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# Surveying the Sky with the Arcminute MicroKelvin Imager: Expected Constraints on Galaxy Cluster Evolution and Cosmology

## 1 Introduction

Clusters of galaxies are the most massive collapsed objects in the universe. They are ideal probes of structure formation, both in the linear clustering regime, which is controlled by factors such as the cosmological density parameter $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and the density fluctuation power spectrum, and later when the individual clusters grow non-linearly by merging, shocks, and gradual virialisation. It is becoming clear that there is a population of clusters $`z1`$ (see e.g. Fabian et al. 2001, Cotter et al., Joy et al.), but the numbers of these remain unclear. It is essential to search systematically for these clusters in order to understand the evolution of structure in the universe.

To make full use of these probes of cosmology, an unbiased cluster survey is needed. Optical and X-ray surveys suffer various biases with respect to cluster properties and redshift. Projection effects, confusion with background objects, surface brightness dimming with redshift, and a bias to mass concentration, all hamper both optical and X-ray surveys, although X-ray luminosity turns out to be a reasonably good indicator of the total mass in many clusters. However, detecting clusters via the scattering of CMB photons by cluster gas (the Sunyaev–Zel’dovich, SZ, effect, Sunyaev & Zel’dovich 1972) minimises such biases.

First, the measured quantity, integrated gas pressure, gas mass times gas temperature, or total thermal energy is closely related to the cluster mass (e.g. Bartlett and Silk 1994; Barbosa et al. 1996; Eke et al. 1996). Second, critically, because the SZ effect is a scattering process, the effect is independent of cluster redshift. Surveys using the SZ effect therefore offer the means to find clusters by mass, and at all redshifts.

Detection of the SZ effect in rich X-ray-selected clusters has become routine (see Birkinshaw 1999 for a review) Although the use of microwave cluster searches for cosmological studies has be advocated for a long time (Korolev, Sunyaev & Yakubtsev 1986; Bond & Myers 1991; Bartlett & Silk 1994; Markevitch et al. 1994; Barbosa et al. 1996; Eke et al. 1996; Colafrancesco et al. 1997; da Silva et al. 2000) only very recently has the technology and expertise become available to build sufficiently sensitive instruments that can survey the sky and are expected to find a substantial number of clusters in a reasonable surveying time.

In this paper we will explore the expected results from an SZ survey using the characteristics of the proposed Arcminute MicroKelvin Imager (AMI). Other related experiments are proposed or planned (SZA: Holder et al. 2000, AMiBA: Lo et al.). Predictions for the results of this kind of survey exist now also in the literature (e.g. Holder et al. 2000, Bartlett). The work presented here (cf. Kneissl 2000 for an earlier presentation) is different in two main ways:

* We have tried to be as conservative as possible about what an AMI survey will find, given what is already known about structure formation. For example, Holder et al. (entirely reasonably) expect to find larger numbers of clusters than we report here; however, this difference is only due to their different choice of model parameters: fg (gas fraction) higher by 50% and $`\sigma _8`$ (rms density fluctuations on 8 Mpc scales) higher by 20%. This change in the parameters leads to a number of clusters that is higher by a factor of ten. This large difference in expected source counts for a plausible variation in input parameters clearly demonstrates the importance of observations which will have an error of the order of only about 10%. Since the uncertainties in the model parameters entering the SZ cluster simulation are large, we take a cautious approach and demonstrate that $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ can be sensibly constrained even with a pessimistic parameter choice. With more optimistic assumptions for the model parameters, in particular the gas fraction and the local cluster abundance, more clusters are expected, and higher precision in constraining parameters can be achieved. Constraints on a cosmological constant or even quintessence (Wang and Steinhardt 1998, Haiman et al.) are possible in principle and are certainly a fascinating possibility. Also deviations from the expected gravitational evolution allows us to identify non-Gaussian initial conditions (e.g. Matarrese et al. 2000).
* We model what interferometers will detect, given their uv coverage, their errors, and given the ubiquitous existence of contaminating radio sources.

AMI is described and a brief overview over its other science goals is given in Section 2. To gauge the ability of AMI to detect clusters, we simulate the SZ cluster sky using the Press-Schechter expression and individual cluster templates from hydrodynamical simulations, described in Section 3. The expected cluster counts and instrument sensitivities are considered in Section 4, and in Section 5 we discuss the exciting prospects of using AMI results to determine the model parameters, and follow-up observations, both pointed SZ observations and in other wavebands. We argue that detection in the SZ effect is vital for selection, and follow-up in the optical and X-ray bands is necessary to break degeneracies between the model parameters.

## 2 The Arcminute MicroKelvin Imager

It has not yet proved possible to conduct an effective blind SZ survey because of the limited sensitivity and field of view of current telescopes. A very rich cluster produces a perturbation of less than 1 mK on the CMB, over an angular size (for a moderate-to-high redshift cluster) of a few arcminutes. A small number of groups have been able to detect successfully the SZ effect in X-ray and optically selected clusters (e.g. Birkinshaw, Gull & Hardebeck 1984; Jones et al. 1993; Carlstrom, Joy & Grego 1996; Holzapfel et al. 1997; Myers et al. 1997). However, existing telescopes do not have sufficient sensitivity over a large enough field of view to carry out a survey that would usefully constrain the population of clusters at high redshifts where X-ray and optical surveys are incomplete.

As an example, our present programme uses the Ryle Telescope (RT) at 15 GHz to make images of the SZ effect in X-ray selected clusters. The RT, with its compact array of five 13 m-diameter antennas, was the first instrument in practice capable of imaging the SZ effect, and remains one of only a handful of such worldwide. We have obtained $``$10-$`\sigma `$ detections towards a dozen clusters (see e.g. \[Grainge et al. 1993, Grainge et al. 1996\]). However, it takes about twenty 12-hour observations with the RT to achieve a 5-$`\sigma `$ detection on a rich (total mass $`10^{15}\mathrm{M}_{},kT8`$keV) cluster, with a field of view of 0.01 square degrees. Models of structure formation normalised to the local space density of clusters e.g. \[Eke, Cole, & Frenk 1996\] suggest that the surface density of such clusters is at most of the order 0.1 per square degree. Thus to detect a few such clusters with the RT in a blind survey would take over fifty years.

Given the experience of existing SZ and CMB telescopes, it is now possible to build an SZ survey telescope with the required performance. Interferometers have advantages over single antennas for the kind of measurements we need to make. They are less susceptible to spillover signals in the sidelobes, as signals originating far from the main beam are attenuated both by delay error and by having the wrong fringe rate. Receiver stability is not critical as gain fluctuations are not correlated between different antennas and are therefore not coherently detected by the correlator. They can be very insensitive to most atmospheric emission, both by resolving it out spatially, and by virtue of the fact that it has a very different fringe rate to the astronomical signal and can be filtered out temporally . With suitable design, interferometers can also overcome the ever-present problem of radio sources contaminating the CMB signal by simultaneously identifying the sources with high angular resolution and subtracting them from the short-baseline data.

