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# Variability of 𝜂 Carinae III

## 1 Introduction

Despite a very extensive literature there is as yet no general consensus on the nature of $`\eta `$ Carinae and the cause of the Great Eruption (c. 1838 - 1858) (see Morse et al. 1999 and Davidson & Humphreys 1997 for recent summaries). The present paper is the third in a series reporting observations of this object. The earlier papers are Whitelock et al. 1983 (henceforth Paper I) and Whitelock et al. 1994 (henceforth Paper II). Paper I reported and discussed infrared, $`JHKL`$, photometry of the object in the years 1972 to 1982 as well as optical and infrared spectroscopy. Paper II continued the photometric series up to 1994 and showed that, besides a gradual increase in brightness over the entire time interval 1972 to 1994, there was evidence for variations on a time scale of about 5 years. This was probably the first convincing evidence for periodicity or quasi-periodicity in the system. Damineli (1996) combined these data with observations of the variations in the He i 10830A emission line and other spectroscopic results in the literature to suggest that there was a rather stable periodicity of 5.52 years. Later Damineli et al. (1997) found evidence for a variation in the radial velocity of Pa$`\gamma `$ emission in this same period. They interpreted this as showing that $`\eta `$ Car was a spectroscopic binary in a highly eccentric orbit and they suggested that various phenomena were associated with periastron passage (see also Damineli et al. 2000). However, Davidson et al. (2000) report HST observations of the central object, which is not resolved from the ground. These do not confirm the velocity behaviour predicted by the Damineli et al. orbit. In the present paper we report an examination of spectroscopic material, particularly that collected by A.D. Thackeray over the years 1951 to 1978, and also give the results of the continued monitoring of $`\eta `$ Car in $`JHKL`$. We discuss these data, as well as published material, with particular reference to the light they throw on the periodicity and nature of the object.

## 2 Periodic Spectroscopic Variations

Gaviola (1953) found that there was a marked difference between a spectrum of $`\eta `$ Car taken in 1948 and those taken in 1947 and 1949. He i, \[Ne iii\] and various other emission lines of above average excitation were missing in 1948. A similar low excitation event was found to occur in 1965 (Thackeray 1967, Rodgers & Searle 1967). Paper I reported that the object was again in a low excitation state in 1981 at a time when $`JHKL`$ were near maximum brightness in the $``$ 5 year cycle. In the present section we discuss all the spectroscopic studies since 1947 relevant to the high/low excitation state which are known to us, including three previously unreported low states seen on plates taken by A.D. Thackeray.

Thackeray obtained a large number of spectra both of the ‘central object’ (as seen from the ground) and portions of the surrounding (bipolar) ‘homunculus’ and other nebulosity. He published discussions of only a small part of this material though it seems likely that had he lived he would have consolidated his work on this object as he did in the case of RR Tel (Thackeray 1977). There are two main series of his (photographic) spectra. One of these was with the two-prism Cassegrain spectrograph on the Radcliffe (now SAAO) 1.9m reflector. This began on 1951 April 12, soon after the spectrograph was installed and continued, with intermissions, till 1978 February 15, a few days before Thackeray died. The other series, with the coudé grating spectrograph on the same telescope extended from 1960 May 16 to 1974 January 8. All these plates are now in the archives of the SAAO and have been examined. Table 1 lists only those spectra of the central object which are suitable for determining whether it was in a high or low excitation state.

It was found that the spectra could be readily classified using a hand lens and/or a Hartmann spectrocomparator. In this classification one is concerned with the sharp emission lines, not the broad emission lines which underlie many of them. The excitation state was judged using some or all of the following line ratios; 4471He i/4475\[Fe ii\]; 4658\[Fe III\]/4667\[Fe ii\]; 5876He I/5894Na i; 5754\[N ii\]/5748\[Fe ii\]; 6312\[S iii\]/6318Fe ii; and the presence or absence of 3869,3967\[Ne iii\]. The strength of the Balmer absorption lines was also taken into account. Damineli’s (1996) work indicates that the equivalent width of 10830He i varies continuously through the 5.52 year cycle as does the $`JHKL`$ brightness. It may be somewhat surprising therefore that it was possible on the basis of the above criteria to classify the sharp-line spectra unambiguously as belonging to either the normal (high excitation) state or the low state. However, the 10830He i does not necessarily arise entirely in the same region as the sharp line spectra. Furthermore, as the referee has pointed out to us, the time interval over which 10830A practically disappears is relatively short and well defined. There is only one spectrum (Cb1567) in which the ratio 4471He i/4475\[Fe ii\] suggests a possible intermediate state and even this is somewhat uncertain. This is not to say that all the spectra assigned to a particular state are identical. Differences between such spectra are suspected and indeed were already noted between the high states of 1947 and 1949 by Gaviola (1953). However, any such differences are minor compared with the high/low state differences.

Table 2 lists other post-1947 results on high/low states from the literature. In Tables 1 and 2 the date is given, as well as the cycle and phase of each spectrum ($`\varphi `$), based on the relation;

$$\varphi =(JD2430661)/2020.$$
(1)
Where JD is the Julian date. This uses the period and date of supposed periastron passage ($``$ time of conjunction) in the orbit of Damineli et al. (2000). We test this period below. In view of the work of Davidson et al. (2000) which was mentioned in the Introduction, one is not constrained in adopting any specific interpretation of the adopted zero-phase. At least initially, it can be considered as simply a convenient reference point. In a few cases Table 2 shows that only the year and month of the observation were published. The phase given then corresponds to the middle of the month. The phase is thus uncertain in these cases by $``$0.007. In no case is this of significance in the discussion.

The data from Tables 1 and 2 are shown plotted in Figs. 1 and 2. Fig. 1 shows all the data whilst Fig. 2 shows the data for phases 0.8 to 0.2 on a larger scale. The numbers are modified cycle numbers to avoid changing the cycle at phase zero, in the middle of the low state. Thus, for example, spectra with phases between 3.5 and 4.5 in the tables are plotted as cycle number 4. The plot is clearly consistent with the recurrence of the low excitation state in a periodicity close to that proposed by Damineli et al. (2000) (which is, of course, partly based on some of these data). In particular the three previously unreported low states in Thackeray’s data (1953-4, 1959, 1970) which are plotted as cycles 2, 3 and 5, fall in the same phase range as the previously known low states. No low states have been found between phases 0.1 and 0.9.

Detailed examination of Fig. 2 shows that the phenomena do not repeat exactly. There is a high state (cycle 10) at phase .067 whilst there are low states at phase .080 (cycle 7) and .086 (cycle 2). If one adjusted the period to remove this apparent anomaly then the high excitation point in cycle 10 at phase .958 would be moved to a phase greater than the low excitation point in cycle 7 currently shown at phase .977. Some caution is necessary in this discussion since the criteria used (or their application) may not have been exactly the same for all the spectra, especially for the results of different authors which are taken from the literature. Note that the intermediate point in Fig. 2 at phase .929 (cycle 2) is the only spectrum in Table 1 which suggests an intermediate classification. This depends on a 4471He i/4475\[Fe ii\] estimate of low weight. $`\lambda `$4471 is present (in a low state it is absent on these spectra) and it is quite possible that the spectrum should actually be classified as in the high state. Leaving aside this intermediate point, the low state points in cycle 7 show that some, and perhaps all, low states extend over a phase range of at least 0.1. However, the high excitation phase points in cycle 10, if typical, show that the low state phase range cannot be significantly greater than this. Bearing in mind some possible variation from cycle to cycle, we may conclude from Fig. 2 that the low state extends from phase $``$ 0.970 to phase $``$ 0.085 and is centred at phase $``$ 0.025 which is about 50 days after periastron in the Damineli et al. (2000) supposed orbit. The results of this section are further discussed in section 6.

## 3 Early Slit Spectra

Walborn & Liller (1977) have discussed early (19th century) objective prism spectra of $`\eta `$ Car. Particularly important is the 1893 spectrum which shows an F-type absorption spectrum. The first known slit spectrum was obtained with the McClean (Victoria) telescope at the Cape in 1899 and was described by Gill (1901). This is listed in Table 3 together with two plates (also with the McClean telescope) of 1919 discussed by Lunt (1919), plates of 1912-1914 from the Lick Southern station (Moore & Sanford 1913) and three Cape (McClean) plates of 1923. The 1899 plate could not be located but is reproduced in Gill’s paper. The two 1919 plates are in the SAAO archives and were examined (one is reproduced in Lunt’s paper). The 1923 plates are recorded in the McClean plate book but are missing from the archives. They do not seem to have been described in print. The SAAO archives also have glass copies of the 1912-14 Lick plates including one well exposed plate not discussed by the Lick workers. These glass copies were apparently sent by G. Herbig to A.D. Thackeray.

The Cape 1919 plates and three of the Lick plates are of good quality, as can be seen in the reproductions of some of them in the references cited above. The spectra are striking in that although they are generally similar to the more recent ones described in section 2, they all have 4471He i missing and can clearly be classified as in a low excitation state. In the 1919 plates it is possible that 4658\[Fe iii\] is weakly present, but this is not certain. Gill’s (1901) line list of the 1899 plate at first looks surprising since he measured a line at 4471.3 A. However, this spectrum (a 6 hour 10 min exposure over parts of 4 nights) was obtained during the test phase of a new spectrograph and suffered from thermal instability problems. \[Fe ii\] and Fe ii lines in the region of 4471 show that Gill’s wavelengths are $``$ 2A too small so that the true wavelength of the line is $``$4473.3. Aller & Dunham (1966) measured emission lines in a 1961 spectrum at 4472.9 Fe ii (Intensity 4) and 4474.9 \[Fe ii\] (Intensity 9). It is likely that Gill’s ‘4471’ is a blend of these lines, especially as the ratio Fe ii/\[Fe ii\] was probably greater in Gill’s time than in 1961 (see section 4).

Table 3 shows the phases of the early plates using the Damineli et al. (2000) elements (equation 1). It is clear that these are incompatible with the restricted phase range of low excitation states shown in Fig. 2. It would require a large period change (to $``$ 2150 days) to change the phase of the 1913-19 observations to near zero and this would be inconsistent with the discussion in sections 2 and 5 and with the 1899 spectrum.

We can conclude that whilst the low excitation states have occurred regularly every $``$2020 days for the last 50 years at least, the situation was quite different 30 years before that. It seems reasonable to assume that at these earlier times the spectrum of the central object as viewed from the ground was always in the low state. This result, together with the secular trends noted in the next section must obviously be taken into account in any complete model of the system.

Note that Gill (1901) also describes an objective prism plate of 1899 January, and Spencer Jones (1931) one of 1919 April. The SAAO archives contain objective prism plates taken in May 1901. If slit spectra taken in the period 1919-1947 exist they would be very valuable. We are not, however, aware of any.

