s}=200`$A GeV experimentally.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors profit from discussions with L. Csernai, M. Gorenstein, and E. Shuryak. This work was supported by the Graduiertenkolleg für Theoretische und Experimentelle Schwerionenphysik, Frankfurt–Giessen, the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Bonn. S.A.B was supported by the National Science Foundation, grant PHY-00-70818.