The design of an SZ survey interferometer has to address two basic issues:

* Good temperature sensitivity is required: we must maintain a high filled fraction of the synthesised aperture yet have a sufficient range of baselines to make a good image. Also we must not resolve out the extended structure of most SZ sources – their typical angular size of a few arcminutes requires baselines of a few hundred wavelengths or less in order to observe most of the flux. We therefore need a closely-packed array of small antennas.
* It is also vital to find and remove the effects of contaminating foreground emission. In practice on arcminute scales, the contamination comes from discrete point sources—radio galaxies and quasars. Their effects can only be removed by mapping the AMI field of view with higher angular resolution and flux sensitivity. This requires an array of large antennas with relatively long baselines.

The solution to these problems is to use two arrays simultaneously; larger antennas on longer baselines, providing good flux sensitivity to point sources, and a compact array of small antennas to provide sensitivity to the SZ clusters. For AMI, we propose to use all eight 13-m antennas of the RT, with baselines from 18 to 108 m (900 to 5400 $`\lambda `$ at 15 GHz), plus a new array of ten 3.7-m antennas with baselines from 4 to 18 m (200 to 900 $`\lambda `$). The 3.7-m antennas will be sited inside an earth bank lined with aluminium sheeting to ensure that sidelobes from the antennas do not terminate on warm emitting material (see figure 1). The filling factor is around 40% for baselines up to $`2000\lambda `$, giving good temperature sensitivity with a resolution of 1.5 arcmin. The shorter baselines of the RT array provide some sensitivity to SZ clusters; the remaining longer baselines provide sufficient flux sensitivity at higher resolution to subtract the radio sources that will also be present in any field. We will correlate the whole 12–18 GHz band provided by the front-end amplifiers, divided into 8 channels (or 16 in the case of the longer RT baselines) to avoid losses due to chromatic aberration.

We choose the 12–18 GHz band for several reasons. At a given resolution and system temperature, any observing frequency within the Rayleigh-Jeans region of the CMB spectrum ($`\nu 217`$ GHz) will give the same sensitivity to temperature structure in the sky. The relevant questions are then of achievable system temperature and foreground contamination. Receiver noises are invariably lower at lower frequency; modern cryogenic amplifiers using pseudomorphic HEMTs can achieve noise temperatures of 0.5–1 K per GHz of observing frequency at $`\nu <150`$ GHz. Also, the atmospheric noise contribution rises with frequency and is more sensitive to the water vapour content at higher frequencies. On the other hand, the major foreground contaminant at arcminute resolution is extragalactic radio sources, whose brightness temperature typically falls as $`\nu ^2`$ to $`\nu ^3`$. (Note however that Taylor et al., using the RT at 15 GHz in survey mode, find a significant population of sources whose flux densities rise with frequency, i.e. whose brightness temperatures fall more slowly than $`\nu ^2`$.) Optimum observing frequency is thus a compromise between system noise and source contamination. With the RT, a large collecting area is available for source identification on a site where the atmosphere is very much more transparent at 12–18 GHz than at the next atmospheric window of 26–36 GHz. System temperatures around 25 K are possible using the latest amplifiers, and the source confusion problem is quite tractable using the majority of the RT baselines. Observing solely in the Rayleigh-Jeans region means of course we are unable to use the frequency dependence of the SZ effect to separate the thermal and kinetic SZ effects; however, for the main purpose of making an SZ survey, sensitivity is the over-riding consideration, and this is best achieved at lower frequency.

### 2.1 Predicted Performance

The instantaneous field of view, or primary beam, of an interferometer is given by the Fourier transform of the antenna illumination function; for typical illumination patterns, the field is well approximated by a Gaussian with fwhm = 1.1$`\lambda /D`$ where $`D`$ is the antenna diameter. The flux sensitivity of an array consisting of $`n`$ antennas each with effective area $`A`$, integrating for a time $`\tau `$, measuring a single polarisation with bandwidth $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu `$ is given by (see e.g. Thomson, Moran & Swenson 1986)

$$\mathrm{\Delta }S_{\mathrm{rms}}=\frac{2kT_{sys}}{\eta A\left(n\left(n1\right)\mathrm{\Delta }\nu \tau \right)^{1/2}},$$

where $`\eta `$ is the system efficiency, $`T_{\mathrm{sys}}`$ is the system temperature (assumed the same for each antenna), and $`k`$ is Boltzmann’s constant. For the two arrays of AMI, this results in flux sensitivities of $`2.0\mathrm{mJy}\mathrm{s}^{1/2}`$ and $`20\mathrm{m}\mathrm{J}\mathrm{y}\mathrm{s}^{1/2}`$ over fields of view of 6 arcmin and 21 arcmin respectively. These figures have been used to generate the sensitivity plots and simulated observations in the following sections. To give an indication of the equivalent temperature sensitivity, we assume that the aperture is reasonably well-filled and use the Rayleigh–Jeans formula. This gives

$$\mathrm{\Delta }T_{\mathrm{rms}}=\frac{\lambda ^2\mathrm{\Delta }S_{\mathrm{rms}}}{2k\mathrm{\Omega }},$$

where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the synthesised beam area. This corresponds to a temperature sensitivity of around 8 $`\mu `$K in a 1.5 arcminute beam in one month of observation on a single (0.1 square degree) field, though sensitivity can be concentrated on particular angular scales by choice of array configuration.

### 2.2 Source subtraction

We now show that AMI can successfully subtract the radio sources that are the main contaminating signal. The amount of collecting area that has to be devoted to source subtraction depends critically on the source counts at the flux levels being probed. There are no good deep source counts available at 15 GHz; however there exist $`\mu `$Jy source counts at 8.4 GHz, less than a factor of two in frequency away from where AMI would operate, allowing us to assess roughly the level of source confusion. Windhorst et al  find the 8.4 GHz source counts below 1 mJy are described by

$$N(>S)=(3.57\pm .57)(S_{8.4}/1\mathrm{Jy})^{1.3\pm 0.2}\mathrm{sr}^1.$$

Using the effective spectral index of $`\alpha =0.53`$ (taking into account the dispersion in their measured spectral indices), extrapolation to 15 GHz gives

$$N(>S)=2.6(S_{15}/1\mathrm{Jy})^{1.3}\mathrm{sr}^1.$$

To calculate the effect of source confusion on AMI, we split the baselines into two sets. The first is dedicated to high temperature sensitivity mapping of arc-minute scale CMB structure, and so comprises only baselines shorter than $`2\mathrm{k}\lambda `$; these are all 45 baselines from the 3.7-m antennas and 6 baselines between the 13-m antennas. This set has a flux sensitivity of $`51\mu \mathrm{Jy}(12\mathrm{hours})^{1/2}`$ over a 0.1 square degree field. The second measures the flux densities of confusing radio sources and comprises the remaining 22 baselines from the 13-m antennas. It has a flux sensitivity of $`35\mu \mathrm{Jy}`$ over the same area in the same time. The residual confusion noise in the maps made with the compact set is given by

$$\sigma _{\mathrm{conf}}^2=\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{S_{\mathrm{sub}}}S^2\frac{\mathrm{d}N}{\mathrm{d}S}dS,$$

where $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ is the synthesised beam area and $`S_{\mathrm{sub}}`$ is the flux level subtracted down to. Assuming a source detection threshold ($`4.0\sigma `$) of $`140\mu `$Jy, we find that the residual confusion noise in a 12-hour, 1.5-arcmin resolution AMI observation is 30$`\mu `$Jy, which when added in quadrature to the thermal noise results in a less than 20% increase in overall noise level. In practice, simultaneous fitting of the clusters and point sources to all the baselines will increase the effective sensitivity to sources and allow them to be subtracted to an even lower level.