## 4 Long Term Spectral Changes

Baxandall (1919) and Lunt (1919) noted differences between the Cape spectrum of 1899 and those of 1912-14 (Lick) and 1919 (Cape). Using modern identifications these indicate that the Fe ii/\[Fe ii\] and Ti II/Fe ii emission line ratios were greater in 1899 than later. Thackeray (1953) noted that Ti ii emission was weaker in 1951-53 than in 1919. he also noted (Thackeray 1967) that in 1961-5 Ti ii absorption was stronger than in Gaviola’s 1949 observations.

It was shown in Paper I that 2.06$`\mu `$m He i emission was stronger in 1983, at phases 0.924, 0.950, and 0.082, than in the 1968 observation of Westphal & Neugebauer (1969) at phase 0.646. Since Damineli (1996) shows that the equivalent width of 10830 He i emission is a minimum near phase zero, one would have expected the opposite unless the strength of He i were increasing with time. This together with the results of the last section suggest a secular increase in the strengths of high excitation lines (He i etc.). Other evidence for this is briefly summarized by Damineli et al. (1999).

In contrast, Paper I also showed that the equivalent width of Br $`\gamma `$ was about the same in 1981 as 1968. Damineli et al. (1997) found that Pa $`\gamma `$ varied little in strength with respect to the continuum in the 2020 day cycle. These results suggest that the hydrogen emission varies with the continuum both in the cyclical variations and with a secular trend. Note, however, that Aitken et al. (1977) who observed at phase 0.08 in 1976 found B$`\gamma `$ to be only half the strength of that found in Paper I at about the same phase in 1981. This might be due to the fact that Aitken et al. used a much smaller aperture (3.4 $`\times `$ 4.8 arcsec) than either Westphal & Neugebauer or Paper I; although in Paper I no difference was found between observations though apertures of 12 and 36 arcsec.

## 5 Infrared Photometry

Monitoring of $`\eta `$ Car in $`JHKL`$ at SAAO in the period 1972-94 established a quasi-cyclical variation with a period of the order of 5 years superposed on a secular increase in brightness (see Paper II). Table 4 contains the results of a continuation of this series of observations for the period 1994-2000. As in all recent work in this series, the observations were made with the SAAO MkII photometer on the 0.75m reflector at SAAO, Sutherland and using a 36 arcsec diaphragm. The individual results are accurate to better than $`\pm `$0.03 in $`JHK`$ and $`\pm `$ 0.05 in $`L`$. The results are in the system defined by the standard stars of Carter (1990).

Fig. 3 shows the photometry for the period 1972-2000. The secular increase in brightness has continued and its rate has increased (see Davidson et al. 1999). This long term brightening is most marked at $`J`$. The maximum in the 2020 day cycle expected near 1998.0 is not seen in $`JHK`$. In fact, the light curves peak only in early 2000 where this data set ends. This can be plausibly attributed to the increased rate of secular brightening. Perhaps the most striking feature of the light curves is the marked dip near 1998.0 which was originally noted by Whitelock & Laney (1999). This is illustrated in more detail in Fig. 4. The minimum of this dip occurs between JD 2450809 and 2450824 and is evidently within a few days of JD 2450815. This is at phase 0.977 or 46 days before zero-phase on the Damineli et al. elements (equation 1). Fig. 5 compares the region near zero-phase in this cycle (cycle 10) at $`K`$ with the observations in the two previous cycles. Unfortunately the observations are sparse at these earlier epochs. Nevertheless, there is a drop in brightness consistent with the beginnings of a dip in the cycle 9 data and of an emergence from a dip in the cycle 8 data. In cycle 7 there is a gap of more than 180 days in the data at the crucial phase and before that the data are too sparse to use in identifying dips. The predicted minimum in cycle 8 is at JD 2446775 which is in fact the date of the faintest point in this cycle. Thus if the dip occurs with strict regularity the period cannot be less than 2020 days. The predicted minimum in cycle 9 is at JD 2448795, whilst the faintest point is at JD 2448783. Thus the period cannot be made longer by more than 12 days at the most. It may therefore be concluded that although the data are rather sparse except in cycle 10, the evidence from cycles 8 and 9 indicates that the dip does occur regularly with a period close to 2020 day. Note that although the above discussion refers to the $`K`$ magnitudes the results are the same in the other three colours.

Since the $`L`$ magnitude is less affected by the secular trend than $`JHK`$, one can more safely look at the 2020 day variations at this wavelength. Fig. 6 shows the $`L`$ data folded on this period with a linear trend removed and with a third order sine curve fitted. The scatter ($`\sigma `$ = 0.042 mag.) apparent in this plot is partly real and partly observational. The fitted curve is relatively flat except for a ‘hump’ between phases $``$ 0.7 and 0.2, which also contains the dip.

The dip shown by the infrared observations (Fig. 4) is at about the same phase as that shown by the X-ray observations (Ishibashi et al. 1999). The principal difference being that the X-ray dip is much deeper. The dip in J begins about 35 days (0.017 of a cycle) later than that in the X-rays and coincides with the phase at which the X-rays reach minimum. Note that the epoch of minimum increases slightly with increasing wavelength through the infrared as can be seen from Fig. 4. This together with the X-ray results suggests a possible general dependence of the phase of the dip on wavelength. However, the effect in the infrared may be due, at least partially, to the steeper secular increase in brightness at the shorter wavelengths. There is also a small dip in the visual light curve (van Genderen et al. 1999), though the relevant epoch is not well enough sampled to define its depth and shape.

Fig. 7 shows the $`L`$ light curve for phases 0.8 to 0.2 with the linear trend and the third order sine curve shown in Fig. 6 removed. The dip is seen to extend from phase $``$ 0.96 to $``$ 0.06. The centre of the dip is at phase $``$ 0.01 and the deepest point at phase 0.977 (the point shown at this phase in Fig. 7 is from cycle 8 at JD 2446775). The asymmetric shape of the dip (steep drop, slower rise) is qualitatively similar to that shown by the X-rays (Ishibashi et al. 1999).

## 6 Discussion

### 6.1 Periodic Variations

The interpretation of data on $`\eta `$ Car is complicated by the fact that different types of observation often refer to physically separate regions of the object. Optical aperture photometry refers mainly to the integrated light from the homunculus. This light is believed to be dust-scattered radiation from the central object. The mid-infrared ($``$ 10$`\mu `$m) radiation is mainly dust emission from the homunculus. Near infrared ($``$2$`\mu `$m) radiation comes from a region much more concentrated to the central object than the optical light. The rich, sharp, emission line spectrum which is so prominent on ground-based slit spectra of the central region and shows the high/low excitation states discussed above, has been found from HST observations (Davidson et al. 1997) to come, not from the central object itself, but from nebular knots (their B, C, D) about 0.2 arcsec away.

The new epochs of low excitation reported in section 2 together with those already known are clearly consistent with the periodicity of 2020 days suggested by Damineli et al., at least over the last 50 years. As already noted, Damineli et al. (1997) found radial velocity changes in the Pa$`\gamma `$ line which they suggested were due to motion of a star (the primary) in a highly eccentric binary orbit. In this orbit periastron is within 0.001 of inferior conjunction. Davidson et al. (2000) point out that much of the emission observed in Pa$`\gamma `$ from the ground comes from surrounding nebulosity, not the central object itself. Their HST observations at two epochs do not support the Damineli et al. orbit.

Despite the results of Davidson et al. (2000), a binary model of some kind is still probably the most satisfactory explanation of the 2020 day periodicity. Such a conclusion is supported by the infrared and X-ray dips which seem to point to some sort of eclipse phenomenon. Whitelock & Laney (1999) noted that that the infrared light curve bore a rather striking qualitative resemblance to the optical light curve of some classical cataclysmic variables where a dip is superposed on a ‘hump’ in the light curve (see section 5 and Fig. 6 of the present paper). In these systems much of the light is due to a hot spot on a disc around a white dwarf; the spot being heated by infalling matter from a secondary star. The hump is due to the varying aspect of the spot as it moves in the orbit and the dip is due to its eclipse by the secondary. The infrared (Fig. 7) and X-ray (Ishibashi et al. 1999) light curves of $`\eta `$ Car even show evidence of a two step structure similar to that seen in the eclipse light curves of some cataclysmic variables (e.g. Z Cha, see Cook & Warner 1984). In the case of $`\eta `$ Car the ‘hot spot’ could either be on a disc or else be a hot region in an interacting wind model and the eclipse due either to an optically thick plasma or a star. This type of model does not necessarily require an eccentric orbit. It remains to be determined how much the ‘hot spot’ contributes to the total luminosity of the system. The depth of the eclipse shows that at least 20 percent of the near-infrared flux and essentially all of the X-ray flux is generated in the ‘hot spot’.

Davidson (1997) has suggested that the modulation of the near infrared flux in the 2020 day cycle is due to variation in free-free emission. This is evidently consistent with a ‘hot spot’ model. Smith & Gehrz (2000) find, from high resolution images, that the flux near 2$`\mu `$m was more centrally concentrated when the object was brighter at this wavelength, though it is not entirely clear how much this is related to the 2020 day periodicity and how much to the secular variations. The sharp emission-line spectrum, coming from a region separated from the central object, is presumably at least partially excited by radiation from the ‘hot spot’. This spectrum will thus vary, in the 2020 day cycle, according to the relative positions of the spot (and/or its intensity) and the excited region. Hence the orbit must be eccentric, unless the ejecta responsible for the sharp line spectra are distributed asymmetrically about the central object. Davidson et al. (1997) show that the ejecta (C,D) are moving towards us relative to the central object indicates that this latter condition is fulfilled.

It would appear to be significant that the phase and duration of the eclipse is the same as that of the low excitation state. Any phase offset between the two is quite small. The X-ray flux which is being eclipsed is presumably generated in the ‘hot spot’, the sharp emission lines come from a region separated from this. The infrared flux may come from either or both these regions. The similar lengths of the eclipse and of the low excitation state imply that the emission-line region can only subtend a small angle as seen from the central source. Furthermore, the fact that these two phenomena occur at the same phase indicates that the direction from the central source to the emission-line region(s) can only make a small angle with the line of sight from the central source to the observer. Davidson et al. (1997) show that the emission line regions C and D lie in the equatorial plane of the bipolar system. This is evidently consistent with our eclipse model since we would expect the orbital plane of the binary to coincide with the plane of symmetry of the bipolar lobes. The inclination of the equatorial plane to the plane of the sky is $`i=57^o\pm 10^o`$ (Davidson & Humphreys 1997). Stevens & Pittard (1999) obtained significant X-ray eclipses in a model which adopted $`i=60^o`$ consistent with this. However the referee (Professor Davidson) informs us that Davidson et al. (to be published) have used HST/STIS data to revise the inclination from $`57^o`$ to $`40^o`$ which makes it more difficult to maintain an eclipse model with the orbit in this plane.