This design achieves optimal sensitivity to the cluster SZ effect and a separation with other components such as radio sources. Although a main aim is the study of clusters, it will probe generally the structure of the CMB on scales smaller than those accessible to the Planck satellite. It is sensitive to phenomena such as inhomogeneous ionisation, density–velocity correlations (Ostriker-Vishniac effect), filaments and topological defects, which are all of immense interest as well. In the following sections, however, we demonstrate the ability of AMI to discover clusters.

## 3 Simulated SZ Cluster Sky Maps

To determine how many galaxy clusters AMI might detect, it is useful to create realistic SZ sky maps simulated for different cosmologies. This approach is particularly helpful for interferometric measurements for the following two reasons. Firstly, limited coverage in the aperture (uv) plane produces ringing in real space, where clusters are most easily identified. Thus, the resulting point-source response in the interferometer observation, the synthesised beam, has a complicated wing structure that produces correlated noise. The extent to which this impacts upon the cluster detection efficiency is difficult to gauge without simulations of the instrumental response applied to realistic input sky maps. Secondly, because interferometers are sensitive to the detailed shapes of the structures they observe, it is important that the simulated clusters should have a realistic distribution of shapes and sizes.

Two extreme cases of cluster evolution are considered here by assuming a flat and an open universe with $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$ and $`0.3`$ respectively. The inclusion of a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$–like term does not greatly change the cluster number counts (eg. Eke, Cole & Frenk 1996), so this complication is not introduced into the models. A Hubble constant of 70 km s-1 Mpc-1 is chosen for both cases, and the assumed cold dark matter power spectrum of density fluctuations is described by a shape $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.25`$ (Bardeen et al. 1986) and a linear theory rms amplitude of mass fluctuations matching the present-day cluster abundance as given by

$$\sigma _8=(0.52\pm 0.04)\mathrm{\Omega }_0^{0.46+0.10\mathrm{\Omega }_0},$$
(1)
(Eke et al. 1996).

The above parameters define the background cosmological models and the dark matter properties. In order to create SZ sky maps, it is also necessary to specify the fraction $`f_g`$ of mass that is in the intracluster gas, and the conversion between total cluster mass and gas temperature as parametrised by $`\beta `$ in

$`{\displaystyle \frac{kT_{gas}}{\mathrm{keV}}}=`$ (2)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{7.75}{\beta }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M}{10^{15}h^1\mathrm{M}_{}}}\right)^{\frac{2}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{\mathrm{\Omega }(z)}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_c}{178}}\right)^{\frac{1}{3}}(1+z).`$
$`M`$ represents the cluster virial mass and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_c`$ is the ratio of mean halo density to critical density at the redshift of observation, $`z`$in a spherical collapse model. As the electron density in the intracluster gas is proportional to $`f_g`$, and the cluster SZ decrement is proportional to the integrated line-of-sight electron pressure, the choice of $`f_g/\beta `$ has a significant impact upon the anticipated signals from the clusters. While the value of $`\beta `$ can be estimated as $`\beta 1`$, the value adopted here, to an accuracy of the order of 10 % from hydrodynamical simulations (Bryan & Norman 1998), there is a somewhat larger uncertainty in $`f_g`$. If one chooses to set $`f_g`$ using the measured intracluster gas fractions, then the value should lie in the range given by Ettori and Fabian (1999) and Mohr, Mathiesen and Evrard (1999), who both find 0.1–0.25 at the 95 % confidence level. An alternative way to choose $`f_g`$ would be through the primordial nucleosynthesis value for the fraction of the critical density contributed by baryons, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_b`$ 0.019 $`h^20.04`$ (Tytler et al. 2000). For the two different $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ values, the assumptions that clusters contain the universal baryon fraction (White et al. 1993) and that all baryons are in the gaseous component lead to $`f_g=0.04`$ and $`0.13`$. A value of $`f_g=0.1`$ has been used for both maps described in this paper. This is on the low side unless $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ equals 1, and primordial nucleosynthesis is a more appropriate way to determine $`f_g`$ than studying clusters themselves. Thus, the predicted cluster number counts are likely to be lower than might otherwise be expected. Furthermore, the choice of the same $`f_g`$ for both cosmologies will reduce the difference between the total numbers of detectable sources relative to what would be found with $`f_g`$ inferred from nucleosynthesis. The model parameters are summarized in Table 1.

To produce a map, the Press-Schechter expression (1974) is used to create a list of cluster masses and redshifts. The centres of these clusters are placed at random within a 5 $`\times `$ 5 sky map with 45 arcsec pixels, and template cluster maps are pasted, suitably scaled, onto these positions. Individual cluster templates are produced from the ten $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM hydrodynamical cluster simulations of Eke, Navarro and Frenk (1998). Each cluster is observed at eight different redshifts out to $`z1.1`$, and templates are produced from three orthogonal directions to maximise the variety in the apparent cluster shapes. At $`z=0`$ these clusters have total masses of $`10^{15}M_{}`$ and thus represent the largest virialised structures. If a smaller cluster is required then the templates are scaled down in angular size, gas temperature and SZ emission accordingly. The discrete redshift sampling of the simulations means that some scaling of the template emission to the desired redshift is also necessary. The two simulated SZ maps are shown in Figure 2.

da Silva et al. (2000) simulated SZ sky maps by stacking together hydrodynamical simulation boxes, in order to gain sufficient depth in redshift. Once the different choices of the various parameters that are described above are taken into account, $`\sigma _8`$ being of particular importance, their mean flux decrement per pixel is $`30`$% greater than that found in the maps produced here. Decreasing the minimum SZ flux of the included clusters from $`Y_{min}=4\times 10^7h`$ arcmin2 largely accounts for the difference in mean flux. $`Y`$ is the integral of the Compton $`y`$ parameter over the cluster solid angle (ie area divided by the angular diameter distance squared, $`Y=r_d^2ydA`$). However, this difference is less than 10 % of the flux of the faintest detected clusters, so this does not significantly influence the number of clusters that are detected here.

X-ray cluster emission templates were also produced using the same simulated hydrodynamical clusters as for the SZ templates. Bolometric luminosities were calculated from the particle densities and temperatures according to equation (15) of Eke et al. (1998). This allowed the corresponding X-ray maps to be created, so that the same simulated skies could be observed at other wavelengths. 0.5–2 keV and 2-10 keV maps were created, with the cluster luminosities being scaled from the template temperature to that of the required cluster assuming the non-evolving

$$L_xT^3$$
(3)
(Ettori, Allen & Fabian 2001, Donahue et al. 1999, Della Ceca et al. 2000, Schindler 1999, Fabian et al. 2001), rather than the $`L_xT^2(1+z)^{3/2}`$ that is expected from simple scaling arguments. Possible evolution affects our modelling only very weakly, since we rescale within a redshift bin. The 0.5-2 keV X-ray cluster map is complete to an X-ray flux limit of $`1\times 10^{15}`$ erg cm-2 s-1.

## 4 Detecting clusters with AMI

We simulate the cluster detection process for a blank field AMI observation in two different ways: a detailed, but time consuming, simulation of the response of the interferometric array to the structure on the sky, and a simplified simulation, which only operates in the image plane and uses a compensated beam profile that is constructed to match the synthesized beam resulting from the more detailed simulations.

The simplified procedure, aims at determining the cluster counts resulting from mosaiced observations, and with a realistic beam, in a fast and straightforward way. The synthesised beam depends on the coverage in the visibility plane which itself depends on the array configuration, the sky position of the field and the length of observations. The finiteness of the coverage causes ringing in the Fourier transform and the wing-structure of the beam. An accurate analytic description can be given with Bessel functions, which however still requires knowledge of the visibility coverage and substantial computational efforts. However a simpler model for the beam with only a few parameters can be given by a Gaussian beam with a compensating negative ring (see Figure 4), which approximates the most relevant parts of the synthesised beam surprisingly well. Convolving the simulated SZ cluster map with this beam results in a map in which the brighter pixels give the positions and fluxes of the brightest clusters; others can be confused.

After convolution of the cluster sky maps with this beam the observed cluster fluxes and the integrated cluster counts can be constructed (see Figure 5). Here a beam width of 4.5 arcmin FWHM and a beam efficiency of 0.5 were assumed. In addition to the recovered cluster counts we show the 1-$`\sigma `$ and 4-$`\sigma `$ sensitivity lines for various observation times. We assume a Gaussian thermal noise floor corresponding to a system temperature of 30 K.

The detailed telescope model takes all baselines of a given array configuration, and calculates the uv coverage for an observing run. The simulated sky images are multiplied by the interferometer primary beam, Fourier transformed, and then sampled at the calculated positions in the uv plane. Gaussian noise is added to the data points at the appropriate level. The resulting ‘observed’ data are then used to produce a map (see Figure 6 for an example) in the same way real observations are analysed, i.e. with Aips tasks, and the detected clusters are extracted from the CLEANed map. We compare the cluster fluxes so derived with those from the fast procedure (see Figure 7) and find variations and scatter between the two methods that are small in relation to the uncertainties in the cluster sky model parameters. We conclude that the predicted cluster counts are not affected by these differences.

## 5 Determination of Model Parameters

### 5.1 Based on AMI cluster counts

After one year of observation AMI will have completed an unbiased cluster survey down to roughly $`10^{14}`$ M with 20 ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ = 1) to 70 ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ = 0.3) clusters for our pessimistic assumptions about $`\sigma _8`$ and $`f_g`$, or several hundred clusters for more realistic assumptions. The SZ cluster catalogue and the differential cluster counts at different flux levels will be prime observational results from the AMI blank field survey. Figure 8 shows the mass–redshift distribution we expect for the catalogued clusters in a $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$ cosmology. The plot demonstrates that the sample is nearly mass-limited and that in a deep survey, which AMI can provide, many high redshift clusters can be found.

This observational result, the cluster catalogue, needs to be interpreted in the framework of a model of cluster evolution. In our model, degeneracies exist between the input parameters for the observed cluster counts. Assuming prior errors on the input parameters as given in Table 2, a distinction between the two cosmologies or a reliable determination of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ is only marginally possible. Note however that the uncertainty in $`\sigma _8`$ comes mainly from the uncertainty in the mass–temperture conversion when inferring $`\sigma _8`$ from the cluster temperature function. For our purposes in predicting a mass $`\times `$ temperature function the uncertainty given in the Table can be seen as an upper limit. Extreme values for the individual parameters will already be severely constrained by the observation. At AMI sensitivities of $`r_d^2ydA=Y4\times 10^5`$ arcmin2, the expected change in cluster counts due to changing the matter density is $`N(\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3)/N(\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1)3.5`$. In Figure 9 we show the parameter degeneracy as a function of the flux limit, and note that the matter density is better determined by cluster counts the deeper the observation is, because the slope of the counts is a function of the matter density as well. The Planck Surveyor, for example, is complementary to AMI in probing the counts at a higher flux limit of about 3–7 $`\times \mathrm{\hspace{0.17em}10}^4`$ arcmin2, where the cluster counts are mainly determined by $`\sigma _8`$, and the gas fraction. The slope of the cluster counts measured over a wide range and to low fluxes would give direct evidence of the value of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$.

In practice however, even with deep surveys the confusion between parameters remains unsatisfactory, but can be broken easily with basic follow-up observations in optical and X-ray wavebands, as we detail in the next section.

### 5.2 Basic X-ray and optical follow-up

Measuring redshifts optically and using the X-ray to $`Y`$ flux ratios to identify the high redshift clusters (cf. Figure 10) will allow an estimate of the cluster space density as a function of the thermal energy, which is almost the mass, and of the redshift. The redshift distribution, crudely speaking, depends on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and cluster physics affecting the gas fraction and the temperature both as a function of redshift. In Figure 11 we demonstrate the discriminative power of a statistical measure based on the redshift distribution, in this case the median, to distinguish values of $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ even for a small cluster sample and incomplete follow-up, as long as redshift limits exist for half of the sample. The statistical analysis can be refined with better data to the point where a direct fit to the redshift data is possible, and tests of the very assumptions underlying our model can be carried out, i.e. for Gaussian initial conditions, gravitational collapse and various cluster physics effects neglected in the hydro-simulations. In Figure 12 we show that the redshift distribution is a much more robust estimator for the $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ than the cluster counts, affected only by variations in the other model parameters larger than their presumed uncertainties.

With X-ray observations in particular we will get better determined cluster positions, the X-ray structure, indications of the gas temperature from hardness ratios and in a few cases redshifts via the iron-K line. The ratio of $`Y`$ to X-ray flux (see Figure 10), directly proportional to the cooling time of a cluster at a given redshift, is also an indicator of the cluster redshift, due to the dimming of the X-ray flux, and the accuracy increases with redshift, in contrast to optical methods. With the scaling relations we have used to produce the sky maps (equations 2 and 3), we expect a scaling

$$\frac{Y}{F_x}hf_g\beta ^1T^{1/2}(1+z)^{5/2}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Omega }_0}{\mathrm{\Omega }(z)}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }_c}{178}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(4)
The temperature dependence reflects that of the cooling function, is weak, and disappears when lowering the assumed power index of our non-evolving $`L_xT`$ relation from 3 to 2, i.e. the value expected from simple scaling arguments. The last three factors in the above relation are all of cosmological relevance. The separation between the two cosmological models comes mainly from the redshift term, due to the different underlying redshift distributions, but also the other two terms give small additional factors greater than 1 for $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0<1`$. Once the redshifts are known for all clusters, the relation can be used to determine $`f_g\beta ^1`$ statistically as a function of redshift for the sample.