We have stressed the hot-spot model because the observed light curve is strikingly similar to that of a cataclysmic variable, though on a vastly different scale. Evidently this model must remain speculative pending a quantitative approach. The referee has in fact suggested that one should consider an alternative model (Davidson 1999) in which the spectroscopic low states etc. are the result of a secondary star entering a circumstellar disc round the primary or else inducing sudden mass ejection from the primary.

### 6.2 Secular Variations

The gradual brightening of the $`\eta `$ Car system over much of the 20th century has generally been attributed to a gradual decrease in reddening as the dust formed in the great eruption dissipates. Whilst this seems plausible as a general explanation, the details are undoubtedly complex. Over the last 30 years, at least, the object has brightened by about the same amount in $`JHK`$ as in the visual region and this has suggested a large-particle model (neutral extinction). However, the visual brightness, as normally estimated, is dominated by scattered light from the homunculus whereas the $`JHK`$ emission is more concentrated to the central object. It is not entirely clear how the visual brightness of the homunculus will change as it expands and both absorption and scattering decrease. The recent increase in the rate of brightening (Davidson et al. 1999) is in any case incompatible with a simple model of decreasing absorption due to the steady expansion of a dust shell. Furthermore it is striking that this increase is similar in the visual and near infrared. It remains possible that some of the observed variations are due to changes in the central engine itself, as suggested in Paper I, and this would seem possible on a ‘hot spot’ model.

That the brightening is not simply due to the clearing of obscuration is also evident from the fact that there are long term physical changes in the system. Not only is the homunculus expanding, but the ejecta which contribute the sharp-line spectrum are moving away from the central object (Davidson et al. 1997) and are undergoing long term changes which were reviewed in section 2. The secular increase in the strength of He i reflects an increase in excitation. The evidence also suggests an increase in \[Fe ii\]/Fe ii between 1899 and 1913 which presumably indicates a decrease in density in the emitting region. This ratio does not seem to have changed significantly since 1913.

## 7 conclusions

The photometric and spectroscopic results discussed in this paper seem most naturally explicable by an interacting-binary model of some kind. A binary model involving a ‘hot spot’ is basically that proposed originally by Bath (1979); though the long period presumably indicates that in the case of $`\eta `$ Car, the interaction involves a stellar wind from at least one of the stars rather than Roche-lobe overflow. It is evident that a full quantitative model of the $`\eta `$ Car system is still a matter for the future. However the results of the present paper provide considerable constraints for any such model.

### Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dave Laney, Tom Lloyd Evans, Enrico Olivier and Ronald Heijmans for making some of the $`JHKL`$ observations. The re-examination of the archival spectra arose out of discussions with Roberta Humphreys. We thank the referee (Kris Davidson) for some pertinent comments. This paper is based partly on observations made from the South African Astronomical Observatory.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently, in Brookhaven National Laboratory (USA) started operating the collider RHIC, where the colliding beams of the nuclei of heavy elements interact with each other at the total energy up to 200 GeV per nucleon in the center of mass system. There are some first interesting (even though still preliminary) results, in particular, about the multiplicities of particles produced. It happens, that, if recalculated per a nucleon of the colliding nuclei, it exceeds the multiplicity of nucleon-nucleon collisions at the same energy. The events with the multiplicity of produced charged particles up to 10000 become soon available. With the advent of the collider LHC in CERN (Switzerland), when the energy of colliding nuclei will increase up to 1.8 TeV per nucleon, the events with up to 20000 charged particles produced will be available. The problem of presentation and analysis of these high multiplicity events becomes rather non-trivial. Each particle can be represented by a dot in the 3-dimensional phase space. Therefore, the distribution of these dots can be found for a single event. Different patterns formed by these dots in the phase space would correspond to different correlations and, therefore, to different dynamics. The problem of finding and deciphering these patterns becomes crucial for understanding the underlying dynamics. Really we are entering the new stage of studies of multiparticle production processes, where, apart from the traditional methods of selection of definite events with the use of triggers or displaying the plots of the simplest inclusive distributions, the exclusive characteristics of individual events with high multiplicity become important in event-by-event analysis . To classify these patterns, one should develop the adequate methods of their recognition and analysis . The wavelet analysis is just such a suitable method. Nowadays, the very first (discussed in this paper) attempts to apply this method are known, and it will, surely, find more wide applications.

Various correlations of particles produced in high-energy collisions are known. Especially well studied are the two-particle correlations due to the decay of two-particle resonances and due to the Bose-Einstein effect for identical particles. The common correlation function technique, well known, for example, in the statistical physics, is well suited for the analysis of these two-particle correlations. It is more difficult to apply it if several particles are involved because the correlation functions for three and more particles depend on many variables and, therefore, are difficult to handle. Nevertheless, correlations leading to clusters (or mini-jets, non-reducible to resonances) and to jets (the correlated systems of many particles with a common angular characteristics of their emission direction) have been studied as well, however mostly in $`e^+e^{}`$-collisions where jet and subjet structures are clearly visible. Otherwise one has to apply the averaging procedure to get knowledge of dynamical correlations from studies of the moments of various distributions and their behavior in different regions of the phase space (for recent reviews, see ). It has lead to understanding of such global features as the intermittent dynamics (first proposed in ) and the fractal structure of phase space distributions (first proposed in ) in these processes. It has been shown  that, even at the level of the lowest perturbative approximations, the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) explains, at least qualitatively, this structure as resulting from the intermittent emission of subsequent jets with diminishing energies. Some completely new and unexpected features such as oscillating cumulant correlators of the multiplicity distributions were predicted in QCD  and confirmed by experiment (see, e.g., the review papers ). It demonstrated the existence, besides the attractive correlations, also of repulsive correlations between groups with different number of particles.

However, the genuine maltiparticle correlations originating from some collective effects may still be hidden in individual events. It is not clear if they can be disentangled with such averaging methods, especially if their probability is not high enough. These local effects could be seen in some (probably, rare) events as special patterns formed by produced particles within the available phase space. They should be separated from statistical fluctuations leading to similar patterns. There exists a method of the wavelet analysis which allows to recognize patterns due to correlations at different scales and damp down the statistical noise even if it is very large in an initial sample . The ability to reveal the local properties of a process is the main advantage of the wavelet analysis compared to other methods, in particular, over the Fourier analysis (for more detailed discussion see ). In its turn, this article provides the more detailed review of one of the problems briefly described in Ref. .

## 2 About some long-range correlations

Before delving into applications of this method, let us consider examples of possible correlations which one would seek for. The well known example of long-range correlations is provided, e.g., by the forward-backward correlations. However, they are of a global nature while we are more interested here in such correlations which lead to special long-correlated patterns in the available phase space. To be more definite, let us concentrate on search for the so-called ring-like correlations which remind the Cherenkov rings while others will be mentioned just by passing. Everybody knows about the Cherenkov radiation of photons by a bunch of electrons (or of any charged particles, in general) traversing a medium whose refractivity index exceeds 1. These photons form a ring in the plane perpendicular to electrons motion, i.e. they are emitted at a definite polar angle. As a hadronic analogue, one may treat an impinging nucleus as a bunch of confined quarks (color charges) each of which can emit gluons when traversing a target nucleus. Let me remind that Cherenkov photons are actually the collective effect of emission by the medium which electrons traverse. In the same spirit, the Cherenkov gluons would result from the collective emission by colliding nuclei. That is why the ring-like structure, if confirmed, would indicate on the collective long-range correlations in this system.

A long time ago, I speculated  about possible Cherenkov gluons relying on experimental observation of the positive real part of the elastic forward scattering amplitude of all hadronic processes at high energies. This is a necessary condition for such process because in the commonly used formula for the refractivity index its excess over 1 is proportional to this real part:

$$\mathrm{\Delta }n(\omega )=Ren(\omega )1=\frac{2\pi N}{\omega ^2}ReA(\omega ,0^0)\frac{3\mu ^3}{8\pi \omega }\sigma (\omega )\rho (\omega ),$$
(1)
where $`\omega `$ is the energy of the emitted quantum, $`N`$ is the density of the scattering centers which has been estimated for hadrons as $`N3\mu ^3/4\pi `$ with the pion mass $`\mu `$, and $`A(\omega ,0^0)`$ is the forward elastic scattering amplitude with $`\rho (\omega )=ReA(\omega ,0^0)/ImA(\omega ,0^0)`$ normalized by the optical theorem $`ImA(\omega ,0^0)=\omega \sigma (\omega )/4\pi `$. Thus the necessary condition for the Cherenkov gluon radiation $`\mathrm{\Delta }n(\omega )>0`$ is fulfilled if $`\rho (\omega )>0`$. For typical values of $`\sigma ,\rho `$ and $`\omega `$ for hadronic processes one gets $`\mathrm{\Delta }n(\omega )1`$.

However, later  I noticed that for such thin targets as hadrons or nuclei the similar effect can appear due to small confinement length thus giving us a new tool for its estimate. The bremsstrahlung, the Cherenkov gluons and the transition radiation in thin targets contribute to the same angular range and thus become indistinguishable. At the same time, the difference between bremsstrahlung and Cherenkov radiation can reveal itself in the increased formation length of bremsstrahlung due to relativistic effects while for Cherenkov radiation the extension of a medium plays a decisive role. Therefore bremsstrahlung will be increased and inclined to smaller polar angles. Thus the background to Cherenkov radiation seemingly increases. However, as we shall see, it tends to large polar angles in the center of mass system what favours its observation.

The general formula  for the total energy $`dW`$ in the solid angle $`d\mathrm{\Omega }`$ due to emission of vector particles with energies in the interval from $`\omega `$ to $`\omega +d\omega `$ by a step-like charge current $`|𝐣_\mu ^{}|`$ traversing a target of the thickness $`l`$ and of the refractivity index $`n`$ with the velocity $`v=\beta c`$ looks as

$$\frac{dW}{d\mathrm{\Omega }d\omega }=\frac{e^2\beta ^2}{\pi ^2c}\frac{\mathrm{sin}^2[\omega l(1\beta n\mathrm{cos}\theta )]}{(1\beta n\mathrm{cos}\theta )^2}\mathrm{sin}^2\theta ,$$
(2)
where $`e`$ is the electric charge, $`\theta `$ is the polar angle of photons emission.