Our X-ray images (Figure 3) show a flux limit comparable to the sensitivity for future medium-deep surveys, for example with XMM, and no confusing X-ray background has been added. The number of clusters detectable in X-rays is large, but the sample is strongly biased towards nearby less massive clusters. Therefore no obvious difference between the two cosmologies is apparent in the X-ray maps. A comparison of the redshift distributions is shown in Figure 13. The redshift distributions of the observed clusters separate clearly with matter density for the AMI samples, but do so only at a very low flux limit and only for a very large number of clusters in the X-rays. To find high redshift clusters efficiently and to probe cosmology, deep SZ surveys have a clear advantage. However X-ray follow-up on SZ-selected clusters is also important to exploit the information which becomes accessible with such an SZ survey, for example to separate gas density and temperature. The present (and future) X-ray telescopes with high resolution, high sensitivity, but small fields of view are ideal for this purpose. The exposure time per cluster ideally would be matched to ensure a similar number of X-ray counts per cluster in the sample to study it in a largely redshift-independent way.

Therefore combining all the information from the blank field SZ survey, X-ray and optical follow-up promises a determination of all the model parameters individually, assuming that real clusters are similar enough to our simulated ones. The AMI sample can be studied further in many ways and compared to other probes of cosmology, which would identify cluster physical effects which we have neglected and therefore improve the understanding of cluster formation and evolution.

### 5.3 Detailed AMI, X-ray, optical and other follow-up

The following observations could be carried out to provide a detailed study of the AMI cluster sample:

* sensitive, high resolution images from AMI in non-survey mode (see Figure 14);
* X-ray temperature maps;
* total projected mass from gravitational lensing; and
* SZ observations at frequencies above 217 GHz.

We expect that the following results, all as a function of redshift, can be achieved:

* gas and temperature structure: basic shapes, merging, cooling, structure changes over time;
* investigation of the virialisation state through SZ and lensing observations;
* testing the temperature–mass relation and preheating;
* comparing gas and dark matter ($`f_g`$) structures (note that the sensitive SZ measurements, which measure the gas mass directly (as long as the temperature distribution is understood), would be a better probe of the gas fraction than X-ray measurements, which give the gas mass in a model-dependent way from the emission measure, which is proportional to the square of the density);
* cluster peculiar velocities (kinematic SZ effect);
* effects of the (temperature-dependent) relativistic tail and non-thermal effects of the electron gas; and
* determination of galaxy masses and types.

In particular all the data would be available to determine the angular distance $`r_d`$ to the clusters (Gunn 1978; Silk & White 1978; Cavaliere, Danese and De Zotti 1979; Birkinshaw 1979), and therefore with the redshifts $`H(z)`$ or to low order $`H_0`$ and $`q_0`$ (which depends on $`\mathrm{\Omega }_0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }`$) can be estimated. This absolute distance method is independent of cluster evolution and works in principle for an individual cluster, as long as the parameters entering the relation for $`r_d`$ can be measured reliably and the cluster gas and temperature distributions can be modelled sufficiently accurately. We know there are uncertainties in this modelling process, for example through clumping, cooling, or temperature gradients. But we have found, from analytic modelling and the hydrodynamical simulation templates, that the effects on estimating $`H_0`$ and $`q_0`$ tend to cancel out even for a single cluster, and certainly for a larger sample (Grainger et al.). In a low density universe ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$) where many clusters, are expected at high redshifts, the AMI sample contains an about equal number of clusters below and above $`z=0.5`$. For simplicity we divide the sample into one at $`z=0`$ which determines $`H_0`$ and one at $`z=0.8`$ which in comparison determines $`q_0`$. To achieve an accuracy of about 5 % in the angular distance relation, which is at least comparable to the supernovae results (Riess et al. 1998; Perlmutter et al. 1999), we will need samples of 30 clusters each at low and high redshift, mainly to reduce the effect of unknown orientation. A different and source evolution independent method to constrain the cosmological constant seems in sight.

## 6 Conclusions

Technological advances now allow a detailed study of cluster gas in SZ for individual bright clusters and a blank field survey to search for fainter clusters. Both aspects are of great relevance for understanding the formation and evolution of clusters and their gas content in a cosmological context. The SZ effect probes the product of gas mass and temperature directly and almost independently of redshift.

We have shown:

1. We have assessed the performance in finding clusters of the proposed interferometer array AMI with realistic SZ sky simulations and detailed simulations of the observing process. With very conservative assumptions about gas fractions and the power spectrum amplitude, AMI will discover 20 ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=1`$) to 70 ($`\mathrm{\Omega }_0=0.3`$) clusters with total mass $`10^{14}`$ M per year, and several hundred under more realistic assumptions, many beyond redshift one.
2. The cluster sample will constrain a combination of key cosmological parameters and the process of structure formation. The cluster survey will permit optical and X-ray follow-up to measure individual parameters, such as the mean matter density, the power spectrum amplitude, and gas density and temperature structures and their evolution, to good approximation. Selecting clusters from a deep SZ survey also provides for a very efficient use of X-ray observation time. Those at high redshift will be key targets for multi-waveband studies of cluster evolution.
3. Because the survey method provides a sample of high redshift clusters that is essentially selected by mass it will be possible to make reliable distance estimates at high redshift and hence measure $`q_0`$.
4. Such an instrument will also be able to make highly detailed pointed observations of clusters.

## Acknowledgments

RK acknowledges support from an EU Marie Curie Fellowship. VRE and CG acknowledge support from PPARC Postdoctoral Fellowships.


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# Evidence for an extended scattered disk.

## 1 Introduction

Current nomenclature commonly divides the trans-neptunian region of the solar system into (1) the ‘Kuiper Belt’ (consisting of so-called ‘classical belt’ objects and ‘resonant objects’ in various mean-motion resonances with Neptune), and (2) the ‘scattered disk’ (Jewitt et al. 1998). Finer distinctions and sub-populations are possible (see Gladman et al. 2001). The ‘scattered disk’ is a structure that was observed to form naturally in simulations of (1) orbital perturbation of comets exterior to Neptune (Torbett and Smoluchowski 1990) and (2) of the delivery of Jupiter family comets from Kuiper Belt (Duncan and Levison, 1997). This latter work found that as trans-neptunian objects (TNOs) leave the Kuiper Belt after encountering Neptune, some are scattered outward to large, long-lived external orbits rather than being passed inward to the other giant planets. The first recognized member of this population of scattered disk objects (SDOs) was 1996 TL66 (Luu et al. 1997); since that time of order 30 have been identified (cf., Trujillo et al. 2000), with orbits of varying quality. The semimajor axis, $`a`$, distribution of these objects has no formal upper limit in the simulations of Duncan and Levison (1997), although a distinction from the inner Oort cloud becomes problematic at $`a>1000`$ AU (Duncan et al. 1987). The currently-known SDOs (Fig. 1) must be concentrated towards lower $`a`$ due to selection biases; larger-$`a`$ SDOs spend smaller fractions of their time near perihelion where they appear brightest and are more easily detected; a bias towards small perihelion distance $`q`$ will also exist.

Objects scattered to large orbits by Neptune will return to near the planet at subsequent perihelion passages. For a scattered object the gravitational perturbation from Neptune might be considered as an impulse as the object passes its perihelion; this alters the velocity of the object but not its position. Thus, the $`q`$’s of scattered objects generally remain small, maintaining the possibility of encounters with the planet. Levison and Duncan (1997, Fig. 6) show that except for some cases in the 2:1 resonance with $`a49AU`$, objects with $`q>`$40 AU are entirely absent, or at least are of extremely low probability. Some objects have their perihelia raised from 35 to $``$39 AU due to a phenomena of ‘resonance sticking’, to which we will return below. There is as yet no firm definition for the boundary between the SDOs and Centaurs, nor even between the SDOs and the rest of the Kuiper Belt (Gladman 2001). Trujillo et al. (2000) seem to define the SDO population as that with $`q`$=34–36 AU. We note in Figure 1 growing evidence for a $`q`$35–37 AU ‘gap’ in the SDO perihelion distribution, although statistics are still small and assumptions in the orbits may still be important because many of the SDO orbits are still not well sampled it time.

Once on scattered orbits, SDOs are subject to dynamical erosion as they are eventually perturbed by Neptune back onto orbits geometrically crossing that planet’s orbit. Then they are either (rarely) ejected by Neptune, or have their perihelia pushed down to Uranus or below at which point their dynamical lifetimes become $``$10 Myr. At that point they are usually rapidly removed from the solar system (Dones et al. 1996, 1997, Levison and Duncan 1997). Nevertheless, the state with $`q>30`$ AU but still near Neptune can be very long-lived due to the long orbital periods and the low probability of Neptune being close when the object’s rapid perihelion passage occurs. Torbett (1989) and Torbett and Smoluchowski (1990) explored the long-term gravitational stability of such large-$`a`$ orbits with $`q`$ near Neptune. They showed that such orbits could be dynamically chaotic up to $`q`$45 AU, for large semimajor axes. Although this chaotic evolution is not a sufficient condition for orbital instability (cf. Gladman 1993), it is in good agreement with later long-term numerical integrations in the regime of common exploration (out to about $`a`$=50 AU) (Duncan et al. 1995). However, the time scale for orbital instability is not established; a chaotic orbit at high $`a`$ may require longer than 5 Gyr to reach a state where it begins to interact strongly with Neptune. Thus, large-$`a`$ orbits with $`q>`$38 AU are only weakly unstable to the gravitational perturbations of the current giant planets over the lifetime of the solar system. Later, we shall expand on some details of the above broad discussion in the context of our observational result.

## 2 Observations

The object 2000 CR105 was discovered on 6 February 2000 in an on-going survey by Millis et al. (2000), and, based on the observed 3-week arc from a second night’s observations on 27 February, the Minor Planet Center (MPC) placed it on a provisional ‘scattered orbit’ with $`a`$=82 AU, $`e`$=0.59, and $`i`$=31, implying $`q`$=33.8 AU. The semimajor axis was chosen to be similar to that of 1996 TL66 (B. Marsden, 2000, private communication). Since the estimated heliocentric distance at the time of discovery was $``$55 AU, we realized this object was potentially of exceptional interest; only the much fainter 1999 DG8 (Gladman et al. 2001), at $`62`$ AU, had ever been discovered at such a large heliocentric distance. Thus, we re-observed 2000 CR105 on 28 and 29 March 2000 at the Canada-France Hawaii 3.5-m telescope; given the short time interval since the previous observation, we were stunned to find the object already a dramatic 24 arcseconds off the ephemeris — an enormous positional error for a trans-neptunian object. This implied that the object was moving eastward much more rapidly than indicated by the initial orbit and thus had a much larger semimajor axis. Based on these observations, the orbit was revised by B. Marsden to $`a`$=675 AU, $`e`$=0.94, $`i`$=23, making it the largest scattered disk orbit known. Even with this preliminary orbit the perihelion ($`q`$=41 AU) had risen out of the region believed to be strongly coupled to Neptune, but given a two-month arc on an orbital period of greater than 10,000 yr, this perihelion distance was still rather uncertain. A further recovery attempt by M. Holman et al. in May 2000 at Kitt Peak failed in bad weather, after which 2000 CR105 disappered behind the Sun until November 2000.

At this point there was a broad range of possible orbits for 2000 CR105. Its astrometry was still formally consistent, within observational errors, with a parabolic orbit corresponding to a returning Oort cloud comet (albeit with the most distant perihelion ever observed). At the extreme end there was even the possibility that the orbit was hyperbolic (corresponding to the first observed interstellar comet), although this was less likely. It was still possible that CR105 would turn out to have $`q<`$39 AU and a relatively ‘typical’ scattered disk orbit, but with a large semimajor axis. Lastly, and most interestingly, if a $`q>`$40 AU perihelion could be confirmed then, we believed at the time, this object would turn out to be the first SDO beyond the dynamical influence of the giant planet system.

We thus decided to allocate considerable telescope time to the recovery and orbit determination of this object, beginning in the dark run of November 2000 and continuing every dark run until February 2001, to provide a high-quality data set on which to base orbit calculations. The first recovery was obtained with the European Southern Observatory’s 2.2m telecope on 24 and 25 November 2000, followed a few days later by confirming observations on the Hale 5 m telescope at Palomar. During the following dark run at the Kitt Peak 4-m telescope, astrometry was obtained on 17 and 18 December. Astrometry on a single night was obtained on 20 January 2001 at the Palomar 5-m, as well as on 16 February on the 2.5-m Nordic Optical Telescope. Lastly, the object was imaged on 23 and 24 February using the ESO VLT UT-1 telescope. This brought the total observed arc to slightly more than one year, with extremely good time sampling in the recovery opposition. It is worth noting that without our March 2000 observations this object would have been 19 arcminutes away from its original ephemeris one year after discovery; it likely would not have been recovered without considerable effort, even with the large fields of view of mosaic cameras. Based on this experience, it seems plausible that some of the TNOs that are observed for only short arcs in their discovery opposition and then not found at their second opposition may very well have orbits similar to that of 2000 CR105. We thus take a fraction of 1 in $``$400 known TNO orbits as a lower limit to the number of 2000 CR105-like objects that have been detected in the flux-limited TNO/SDO database.