Such a step-like color current was used in Refs.  as a model for deconfinement of quarks (color) of impinging hadrons (nuclei) only within the volume with the strong interaction radius $`l\mu ^1`$. Outside this region, quarks are confined, and there are no color currents. Thus the phenomenological parameter $`l`$ describes the range of confining forces in usual static hadrons which just corresponds to the deconfinement region during the collision and wherefrom this collective effect is observed. The spin and mass properties of quarks and gluons are similar to those for electrons and photons, correspondingly. Therefore, to proceed to emission of high energy gluons by quarks deconfined in some limited volume (step-like color current) from the formula (2), one should replace there $`\alpha `$ by $`\alpha _SC_F`$, where $`\alpha _S`$ is the QCD running coupling, $`C_F=4/3`$ and take into account the smallness of the emission angle in the laboratory system $`\theta _{l.s.}`$, of the differences $`\mathrm{\Delta }n=n1`$ and $`1\beta `$ as well as of the ratio $`\mu /\omega `$. Then one gets  from (2) the inclusive cross section for this gluon radiation

$$\frac{\omega }{\sigma }\frac{d^3\sigma }{d^3k}=\frac{4\alpha _SC_F\theta _{l.s.}^2\mathrm{sin}[\omega l(\theta _{l.s.}^22\mathrm{\Delta }n)/4]}{\pi ^2\omega ^2(\theta _{l.s.}^22\mathrm{\Delta }n)^2}.$$
(3)
In the case of the electromagnetic radiation in macroscopic targets, the condition $`\omega l\mathrm{\Delta }n/21`$ is fulfilled, and the righthand side becomes the Dirac delta-function with an argument corresponding to the condition for the usual Cherenkov rings of photons. In the hadronic case, the opposite inequality

$$\omega l\mathrm{\Delta }n/23\rho (\omega )/16\pi 1$$
(4)
(for $`\sigma \mu ^2,l\mu ^1`$) is valid. Thus the position and the shape of the ring as defined by (3) is determined by the confinement length $`l`$ but not so much by $`\mathrm{\Delta }n`$.

Surely, the confinement of hadronic partons leads to additional screening of low-energy gluon radiation which becomes of the multipole nature because the initial current (a hadron or a nucleus) is colorless in distinction to a charged current of an electron bunch. Thus this gluon radiation should be even of more collective nature and with harder spectrum than usually ascribed to the Cherenkov photon radiation. However it is hard to account for this collective behavior in a more quantitative way. The damping due to the imaginary part of the amplitude was estimated  as unimportant and given by the factor close to 1

$$\mathrm{exp}[\frac{3\mu ^2\sigma l}{8\pi }]\mathrm{exp}[\frac{\mu l}{8}]0.9,$$
(5)
which does not prevent the observation of this effect if any.

If several gluons are emitted and each of them generates a mini-jet centered at a definite polar angle (or pseudorapidity $`\eta =\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{tan}\theta /2`$ ) without any condition imposed on its azimuthal angle $`\phi `$, the ring-like substructure will be observed in the target diagram, i.e., in the plane perpendicular to the collision axis. Therefore, the events possessing such substructure with relatively short rapidity correlation length and large azimuthal correlation length would be important to look for. If the density of mini-jets within the ring is so high that they overlap, then they form a (circular) ridge pattern (or a wall pattern according to ). If the number of emitted gluons is not large, we will see several (or just one) jets (tower structure ) correlated in their polar, but not in the azimuthal angle. The formula (3) predicts quite large polar angle of emission of gluons, and therefore quite large radius of the ring in the target diagram that favors its observation

$$\theta _{l.s.}^{max}\sqrt{2\pi /El},$$
(6)
where $`E`$ is the collision energy. It gives for the deconfinement length of the order of extension of nuclear forces $`l\mu ^1`$ the following estimate of the polar angles for the rings in the center of mass system for two identical particles

$$\theta _{c.m.s.}70^0(110^0),$$
(7)
where the angle in the brackets corresponds to the emission in the backward hemisphere by another colliding particle. If the radiation length for colliding nuclei is proportional to $`A^{1/3}`$, then the corresponding radiation angle should behave as $`A^{1/6}`$. It can be checked in collisions of nuclei with different atomic weights. In a single event, either both or one of these rings can be formed depending on the probability of such a process.

Surely, for the parton-emitter moving already at some angle to the collision axis this ring will be transformed into ellipse. Central collisions of nuclei would be preferred for observation of such effects because of a large number of participating partons though the background due to ordinary processes increases as well. If the number of correlated particles within the ring is large enough, it would result in spikes in the pseudorapidity distributions. However, the usual histogram method is not always good to verify these spikes because it may split a single spike into two bins thus diminishing its role. However, some hints to such structure can be found from these histograms.

Namely, such a histogram of a cosmic ray nuclear interaction  initiated my approach to this problem. A huge spike on the rapidity plot observed in this event was initially interpreted as resulting from a single cluster. However, since the number of particles in the spike was very high (56 charged particles contributed to it while the average number is about 10) it was more carefully studied, and it was found that they form a ridge in the target diagram (the polar+azimuthal angles plane). There was also indication on another more diluted ring-like structure in the backward hemisphere of the same event. High spikes in the pseudorapidity distributions have been observed in some other cosmic ray data  and in event-by-event analysis of accelerator data . Especially impressive is the famous event of NA22 Collaboration  of the pion-nucleon interaction with a spike 60 times exceeding the average density in the narrow rapidity window. The particles inside the spike are rather uniformly distributed in azimuthal angles (the ridge structure). However, the multiplicities in the analyzed central nucleus-nucleus events are about 50 times higher than in accelerator data on hadron-hadron collisions. In this case the huge combinatorial background may dilute the strength of spikes. Anyway all these events were just single representatives chosen by eye from samples of other events.

It is usually argued that the analysis of a single event of the central nucleus-nucleus collision at high energies may be statistically reliable due to a large number of particles produced. To classify such events in a more quantitative way, one should have a precise method of the local pattern recognition at different scales with a possibility to use an inverse transform. It became possible with the advent of the recently developed methods of the wavelet analysis . The wavelet analysis is well suited for this purpose because it clearly resolves the local properties of a pattern on the event-by-event basis.

Another example of collective long-range correlations is provided by the so-called elliptic flow i.e. the azimuthal asymmetry in individual events. It may be related to a collective classical sling-effect  of the rotation of colliding nuclei after peripheral collisions initiated by the pressure  at some impact parameter at the time of collision. It can give some knowledge about the equation of state of the hadronic matter by studies of the shapes of the created squeezed states. Another origin of the effect could be due to some jetty structures because emission of two jets with high transverse momenta well balanced by energy-momentum conservation laws would result in the azimuthal asymmetry of an individual event. These two theoretical suppositions lead however to different event patterns and can be distinguised in experiment. By passing, let me say that the elliptic flow patterns (”cucumber”) corresponding to the large value of the second Fourier coefficient, and the ”three leaves flower” pattern with large third coefficient were also observed when scanning some high multiplicity events. These results have not been published yet, and I do not discuss all these effects here concentrating discussion on the ring-like events only.

The event-by-event analysis of patterns in experimental and Monte Carlo events becomes especially important for very high-multiplicity collisions at RHIC and LHC. The homogeneous 4$`\pi `$ acceptance of detectors (such as that of STAR Collaboration at RHIC) will be crucial for it, not to provide false patterns. I am sure that various patterns will be observed and allow triggering on different classes of events and classifying ”anomalous” features. Let me stress, however, here that the background due to the ordinary processes of parton emission and rescattering is huge in nucleus-nucleus collisions. It is not at all clear if the described above collective effect will be noticeable and can be separated from more common traditional patterns of radiation by individual quarks and gluons. One may rely only on very specific features of this effect for its unanimous registration and on first positive experience in this respect. Therefore, the clear separation and recognition of these (low-probability?) patterns as objective dynamical effects requires new identification methods insensitive to the smooth background and statistical fluctuations (noise). As one of them, I propose to use the wavelet analysis and describe recent developments in this direction briefly reviewing first some other proposals.

## 3 Earlier event-by-event studies

When the target diagrams of individual events are imaged visually, the human eye has a tendency to observe different kinds of intricate patterns with dense clusters (spikes) and rarefied voids in the available phase space. However, the observed effects are often dominated by statistical fluctuations and look quite subjective. The method of factorial moments was proposed  to remove the statistical background in a global analysis and it shows fractal properties even in event-by-event approach (see ). The increase of the factorial moments at small bins signals the presence of non-statistical fluctuations. Thus this method may be used as a tool for the preliminary selection of events with strong dynamical fluctuations. Nevertheless, it averages somehow the information about event patterns. Moreover, the patterns in the target diagrams as seen by eye hardly differ sometimes  in the events with different factorial moments behavior. Some more sensitive and selective criteria should be used.

First detailed event-by-event analysis  of large statistics data on hadron-hadron interactions (unfortunately, however, for rather low multiplicity) was performed to look for the dense groups of particles well separated (isolated) from other particles in an event. The dense groups could imitate single dense jets or ring-like events. Some threshold values were imposed from below on the density of the groups and on their rapidity distance from other particles. These groups were quite narrow. The rapidity locations of their centers were determined. It has been found that the centers of these groups prefer to be positioned at a definite polar angle. The positions of the maxima of the centers distribution are quite close to estimates according to the formula (7). This feature favors the above interpretation in terms of Cherenkov gluons.

For nucleus-nucleus collisions, first systematic event-by-event analysis was attempted by NA49 Collaboration . Unfortunately, it was limited only by studies of the fluctuations in the particle transverse momenta and the relative production of kaons to pions. No evidence was found for unusual fluctuations in the ratios of kaons to pions and in the fluctuations of the transverse momenta even though the latter were much smaller than in nucleon-nucleon collisions that can be treated on a qualitative level as a result of intra-nuclear rescatterings. These conclusions do not tell us anything about patterns in individual events. It is not surprising because this experiment has a limited and inhomogeneous acceptance, and only a fraction of the secondary particles is actually recorded. Moreover, this feature of the detector distorts some event characteristics crucial for pattern recignition, e.g., such as the particle density fluctuation. Therefore its results are not directly useful for our purposes.

The full space coverage is yet ensured only in the traditional emulsion chamber experiments. Therefore it is worthwhile to attempt the event-by-event analysis of their data. Even though the total number of events is relatively low and the particle identification is limited, they are prominent for their high angular resolution which is important for studies of the particle density fluctuations. Very interesting systematic event-by-event analysis of high-multiplicity Pb–Ag/Br collisions at energy<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1Up to now, the nuclear collisions were studied in the external beams only. Therefore everywhere we imply the energy per nucleon of the impinging nucleus in the rest system of the target nucleus. The impinging nuclei are shown first in front of the defis sign, and the target nuclei afterwards. It is clear that collisions of different nuclei at colliders will ask for other conditional notations. 158 GeV detected in EMU13 emulsion experiment was performed by the KLM Collaboration . The results were confronted to three different Monte Carlo models: Fritiof, Venus and the random-type model called SMC. It was noticed that even in the one-dimensional distributions the probability to find a spike and sizes of spikes are systematically larger in measured events than in simulated ones. It was shown by plotting the distributions of spike fluctuations. The combinatorial background dilutes the strength of the observed signals. On the two-dimensional $`\eta \phi `$ phase space plot the slightly stronger clustering (jettyness) of particles in the measured events was also observed, especially for small size clusters. The size of the cluster (cone) was defined as $`R=\sqrt{\delta \eta ^2+\delta \phi ^2}`$ and the number of particles in the cone was chosen greater than 4. The fraction of particles confined in clusters is quite large. No rapidity and azimuthal angle distributions of the cone centers were presented, unfortunately. Therefore one can not decide if this effect is only due to short range correlations or some long range correlations like those discussed above are important as well. The only general conclusion is that the phase space inhomogeneity (jettyness) is stronger in measured events of nucleus-nucleus collisions than in any of Monte Carlo models based on conventional physics of nucleus-nucleus collisions.

In the Ref.  the azimuthal substructure of particle distributions in individual central high-energy heavy-ion collisions within dense and diluted groups of particles along the rapidity axis was investigated. The data of EMU01 Collaboration on O/S - Ag/Au collisions at 200 GeV were used. Some criteria appeared to be rather insensitive and did not show any significant difference from the stochastic averages with $`\gamma `$-conversion and HBT particle interference effect taken into account. However, when the parameter

$$S_2=\underset{i}{}(\mathrm{\Delta }\phi _i/2\pi )^2,$$
(8)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\phi `$ is the azimuthal difference between two neighboring particles in the group and sum is over all particles $`i`$ in the group, was used, it revealed some jet-structure for the dilute groups which was impossible to explain by known effects. It is an indication on the ridge-like structure (not a tower structure!) of analyzed groups within the definite rapidity windows. This analysis underlines the importance of the choice of criteria sensitive enough to features which may be hidden in particular patterns. To my opinion, even the parameter $`S_2`$ when used in the ”histogram-like” approach with a fixed scale length in pseudorapidity $`\mathrm{\Delta }\eta `$ as was done in Ref.  averages too much the fluctuations in individual events. More local characteristics should be used not to smear the distinct differences between different patterns.

The dense groups were studied in nucleus-nucleus collisions at lower energies. Their rapidity distributions also showed  some peaks similar to those found in Refs. . However, the fragmentation processes are so strong here that it is not clear how the fragment products influence this conclusion.

## 4 Wavelets: basic notions

All these results, valuable by themselves, do not still answer the question about the existence of long-range correlations in individual events. To get it, one should be able to perform the large-scale event-by-event analysis . Such a tool is provided by wavelets. Let us briefly describe basic notions about wavelets (for more details, see ).

Commonly used wavelets form a complete orthonormal system of functions with a finite support by using dilations and translations. That is why by changing a scale (dilations) they can distinct the local characteristics of a signal at various scales, and by translations they cover the whole region in which it is studied. The orthogonality of wavelets insures that the information at a definite resolution level (scale) does not interfere with other scale information. The wavelet analysis is the study of any function by expanding it in the wavelet series (or integrals). Due to the completeness of the system, they also allow for the inverse transformation (synthesis) to be done. It means that the original function or some parts of it containing the investigated correlations may be restored without any loss of the information. In the analysis of nonstationary signals or inhomogeneous images (like modern paintings with very sharp figure edges), the locality property of wavelets leads to their substantial advantage over Fourier transform which provides us only with the knowledge of global frequencies (scales) of the object under investigation because the system of functions used (sine, cosine or complex exponents) is defined on the infinite interval.

The wavelet analysis reveals the local properties of any pattern in an individual event at various scales and, moreover, avoids smooth polynomial trends and underlines the fluctuation patterns. By choosing the strongest fluctuations, one hopes to get rid of statistical fluctuations and observe those dynamical ones which exceed the statistical component.

The traditional formula for the wavelet transform of a one-dimensional function $`f(x)`$ is written as

$$W(a,b)=a^{1/2}f(x)\psi (\frac{xb}{a})𝑑x,$$
(9)
where $`\psi `$ denotes a wavelet with its argument shifted to $`x=b`$ (translation) and scaled by $`a`$ (dilation). For continuous wavelets, both $`a`$ and $`b`$ are continuous variables. For discrete wavelets, one usually chooses $`a=2^j`$ where $`j`$ are integer numbers and replaces $`b`$ by $`2^jk`$. As we see, the wavelet coefficients for a one-variable function are the functions of two variables instead of one in case of the Fourier transform. It allows now to define both the scale (frequency) and its effective location.

The choice of the wavelet depends on the problem studied and is not unique. As an example of continuous wavelets, let us mention the so-called ”Mexican hat” wavelet which is nothing else as the second derivative of the Gaussian function. The discrete wavelets are obtained as solutions of a definite functional equation and cannot be represented in the analytical form. However, they are suitable for computer calculations (for more detail see ).

## 5 The wavelet analysis of high-energy nucleus interactions

First attempts to use wavelet analysis in multiparticle production go back to P. Carruthers  who used wavelets for diagonalisation of covariance matrices of some simplified cascade models. The proposals of correlation studies in high multiplicity events with the help of wavelets were promoted , and used, in particular, for special correlations typical for the disoriented chiral condensate . The wavelet transform of the pseudorapidity spectra of JACEE events was done in Ref. .

As was mentioned above, wavelets are most effective in the analysis of inhomogeneous patterns. That is why I proposed to use them for deciphering the phase space inhomogeneity (in particular, the target diagrams) of very high multiplicity events.

At present, only five high-multiplicity events of the lead-lead collisions at 158 GeV were analyzed according to this method . I demonstrate here these central Pb-Pb events with the highest registered multiplicities from 1034 to 1221 charged particles chosen from 150 processed events and used for wavelet decomposition with the aim to study the patterns inherent to them. The data were taken from the emulsion chamber (with the thin lead target) experiment EMU15 at CERN by the group from Lebedev Physical Institute.

The target diagrams of secondary particles distributions for these events  are shown in Fig. 1, where the radial distance from the center measures the polar angle $`\theta `$, and the azimuthal angle $`\phi `$ is counted around the center. I show them here to demonstrate that even if one really notices some inhomogeneities in these diagrams, it is not easy to claim which one is of the dynamical origin and, moreover, the whole pattern is strongly influenced by the trivial high energy effect of higher density at small polar angles. One can sum over the azimuthal angle and plot the corresponding pseudorapidity ($`\eta =\mathrm{log}\mathrm{tan}\theta /2`$) distributions shown in Fig. 2. The pronounced peaks ($`\eta `$-spikes) strongly exceeding expected statistical fluctuations are seen in individual events. This inhomogeneity in pseudorapidity can arise either due to a very strong jet i.e. a large group (tower) of particles close both in polar and azimuthal angles or due to a ring-like (ridge) structure when several jets with smaller number of particles in each of them have similar polar angle but differ in their azimuthal angles. However, it is still not easy to observe them directly in the target diagram even if the pseudorapidity is plotted along its radius instead of the polar angle or the scaled variable

$$\overline{\eta }(\eta )=_{\eta _{min}}^\eta \rho (\eta ^{})𝑑\eta ^{}/_{\eta _{min}}^{\eta _{max}}\rho (\eta ^{})𝑑\eta ^{},$$
(10)
which gives rise to a flat distribution $`\rho (\overline{\eta })`$, is used.

In Ref.  wavelets were first used to analyze two-dimensional patterns of fluctuations in the phase space of a single event, shown in Fig. 1 at number 19. There were presented  the results of the one-dimensional analysis of separate sectors of this two-dimensional plot. To proceed in this way, the whole azimuthal region was divided into 24 sectors of the $`\pi /12`$ extension each (thus preserving, unfortunately, the histogram drawback in this coordinate). The pseudorapidity distributions in each of them were separately analyzed after integrating over azimuthal angles within a given sector. Neighboring sectors were connected afterwards.

Both jet and ring-like structures have been found from the values of squared wavelet coefficients as seen from Fig. 3 taken from Ref. . Four of 24 sectors are demonstrated there. The wavelet coefficients were calculated using the continuous ”Mexican hat” wavelet . The darker regions correspond to larger fluctuations, i.e. to larger values of wavelet coefficients. At the very top in each box, i.e. at small scales $`a`$, the wavelet analysis reveals individual particles as they are placed on the pseudorapidity axis in a given sector seen as short dark lines. At larger scales $`a`$ corresponding to the shift down in any box of the Figure, the correlations of different shapes leading to clusters or jets of particles are resolved. Finally, at ever larger scale one notices the long-range structure (indicated by the arrows in Fig. 3) which penetrates from one azimuthal sector to the neighboring one at nearby values of the polar angle (pseudorapidity), thus forming an elliptic ridge around the center of the target diagram. This structure approximately corresponds to the peak in the pseudorapidity distribution (for more detail, see Ref. ). Let us note, that it is not easy to notice in the target diagram of this event, shown in Fig. 1, any increase of density at the ring just by eye because of the specific properties of the $`\theta \phi `$ plot where the density of particles decreases fast toward the external region of large polar angles due to the relatistic effects. Also, the tree-like patterns in this plot of the wavelet coefficients would probably correspond to the fractal structure of the phase space which was discovered by the factorial moments method.

To reveal these patterns in more detail one should perform the two-dimensional local analysis. It is strongly desirable to get rid of such drawback of the histogram method as fixed positions of bins that sometimes gives rise to splitting of a jet into pieces contained in two or more bins as, e.g., it could happen in the above analysis of the event 19  when 24 azimuthal sectors were chosen. Moreover, the number of charged particles in each sector was about 50, that is already at the limits of the accuracy for efficient wavelet analysis to be done. The two-dimensional wavelet transform of particle densities directly in the two-dimensional plot does not have such a deficiency. Wavelets choose automatically the size and shapes of bins (so-called Heisenberg windows; see, e.g., Ref. ) depending on particle densities at a given position. The multiresolution analysis at different scales and in different regions is performed.

In principle, the wavelet coefficients $`W_{j_1,k_1,j_2,k_2}`$ of the two-dimensional function $`f(\theta ,\phi )`$ are found from the formula

$$W_{j_1,k_1,j_2,k_2}=f(\theta ,\phi )\psi (2^{j_1}\theta k_1;2^{j_2}\phi k_2)𝑑\theta 𝑑\phi .$$
(11)
Here $`\theta _i,\phi _i`$ are the polar and azimuthal angles of particles produced, $`f(\theta ,\phi )=_i\delta (\theta \theta _i)\delta (\phi \phi _i)`$ with a sum over all particles $`i`$ in a given event, $`(k_1,k_2)`$ denote the locations and $`(j_1,j_2)`$ the scales analyzed. The function $`\psi `$ is the analyzing wavelet. The higher the density fluctuations of particles in a given region, the larger are the corresponding wavelet coefficients.