Based on it’s apparent $`R`$-band magnitude of $`m_R=23.3\pm 0.5`$, 2000 CR105’s diameter is roughly 400 km, based on an assumed 4% albedo. We do not consider our photometric data reliable enough, nor the assumed albedo accurate enough, to believe this to be accurate to more than a factor of two. This size places 2000 CR105 at the high end of the known range of trans-neptunian objects, about a factor of two below the largest known objects.

## 3 Orbit modelling

Using the available astrometric data, we have computed an osculating orbit solution taking into account the perturbations of the 4 giant planets (Table 1). We used the orbit determination software developed by Berstein and Khushalani (2000), optimized specifically for outer Solar System objects. This algorithm provides error estimates in the fitted osculating orbital elements (Table 2).

Based on the available data, 2000 CR105’s orbit is large, highly elliptical, and moderately inclined (Table 2). Its semimajor axis exceeds that of any other currently known multi-opposition TNO. 2000 CR105 is currently 53 AU from the Sun and moving outwards, having passed perihelion in mid-1965. At pericenter the object would have been about 0.8 magnitudes brighter. The mean anomaly, argument of perihelion, and longtiude of node are all well-determined. Overall this TNO might look like an outlier in the scattered disk distribution except for its very high $`q=`$44 AU perihelion (see Fig. 1). The perihelion distance has a fractional uncertainty much smaller than $`a`$ because the $`a`$/$`e`$ uncertainties are strongly correlated; the uncertainty in perihelion passage’s distance is $`<`$1%.

It is 2000 CR105’s exceptionally large perihelion distance which merits special attention. The only other SDO with a perihelion above 40 AU is 1995 TL8 (Fig. 1), an object discovered by the Spacewatch program (Larsen et al. 2001).

## 4 Cosmogonic implications

In this section we present several possible scenarios for how 2000 CR105 arrived on its current orbit. These include perihelion raising by diffusive chaos, as well as scattering due to (1) now-absent primordial embryos which passed through the forming Kuiper Belt, (2) a young Neptune that was forming a ‘fossilized scattered disk’, or (3) an unknown resident planetary-scale object in the distant Kuiper Belt.

### 4.1 Diffusive chaos

We have conducted a variety of numerical experiments to investigate the long-term dynamics of 2000 CR105. In the first of these we numerically integrated the best-fit orbit of this object, along with 20 other sets of initial conditions that are consistent with the observations at the $`1\sigma `$ level. 2000 CR105 and its “clones” were modelled as test particles moving in the gravitational field of the giant planets. The planetary positions and velocities came from the JPL DE403 ephemeris (with the terrestrial masses added to the Sun). The integration algorithm was the symplectic $`n`$-body map of Wisdom and Holman (1991), with a time step of 0.5 year. The integrations were for 5 Gyr of simulated time.

In addition to following the object trajectories, the tangent equations for each trajectory were also integrated (Holman and Murray 1996, Mikkola and Innanen 1999). This allows us to reliably estimate the rate at which nearby trajectories diverge from each other. Regular or quasi-periodic trajectories separate from each other linearly or at most polynomially with time. Chaotic motion is characterized by exponential divergence of neighboring trajectories; the time scale of this divergence is called the Lyapunov time.

All of the trajectories share a number of characteristics: (1) Each is chaotic with a Lyapunov time from $`5\times 10^4`$ to $`10^5`$ years (15 to 30 orbital periods), consistent with previous studies of objects in this $`a,e`$ regime (Torbett 1989, Torbett and Smoluchowski 1990). (2) the semimajor axis, $`a`$, oscillates rapidly within a series of discrete ranges. (3) The eccentricity, $`e`$, also varies rapidly; however, this variation is correlated with $`a`$ in such a way that $`q`$ varies much more smoothly. This occurs because the object receives an impulsive kick from Neptune as it passes perihelion; at each conjunction the position or perihelion distance of the object is nearly unaltered but the velocity, and thus $`a`$ and $`e`$, is changed.

Fig. 2 shows a typical example of the evolution of $`a`$ and $`q`$ for one test particle. The rapid $``$50 Myr oscillation of $`q`$ is caused by the “Kozai effect” of Neptune on the test particle (Kozai 1962), but its amplitude is far too low (see Thomas and Morbidelli 1996) to bring $`q`$ down to small values. The center of each of the $`a`$-ranges, around which rapid oscillations occur, corresponds to a high-order mean-motion resonance with Neptune. This demonstrates the so-called phenomenon of “resonance sticking”. The resonance sticking seen proves that 2000 CR105 is in or near a regime in which chaotic phenomena are operating and that this region of phase space may be connected to regions of lower perihelion by a an extended chaotic zone; this suggests the possibility 2000 CR105 was on a more ‘typical’ SDO orbit which then diffused via chaotic phenomena to its current high perihelion state.

The long time-scale variations of perhelion distance are important for evaluating the plausibility of this hypothesis. Of the 20 integrated particles, 2 diffused to a minimum $`q`$ of 39 AU, although most remained between 42 and 47 AU (Fig. 3). We extended the integration of the test particle corresponding to the best-fit orbital elements to determine the long-term fate of this object; the “random walk” in $`q`$ continued, with a maximum observed perihelion distance of $`q=50`$ AU. An orbit with $`q40`$ AU was attained after 24 Gyr, at which point the semimajor axis diffused to very large ($`10^3`$ AU) values. Shortly thereafter $`q`$ dropped even lower, at which point the particle was ejected from the solar system by Neptune. The integrations demonstrate that particles in the estimated orbital region of 2000 CR105 can, over very long time scales, reach perihelion distances at which strong scatterings due to Neptune occur. Of course, the opposite can occur because the equations of motion are time-reversible. The fact that none of the clones reached $`q`$=35 AU on 5 Gyr time scales indicates that the probability of the reversed process of going to a state near that of 2000 CR105 is low. In particular, the probability of leaving the vast chaotic zone to enter the slowly-diffusing regime is unconstrained; the absence of such trajectories in the Levison and Duncan (1997) simulations implies it is low. We briefly note that the TNO 1996 TL8 is near a which might plausibly be reached by chaotic diffusion, but with a characteristic Lyapunov time longer than 20 orbital periods.