In practice, the discrete wavelets obtained from the tensor product of two multiresolution analyses of standard one-dimensional Daubechies 8-tap wavelets were used. Then the corresponding $`ss,sd`$ and $`dd`$ coefficients in the two-dimensional matrix were calculated (see ). The common scale $`j_1=j_2=j`$ was used. It simplifies the calculations and the presentation of obtained results because of the smaller number of variables but may be not completely satisfactory from physical point of view and, probably, should be abandoned later in a more sofisticated approach. The similar basis has been used in Ref. .

As stressed above, the ring-like structure should be a collective effect involving many particles and large scales. Therefore, to get rid of the low-scale background due to individual particles and analyze their clusterization properties, the scales $`j>5`$ have been chosen where both single jets and those clustered in ring-like structures can be revealed as seen from Fig. 3. Therefore all coefficients with $`j<6`$ are put equal to 0. The wavelet coefficients for any $`j`$ from the interval $`6j10`$ are now presented as functions of polar and azimuthal angles in a form of the two-dimensional landscape-like surface over this plane i.e. over the target diagram. Their inverse wavelet transform allows to get modified target diagrams of analyzed events with large-scale structure left only. Higher fluctuations of particle density inside large-scale formations and, consequently, larger wavelet coefficients correspond to darker regions in this modified target diagram shown in Fig. 4. Here we demonstrate two events (numbered 3 and 6) from those five shown in Figs. 1 and 2. They clearly display both jet and ring-like structures which are different in different events. To discard the methodical cut-off at $`\eta 1.61.8`$ the region of $`\eta >1.8`$ was only considered<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2The more detailed discussion about this methodical effect can be found in Ref. . It shows that wavelets may be used for the analysis of methodical problems in detectors as well. This topic is out of the scope of the present paper..

Even though the statistics is very low, it was attempted to plot the pseudorapidity distribution of the maxima of wavelet coefficients with the hope to see if it reveals the peculiarities observed in high statistics but low multiplicity hadron-hadron experiments . In Fig. 5, the number of highest maxima of wavelet coefficients exceeding the threshold value $`W_{j,k}>210^3`$ is plotted as a function of their pseudorapidity for all five events considered. It is quite peculiar that positions of the maxima are discrete. They are positioned quite symmetrically about the value $`\eta 2.9`$ corresponding to $`90^0`$ in the center of mass system as it should be for two Pb nuclei colliding. Difference of heights is within the error bars. More interesting, they do not fill in this central region but are rather separated. Qualitatively, it coincides with findings in Refs. , where the separated peaks in the pseudorapidity distribution of the centers of dense groups were also noticed approximately at the same positions.

For comparison, there were generated 100 central Pb-Pb interactions with energy 158 GeV according to Fritiof model and the same number of events according to the random model describing the inclusive rapidity distribution shape. The fluctuations in these simulated high multiplicity events are much smaller than in experimental ones and do not show any ring-like structure.

Further use of wavelets by imposing different scales for polar and azimuthal angles and study of the 3-dimensional phase space are desirable. For the latter, one needs the data on the momenta of the created particles, which may be obtained only in experiments with the magnetic field. Though the emulsion chamber of the experiment EMU15 was installed in the magnetic field $`H=1.8`$T, there were no measurements of the trajectory curvature done until now. Thus the data on the three-dimensional phase space are not yet available. I would like to stress once more that good homogeneous acceptance of the detectors with 4$`\pi `$ geometry is crucial for the proper wavelet analysis of any event to get firm conclusions about the dynamical effects. Otherwise the results will show an admixture of physical and methodical effects which can not be disentangled in the event-by-event analysis . Actually, this remark is a byproduct of my own experience in attempts to find out the elliptic flow effect in NA49 data on lead-lead collisions at 158 GeV. They failed because I noticed the azimuthal asymmetry which persisted at the same position, suspected it to be due to the inhomogeneous azimuthal acceptance of the detector, and after request was insured by the authors that my guess is correct. Thus the methodical effect was so strong that it prevented any conclusions about the dynamical elliptic flow but, probably, it will not prevent from the analysis of some strucnures in polar angles to be done. Even though such applications of the wavelet analysis are interesting by themselves and their effectiveness was demonstrated in this case, they are not of the main physics interest and of our concern here.

## 6 Conclusion

Thus I conclude that even on the qualitative level there is the noticeable difference between experimental and simulated events with larger and somewhat ordered fluctuations in the former ones. First attempts to apply the method of the wavelet analysis described here have shown some peculiar patterns of individual measured events not resolved in the Monte Carlo simulated samples. It means that we still have something to learn about their dynamical features. The ring-like patterns were used here only as an example of possible correlations leading to some special particle grouping in the phase space. More detailed wavelet analysis at various resolution levels and also in the three dimensional phase space may reveal some yet undiscovered structures. The described above efforts show that there are no unsolvable problems for doing it.

My aim here is to show the applicability and power of a new method of the two-dimensional wavelet analysis , the qualitative features and differences leaving aside quantitative characteristics till higher statistics of fully registered high multiplicity AA-events becomes available. In particular, the special automatic complex for emulsion processing with high space (angular) resolution (www.lebedev.ru/structure/pavicom/index.htm) in Lebedev Physical Institute is coming into operation, and it can help enlarge the statistics of analyzed central Pb-Pb collisions at 158 GeV quite soon using at full strength the good acceptance and precision of emulsion detectors. Also the data of STAR collaboration in RHIC with a full phase space coverage and large number of events should soon be available at ever higher energies. Wavelets provide a powerful tool for event-by-event analysis of fluctuation patterns in such collisions.

The target diagrams of five events of central Pb-Pb collisions at energy 158 GeV/nucleon obtained by EMU-15 collaboration.

The pseudorapidity distributions of particles in five events shown in Fig.1.

Fig. 3 The wavelet coefficients for the event 19 analyzed in . Dark regions correspond to large values of the coefficients. Four of 24 sectors are shown. Rapidities are along x-axis, the scales increase down the vertical axis.

|  |  |
| --- | --- |

Fig.4 The modified large-scale target diagrams of two events (3 and 6). Darker regions correspond to larger particle density fluctuations.

Fig.5 The pseudorapidity distribution of the maxima of wavelet coefficients.
The irregularity in the maxima positions, the empty voids between
them and absence of peaks at $`\eta 2.9`$ are noticed.


text:
# Amoebas of maximal area.

## 1 Introduction.

Let $`f:^2`$ be a polynomial, $`f(z_1,z_2)=\underset{j,k}{}a_{jk}z_1^jz_2^k`$. Its zero set in $`(^{})^2`$ is a curve $`A=f^1(0)(^{})^2`$ (where $`^{}=\{0\}`$). Let $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ be the Newton polygon of $`f`$, i.e. the convex hull of $`\{(j,k)|a_{jk}0\}`$. Gelfand, Kapranov and Zelevinski introduced one more object associated to $`f`$.

###### Definition 1 (Gelfand, Kapranov, Zelevinski ).

111In this paper we restrict our attention to functions of two variables. Amoebas are defined for functions of any number of variables.

The amoeba $`𝒜^2`$ of $`f`$ is $`\mathrm{Log}(A)`$, where $`\mathrm{Log}:(^{})^2^2`$, $`(z_1,z_2)(\mathrm{log}|z_1|,\mathrm{log}|z_2|)`$.

It was remarked in  that every component of $`^2𝒜`$ is open and convex in $`^2`$. In particular, $`𝒜`$ is closed and its (Lebesgue) area is well-defined.

Note that $`𝒜`$ is never bounded in $`^2`$, since $`f^1(0)`$ must intersect the coordinate axes in $`^2`$. However it was shown by Passare and Rullgård  that the area of $`𝒜`$ is always finite. Furthermore, it is bounded in terms of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

###### Theorem  (Passare, Rullgård ).

$$\mathrm{Area}(𝒜)\pi ^2\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta }).$$
(1)
The main result of this paper is the extremal property of this inequality.

We say that a curve $`A`$ is defined over $``$ if it is invariant under the complex conjugation $`\mathrm{conj}:(^{})^2(^{})^2`$, $`(z_1,z_2)(\overline{z}_1,\overline{z}_2)`$. In this case we may consider the real part of the curve $`A=A(^{})^2`$ which is a real algebraic curve. We say that a curve $`A`$ is real up to multiplication by a constant if there exist constants $`b_1,b_2^{}`$ such that $`(b_1,b_2)\times A(^{})^2`$ is defined over $``$. The condition that $`A`$ is real up to multiplication by a constant is equivalent to the condition that there exist $`a,b_1,b_2^{}`$ such that the polynomial $`af(\frac{z_1}{b_1},\frac{z_2}{b_2})`$ has real coefficients. In this case we may also consider the real part $`A=\{(x_1,x_2)(^{})^2|af(\frac{x_1}{b_1},\frac{x_2}{b_2})=0\}`$. We say that a map is at most 2-1 if the inverse image of any point in the target consists of at most 2 points. The main result of this paper is the following theorem.

###### Theorem 1.

Suppose that $`\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta })>0`$. Then the following conditions are equivalent.

1. $`\mathrm{Area}(𝒜)=\pi ^2\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta }).`$
2. The map $`\mathrm{Log}|_A:A^2`$ is at most 2-1 and $`A`$ is real up to multiplication by a constant.
3. The curve $`A`$ is real up to multiplication by a constant and its real part $`A`$ is a (possibly singular) Harnack curve (see Definitions 2 and 3) for the Newton polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

Furthermore, these conditions imply that the non-singular locus of $`A`$ coincides with $`A\mathrm{Log}^1(𝒜)`$.

###### Corollary 1.

The inequality (1) is sharp for any Newton polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

The corollary follows from Theorem 1 and the Harnack-Itenberg-Viro Theorem (see section 2) on existence of Harnack curves.

###### Remark 1.

A curve that is real up to multiplication by a constant may have more than one real part (other real parts may come as a result of multiplication by different constants). For instance, if $`f`$ is a real polynomial which contains only even powers of $`z_2`$ then the pullback of $`f`$ under $`(z_1,z_2)(z_1,iz_2)`$ is a real polynomial with a different real part.

The theorem implies that a Harnack curve is real up to multiplication by a constant in a unique way. Indeed, the choice of the real part is determined by the identity $`A=A\mathrm{Log}^1(𝒜)`$.

## 2 Harnack curves in $`(^{})^2`$.

Let us fix a convex polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }^2`$ whose vertices have integer coordinates. Consider all possible real polynomials $`f`$ whose Newton polygon is $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. The same polynomial $`f`$ may be viewed both as a function $`(^{})^2`$ and as a function $`(^{})^2`$.

Let $`A`$ be the zero set of $`f`$ in $`(^{})^2`$. Equivalently, $`A`$ is a real part of the zero set $`A`$ of $`f`$ in $`(^{})^2`$. For a generic choice of coefficients of $`f`$ the curve $`A`$ is smooth. However the topology of $`((^{})^2,A)`$ is different for different choices of coefficients of $`f`$. In particular, the number of components of $`A`$ may be different. Also the mutual position of the components may be different.

We may compactify the above setup. Recall (see e.g. ) that the polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ determines a toric surface $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }(^{})^2`$. We denote the real part of $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }(^{})^2`$. The surface $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a compactification of $`(^{})^2`$. Furthermore, the complement $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }(^{})^2`$ is a union of $`n`$ (non-disjoint) lines, where $`n`$ is the number of sides of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Similarly, $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }(^{})^2`$ is a union of $`n`$ real lines $`l_1,\mathrm{},l_n`$. These lines are called the axes of $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$. We assume that the indexing of $`l_k`$ is consistent with the natural cyclic order on the sides of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

The closure $`\overline{A}`$ of $`A(^{})^2T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ in $`T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a compact curve whose real part is $`\overline{A}A`$. The topology of the triad $`(T_\mathrm{\Delta };\overline{A},l_1,\mathrm{}l_n)`$ carries all topological information on arrangement of $`A`$ in $`(^{})^2`$.

The upper bound on the number of components of $`\overline{A}T_\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is provided by Harnack’s inequality . This number is never greater than one plus the genus of $`A`$. Recall that by  the genus of $`A`$ is equal to the number of lattice points in the interior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. We denote this number with $`g`$.

To deduce the upper bound on the number of components of $`A(^{})^2`$ we recall that $`A=\overline{A}(l_1\mathrm{}l_n)`$, where $`l_k`$ corresponds to a side $`\delta _k`$ of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$. Let $`d_k`$ be the integer length of $`\delta _k`$, i.e. the number of lattice points inside $`\delta _k`$ plus one. Note that this length is an $`SL(2,)`$-invariant. The curve $`\overline{A}`$ and the axis $`l_k`$ intersect in no more that $`d_k`$ points, since $`d_k`$ is the intersection number of their complexifications. Therefore, $`A`$ has no more than $`g+\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}d_k`$ components.

###### Definition 2 (Harnack curves, cf. ).

A non-singular curve $`A(^{})^2`$ with the Newton polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is called a Harnack curve if all the following conditions hold.

* The number of components of $`\overline{A}`$ is equal to $`g+1`$ (where $`g`$ is the number of lattice points in the interior of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$).
* All components of $`\overline{A}`$ but one do not intersect $`l_1\mathrm{}l_n`$.
* A component $`C`$ of $`\overline{A}`$ can be divided into $`n`$ consecutive (with respect to the cyclic order on $`C`$) arcs $`\alpha _1,\mathrm{},\alpha _n`$ so that for each $`k`$ the intersections $`\alpha _kl_k`$ consists of $`d_k`$ points, while $`\alpha _kl_j=\mathrm{}`$, $`jk`$.

Note that the first two conditions imply that the number of components of a Harnack curve $`A`$ is equal to $`g+\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}d_k`$.

###### Theorem  (Mikhalkin ).

For each Newton polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ the topological type of the triad $`(T_\mathrm{\Delta };\overline{A},l_1\mathrm{}l_n)`$ is unique if $`A`$ is a Harnack curve.

Note that the above theorem implies that the topological type of the pair $`((^{})^2,A)`$ is also unique for each $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

###### Theorem  (Harnack, Itenberg, Viro, , , ).

Harnack curves exist for any Newton polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

Harnack  proved this theorem for plane projective curves of arbitrary degree $`d`$. In our language this corresponds to the case when $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is a triangle whose vertices are $`(0,0)`$, $`(d,0)`$, $`(0,d)`$. Harnack’s example was generalized to arbitrary Newton polyhedra $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ with the help of Viro’s patchworking described in , see Corollary A4 in . The Harnack curves are a special case of the so-called T-curves, see .

We refer to  and  for illustrations of Harnack curves.

Recall that a point $`pA(^{})^2`$ is called an ordinary real isolated double point of $`A`$ (or an $`\mathrm{A}_1^+`$-point, see ) if there exist local coordinates $`x_1,x_2`$ at $`p(^{})^2`$ such that $`A`$ is locally defined by equation $`x_1^2+x_2^2=0`$.

###### Definition 3 (Singular Harnack curves).

A singular curve $`A(^{})^2`$ with the Newton polygon $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ is called a singular Harnack curve if

* the only singular points of $`A`$ are $`A_1^+`$-points (ordinary real isolated double points);
* the result of replacing of the singular points of $`A`$ with small ovals (which corresponds to replacing with the locus $`x_1^2+x_2^2=ϵ,ϵ>0`$ in the local coordinates) gives a Harnack curve for $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

In other words, a singular Harnack curve is the result of contraction to points of some ovals of a non-singular Harnack curve.

## 3 Monge-Ampère measure on $`𝒜`$.

In the next section we prove the equivalence of conditions 1 and 2 in the main theorem. The proof is an extension of the proof of the inequality (1) given in . We recapture in this section the main points in this proof. The idea is to construct a measure on the amoeba $`𝒜`$, whose total mass is related to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ and which can be computed explicitly in terms of the hypersurface $`A`$. This measure will be obtained as the real Monge-Ampère measure of a certain convex function associated to $`f`$.

We indicate briefly the definition of the real Monge-Ampère operator. Details may be found in . Suppose $`u`$ is a smooth convex function defined in $`^n`$. Then $`\mathrm{grad}u`$ defines a mapping from $`^n`$ to $`^n`$. The Monge-Ampère measure $`\mathrm{M}u`$ of $`u`$ is defined by $`\mathrm{M}u(E)=\lambda (\mathrm{grad}u(E))`$ for any Borel set $`E`$, where $`\lambda `$ denotes Lebesgue measure on $`^n`$. That this is actually a measure requires a proof, since $`\mathrm{grad}u`$ is in general not 1-to-1. If $`u`$ is convex but not necessarily smooth, $`\mathrm{grad}u`$ can still be defined as a multifunction, and the Monge-Ampère measure of $`u`$ is defined as in the smooth case. For smooth functions the Monge-Ampère measure is given by the determinant of the Hessian matrix,

$$\mu =|\mathrm{Hess}(u)|\lambda ,$$

where $`\lambda `$ is the Lebesgue measure.

####

Suppose now that $`f`$ is a given polynomial in two variables and define

$$N_f(x)=\frac{1}{(2\pi i)^2}_{\mathrm{Log}^1(x)}\frac{\mathrm{log}|f(z)|dz_1dz_2}{z_1z_2}.$$

This is a real-valued function defined in $`^2`$, which is convex because $`\mathrm{log}|f(z)|`$ is plurisubharmonic. Define $`\mu `$ to be the Monge-Ampère measure of $`N_f`$.

###### Lemma 1.

The measure $`\mu `$ has its support in $`𝒜`$ and its total mass is equal to the area of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

###### Proof.

It is not difficult to show that $`N_f`$ is affine linear in each connected component of $`^2𝒜`$ and that the gradient image $`\mathrm{grad}N_f(^2)`$ is equal to $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ minus some of its boundary points. This readily implies the statement. For details we refer to . ∎

####

Let $`F`$ denote the set of critical values of the mapping $`\mathrm{Log}:A^2`$. Pick a point $`x_0𝒜F`$ and functions $`\varphi _j,\psi _j`$ defined in a neighborhood $`V`$ of $`x_0`$, where $`j`$ ranges from 1 to $`n`$ and $`n`$ is the cardinality of $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)A`$, such that $`A\mathrm{Log}^1(V)=_{j=1}^n\{(\mathrm{exp}(x_1+i\varphi _j(x)),\mathrm{exp}(x_2+i\psi _j(x)));x=(x_1,x_2)V\}`$. The main step in the proof of the inequality is the following computation.

###### Lemma 2.

With notations as above we have

$$\mathrm{Hess}(N_f)=\frac{1}{2\pi }\underset{j=1}{\overset{n}{}}\pm \left(\begin{array}{cc}\psi _j/x_1& \psi _j/x_2\\ \varphi _j/x_1& \varphi _j/x_2\end{array}\right).$$
(2)
The signs depend on the signs of the intersection numbers between $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)`$ and $`A`$. Each term in the sum is a symmetric, positive definite matrix with determinant equal to 1.

####

For the proof we refer to . We remark that the fact that the matrices are symmetric with determinant equal to 1 follows immediately when we know that $`A`$ is a complex analytic curve. The two last lemmas immediately imply the inequality (1) via the following corollary.

###### Corollary 2.

If $`\lambda `$ denotes Lebesgue measure in $`^2`$, then $`\mu (\lambda /\pi ^2)|_𝒜`$. Hence the area of $`𝒜`$ is not greater than $`\pi ^2`$ times the area of $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$.

###### Proof.

It is not difficult to show that for $`2\times 2`$ symmetric, positive definite matrices $`M_1,M_2`$ the inequality

$$\sqrt{det(M_1+M_2)}\sqrt{detM_1}+\sqrt{detM_2}$$
(3)
holds, with equality precisely if $`M_1`$ and $`M_2`$ are real multiples of each other. Applying this to the sum (2) and using the fact that it contains at least two terms for all $`x_0𝒜F`$, the first statement follows. Combining this with Lemma 1 yields the second part. ∎

###### Remark 2.

The inequality used in the previous proof follows as a special case of an inequality for positive definite matrices of arbitrary size, analogous to the Alexandrov-Fenchel inequality for mixed volumes. The general inequality can be found in .

## 4 Proof of Theorem 1: conditions 1 and 2 are equivalent.

####

We are now ready to prove the equivalence of conditions 1 and 2. Note that by Corollary 2, $`\mathrm{Area}(𝒜)=\pi ^2\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ if and only if $`\mu =(\lambda /\pi ^2)|_𝒜`$.

### 4.1 Implication $`12`$.

Suppose that $`\mu =(\lambda /\pi ^2)|_𝒜`$. We first show that $`f`$ is irreducible.

###### Lemma 3.

If $`\mu =(\lambda /\pi ^2)|_𝒜`$, then $`f`$ is irreducible.

###### Proof.

Let $`K,L`$ be compact convex subsets of $`^2`$. From the monotonicity properties of mixed volumes it follows that $`\mathrm{Area}(K+L)\mathrm{Area}(K)+\mathrm{Area}(L)`$ with strict inequality holding unless one of $`K,L`$ is a point or $`K`$ and $`L`$ are two parallel segments. Assume now that we have a non-trivial factorization $`f=gh`$ and let $`\mathrm{\Delta }_g,\mathrm{\Delta }_h`$ denote the Newton polytopes and $`𝒜_g,𝒜_h`$ the amoebas of $`g`$ and $`h`$ respectively. From Lemma 1 it follows that $`\mathrm{Area}(𝒜)=\pi ^2\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$. On the other hand, since $`𝒜=𝒜_g𝒜_h`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\mathrm{\Delta }_g+\mathrm{\Delta }_h`$, it follows from Corollary 2 that

$$\mathrm{Area}(𝒜)\mathrm{Area}(𝒜_g)+\mathrm{Area}(𝒜_h)\pi ^2(\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta }_g)+\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta }_h))<\pi ^2\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta }).$$

This is a contradiction. ∎

From (3) it follows that for equality to hold in Corollary 2 it is necessary that $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x)`$ intersects $`A`$ in at most two points for all $`xF`$. Hence the sum (2) contains two terms with opposite signs. For equality to hold in (3) applied to the sum (2) it is necessary that $`\mathrm{grad}\varphi _1=\mathrm{grad}\varphi _2`$ and $`\mathrm{grad}\psi _1=\mathrm{grad}\psi _2`$. After a multiplication of each coordinate by a constant we may assume that $`\varphi _1=\varphi _2,\psi _1=\psi _2`$ in a neighborhood of a given point in $`𝒜F`$. (The existence of such points is guaranteed by the assumption that $`\mathrm{Area}(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ and hence $`\mathrm{Area}(𝒜)`$ is positive.) But then $`f(z)`$ and $`\overline{f(\overline{z})}`$ have a common factor, and hence coincide up to a multiplicative constant since they are irreducible. Multiplying $`f`$ by a suitable constant, we obtain a polynomial with real coefficients.

To complete the proof we must show that $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)`$ intersects $`A`$ in at most two points for all $`x_0F`$. Note that $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)A`$ cannot contain more than 2 isolated points. Indeed, a small neighborhood in $`A`$ of an isolated point in $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)A`$ is mapped by $`\mathrm{Log}`$ either onto a neighborhood of $`x_0`$, or in a 2-to-1 fashion onto a half-disk with $`x_0`$ on its boundary. In any case, the presence of more than 2 isolated points would imply that $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x)A`$ contains more than two points for some $`xF`$, which is a contradiction.

If $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)f^1(0)`$ contains a curve $`\gamma `$ we consider two different cases. If $`\gamma `$ is of the form $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x_0)\{z_1^jz_2^k=c\}`$ for some $`(j,k)^2`$ and $`c`$, then $`f`$ contains the factor $`z_1^jz_2^kc`$, which is impossible by Lemma 3. Otherwise, $`t\gamma :=\{(t_1z_1,t_2z_2);(z_1,z_2)\gamma \}`$ intersects $`\gamma `$ for all $`t`$ in an open set in the real torus $`𝐓^2`$. By Theorem 5 in  (cf. the proof of Lemma 4) this implies that $`\mu `$ has a point mass at $`x_0`$, contradicting the assumptions. Hence we have shown that $`\mathrm{Log}:A^2`$ is at most 2-to-1.

### 4.2 Implication $`21`$.

Conversely, assume that $`\mathrm{Log}:A^2`$ is at most 2-to-1 and that $`f`$ has real coefficients. Since $`𝒜`$ and $`\mu `$ are invariant under the changes of variables permitted in the theorem, this is no loss of generality. Then the sum (2) has two terms. Since $`A`$ is invariant under complex conjugation of the variables, it follows that $`\varphi _1=\varphi _2,\psi _1=\psi _2`$, hence the two terms are actually equal. This shows immediately that $`\mu =(\lambda /\pi ^2)|_𝒜`$ outside $`F`$. By the following Lemma neither $`\mu `$ nor $`\lambda `$ has any mass on $`F`$, so this equality holds everywhere.

###### Lemma 4.

If $`\mathrm{Log}^1(x)A`$ is a finite set for all $`x`$, then $`\mu `$ has no mass on $`F`$.

###### Proof.

In Theorem 5 in  it is shown that $`\mu (E)`$ is proportional to the average number of solutions in $`\mathrm{Log}^1(E)`$ to the system of equations

$$f(z_1,z_2)=f(t_1z_1,t_2z_2)=0$$
(4)
as $`(t_1,t_2)`$ ranges over the real torus $`𝐓^2=\{t^2;|t_1|=|t_2|=1\}`$. Note that the set of critical values of the mapping $`A^2:(z_1,z_2)(|z_1|^2,|z_2|^2)`$ is a semialgebraic set. Thus it is contained in a real-algebraic curve $`\stackrel{~}{F}`$.

Consider the product space $`^2\times 𝐓^2`$ with the two projections $`\pi _1`$ and $`\pi _2`$ onto $`^2`$ and $`𝐓^2`$ defined by $`\pi _1(z,t)=(|z_1|^2,|z_2|^2)`$ and $`\pi _2(z,t)=t`$. Let $`C=\pi _1^1(\stackrel{~}{F})\{f(z_1,z_2)=f(t_1z_1,t_2z_2)=0\}^2\times 𝐓^2`$. Since the map $`\pi _1:C\stackrel{~}{F}`$ has discrete fibers, it follows that $`C`$ is a real curve. Hence $`\pi _2(C)`$ is a null set in $`𝐓^2`$. Since the equation (4) has no solutions in $`\mathrm{Log}^1(F)`$ for $`t`$ outside $`\pi _2(C)`$, it follows that $`\mu (F)=0`$ as required. ∎

## 5 Proof of Theorem 1: conditions 2 and 3 are equivalent.

### 5.1 Implication $`23`$.

By our assumption $`A`$ is real up to multiplication by a constant. Thus multiplying by a suitable constant we may assume that $`A`$ is already defined over $``$. In this case we may define the real part $`A`$ as the fixed point set of the involution of complex conjugation $`\mathrm{conj}:(z_1,z_2)(\overline{z_1},\overline{z_2})`$ restricted to $`A`$.

Let $`\nu :\stackrel{~}{A}A`$ be the normalization of the curve $`A`$. The involution $`\mathrm{conj}|_A`$ can be lifted to an involution $`\mathrm{conj}_{\stackrel{~}{A}}`$ on the Riemann surface $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. Let $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ be the real part of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. Note that $`\nu (\stackrel{~}{A})A`$, but real isolated (singular) points of $`A`$ are not contained in $`\nu (\stackrel{~}{A})`$.

Since $`\mathrm{Log}|_A`$ is at most 2-1 we can view the map $`\mathrm{Log}\nu :\stackrel{~}{A}𝒜`$ as a branched double covering. Let $`F𝒜`$ be the branch locus of this covering, i.e. the set of points whose inverse image under $`\mathrm{Log}|_A`$ consists of one point.

###### Lemma 5.

The involution $`\mathrm{conj}_{\stackrel{~}{A}}`$ is the deck transformation of the branched double covering $`\mathrm{Log}\nu `$.

###### Proof.

The Lemma follows from the fact that $`\mathrm{Log}`$ maps conjugate points to the same point, $`\mathrm{Log}\mathrm{conj}=\mathrm{Log}`$. ∎

###### Corollary 3.

$`𝒜=\stackrel{~}{A}/\mathrm{conj}_{\stackrel{~}{A}}`$, while $`F=\mathrm{Log}(\nu (\stackrel{~}{A}))=𝒜`$.

###### Proof.

The curve $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ is non-singular and therefore $`\stackrel{~}{A}/\mathrm{conj}_{\stackrel{~}{A}}`$ is a smooth surface with the boundary $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. ∎

Thus $`𝒜`$ consists of the images of components of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. These components are of two types, closed components, called ovals, and non-compact components. Accordingly, each oval of $`A`$ which does not contain singular points corresponds to a hole in $`𝒜`$.

Consider first the case when $`A`$ is a non-singular curve, so that $`\stackrel{~}{A}=A`$. Let $`l`$ be the number of ovals of $`A`$. Then $`\chi (𝒜)=1l`$, where $`\chi `$ stands for the homology Euler characteristic, i.e. the alternated sum of Betti numbers (we specify that since $`𝒜`$ is not compact). On the other hand, by additivity of Euler characteristic for compact spaces, $`\chi (\overline{A})=2\chi (𝒜)=22l`$ (recall that $`\overline{A}`$ is a compactification of $`A`$ in a suitable toric surface, see Section 2). But $`\chi (\overline{A})=22g`$ and, therefore, $`l=g`$.

To ensure that $`A`$ has the right number of non-compact components we recall that $`\overline{A}`$ intersect the complexification of $`l_k`$ in $`d_k`$ points. Each such intersection corresponds to a ”tentacle” of $`𝒜`$ which goes to infinity (see ). Therefore $`^2𝒜`$ has $`\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}d_k`$ non-compact components and each of them must be bounded by a non-compact component of $`A`$.

To finish the proof in the case when $`A`$ is non-singular we need to show that these $`g+\underset{k=1}{\overset{n}{}}d_k`$ components of $`A`$ are arranged in $`(^{})^2`$ in the Harnack way. This follows from Lemma 11 of . Compactifying with $`l_1\mathrm{}l_n`$ we obtain that $`(T_\mathrm{\Delta };\overline{A},l_1\mathrm{}l_n)`$ is a Harnack arrangement.

Now we consider a general case where $`A`$ might have singular points.

###### Lemma 6.

$`A`$ has no singularities other than real isolated double points.

###### Proof.

We claim that the singular points of $`A`$ may only arise as the intersection points of two non-singular branches of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$. Consider the map $`\stackrel{~}{A}A𝒜`$.

Over $`𝒜F`$ each of the two branches of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ must be non-singular. Indeed, it maps 1-1 to $`𝒜F`$ and, therefore, the link of each point of this branch is an unknot.

By a similar reason branches of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ cannot have singular points over $`F`$. Indeed, the links of such points are unknots since neighborhoods of those points map 2-1 to small half-disks from $`\stackrel{~}{A}/\mathrm{conj}_{\stackrel{~}{A}}`$.

By Lemma 1 of  the image of each branch of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ under $`\mathrm{Log}`$ has a convex complement. Therefore the images of branches of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ cannot intersect (that would produce points of $`𝒜`$ with at least 4 inverse images under $`\mathrm{Log}|_A`$).

Thus the only singularities of $`A`$ are intersection points $`p`$ of a pair of conjugate non-singular imaginary branches. If these branches are not transverse then they have a real tangent line $`\tau `$. The points of $`\tau `$ close to $`p`$ will be covered at least twice by each of the two branches of $`\stackrel{~}{A}`$ which leads to a contradiction. We conclude that the only singularities of $`A`$ are $`A_1^+`$-singularities. ∎

Now we may replace each $`A_1^+`$-point with a small oval that corresponds to its local perturbation and proceed similar to the case of non-singular curves.

### 5.2 Implication $`32`$.

This implication is contained in the proof of the main theorem in . Indeed, a Harnack curve is in cyclically maximal position (see Theorem 3 of ). By Lemmas 5 and 8 of  we know that $`F=\mathrm{Log}(A)=𝒜`$ and by Lemma 9 $`\mathrm{Log}|_A`$ is an embedding. Therefore the only singularities of $`\mathrm{Log}|_A`$ are folds and $`\mathrm{Log}|_A`$ is at most 2-1.