To accurately assess the probability of reaching the present orbit of 2000 CR105 requires more extensive ‘forward’ numerical integrations of the formation of the scattered disk. However, an associated issue is to determine the origin of the dynamical chaos seen in the numerical integrations of 2000 CR105 and its clones. To do so, we extended the work of Torbett (1989) and Torbett and Smoluchowski (1990). We integrated 5400 test particles trajectories for $`10^7`$ years. We estimated the Lyapunov time of each trajectory, and based on their histogram, we found that a value of 20 test-particle orbital periods separates those trajectories that are strongly chaotic from those that are not. As a test we checked that these high-$`e`$ test particles, when integrated without planetary perturbations, were not chaotic. In Fig. 1 we plot a point at those values of $`a`$ and $`q`$ for which the corresponding trajectory was chaotic with Lyapunov time less than 20 periods. The envelope of these points is, surprisingly, nearly a straight, sloped line. Based on earlier descriptions of the boundaries of the scattered disk chaotic zone, we expected to see chaos for trajectories with $`q`$ below a fixed value (a horizontal dividing line); our results show that SDOs with large $`a`$ can have large $`q`$ and still exhibit chaos on orbital-period time scales. In Fig. 4 we plot initial $`a`$ and $`e`$ of those trajectories with estimated Lyapunov times shorter than 20 orbital periods. The solid line corresponds to the envelope of chaotic trajectories apparent on Fig. 1. Few chaotic trajectories are found below the line. The narrow ‘fingers’ of non-chaotic trajectories that extend above the line correspond to the stable islands of high-order mean-motion resonances with Neptune. These resonances are narrow but not microscopically so; at high $`e`$ resonance widths do not depend as strongly on the order of the resonance as they do at low eccenticity. An analytic estimate of the width of the 6:1 mean motion resonance with Neptune, for example, yields roughly 3 AU at Neptune-crossing eccentricity (Morbidelli et al. 1995). On either side of the ‘fingers’ are chaotic regions resulting from the overlap of adjacent resonances. A detailed resonance overlap calculation, extending the work of Wisdom (1980), can be completed at high eccentricity by employing the technique of Ferraz-Mello and Sato (1989).

Malyshkin and Tremaine (1999) developed a 2-dimensional “keplerian map”, based on the planar restricted three body problem, to study the long-term evolution of eccentric comet orbits perturbed by Neptune. Although their mapping assumes a fixed perihelion distance and models the entire gravitational interaction as an impulsive kick at perihelion passage, their results capture many of the features seen in our direct numerical integrations. Two of their principle results are: (1) the phase space is densely covered with chains of islands from mean-motion resonances, and (2) the chaotic zone between these islands is contiguous. That is, a trajectory can diffuse to arbitrarily large semimajor axis. Their first result we clearly see in our Fig. 4. Their second result is apparent in the small perihelion values attained by some of the 2000 CR105 clones in our numerical integrations.

The details of our discussion can be refined once the semimajor axis of 2000 CR105 is better determined, allowing us to determine exactly where in phase space it resides; it could conceivably be in a dynamically more stable region although this seems unlikely. Although we have given an extensive discussion of the diffusive chaos hypothesis (due to the fact that we can easily explore it numerically), the cosmogonic implication are even more dramatic if this hypothesis is either incorrect or untenable due to low probability. In such a case the existence of objects weakly coupled to the planetary system provides strong constraints on the formation of the outer Kuiper Belt. We now discuss three scenarios which could produce large numbers of such weakly-coupled or decoupled TNOs.

### 4.2 Primordial Embryos

Given that 4 planets with masses greater than 10 Earth masses formed in the outer Solar System, it is unlikely that no objects with martian-terrestrial mass also formed in the region. Morbidelli and Valsecchi (1997) and Petit et al. (2000) developed the idea that one or several of these objects (which they call ‘embryos’) would have been logically scattered outward by Neptune and spent some time as SDOs transiting the forming Kuiper Belt, thus causing the dynamical excitation and mass loss observed therein. Close encounters with these passing embryos disturb the Kuiper belt out to the aphelic distance of the embryos, which are often 50-100 AU; scattering events can thus produce TNOs with perihelia well past Neptune on high-$`e`$ orbits. Once the embryos are eliminated by further gravitational interactions with Neptune, as 90% of SDOs are in 10 Myr (Duncan and Levison 1997), the TNOs remaining are extremely long-lived. In this scenario 2000 CR105 may represent an object formed outstide of 50 AU which was scattered to a large-$`e`$ orbit due to encounters with one of these embryos. Alternatively, 2000 CR105 could have been formed much closer and also became a SDO via scattering by Neptune and then an encounter with a distant embryo sufficed to raise $`q`$ to 44 AU.

### 4.3 Fossilized scattered disk

Thommes et al. (1999) propose that the ‘embryo’ passing through the Kuiper Belt may have been Neptune itself, during a formation process in which it transited the Kuiper belt on an orbit either more eccentric or with larger $`a`$ before reaching its present nearly circular orbit at 30 AU. Being much more massive than the embryos discussed above, Neptune would be able to produce extensive dynamical ‘damage’ in a shorter time. With its current $`a`$ and a modest $`e`$ of $``$0.3, which Thommes et al. damp via gravitational friction with a massive planetesimal disk in the vicinity, Neptune’s could encounter particles as far out as 44 AU. After Neptune’s aphelion evolves out of the 40 AU region (presumably rapidly) the TNOs with $`q`$ above this limit are ‘fossilized’ on orbits which either do not evolve over the lifetime of the solar system, or evolve only slowly via the diffusive mechanisms discussed above. 2000 CR105 could be an example of the latter case. Because the furthest $`q`$ of these objects will be just outside the largest $`Q`$ of Neptune, the fossilized scattered disk forms an ‘arc’ in $`e`$/$`a`$ space (see figures in Thommes et al. ) separated from a ‘cold disk’ (see Gladman 2001) by a gap in $`e`$.

### 4.4 Resident planet

A last scenario is that 2000 CR105 arrived in its current dynamical state due to gravitational interaction with a planetary-sized body that is still resident in the Kuiper Belt. This could come about in two ways. First, in the distant Kuiper belt, beyond the region sculpted by the whatever processes disturbed the 30-50 AU region, a planetary-mass body (the size of the moon to Mars for example), or several, may have formed in situ over the lifetime of the solar system and the perturbations of this body have sculpted the outer Kuiper belt. A Mars-sized body (with escape velocity of 5 km/s) at 100 AU where orbital velocities are only $`3`$ km/s could scatter a body like 2000 CR105 to its present orbit.

More likely may be a scenario in which several lunar—martian mass bodies were in the scattered disk, traversing in the 50–200 AU region. Many such bodies were likely formed interior to Neptune as the cores of the giant planets were accreting, and some would have ended up as SDOs. Since orbital velocities at those distances are comparable to the escape speeds of these bodies, mutual encounters between the ‘embryos’ could place one or more of them on orbits entirely decoupled with Neptune; the planetary embryos still coupled to Neptune would have been rapidly destroyed, leaving the decoupled embryo(s) ‘lodged’ in the distant Kuiper belt. The resident embryo would then proceed to excite the orbital distribution, over the age of the Solar System, of the entire Kuiper Belt between its perihelion and aphelion distance. Similar ideas trace back to Fernández (1980) and Ip (1989), who sought to push short-period comets to Neptune-crossing orbits via decoupled embryos before long-term gravitational erosion was characterized as a supply process (Levison and Duncan 1997); we view the resident embyro scenario as potentialy providing the ability produce objects like 2000 CR105 and to remove many objects beyond the 2:1 resonance. Unpublished simulations by Morbidelli (2000, private communication) and Brunini (1999, private communication) show that this decoupling and ‘clearing out’ process can happen naturally. This scenario could be responsible for the apparent lack of objects on nearly circular orbits outside the 2:1 resonance (see Jewitt et al. 1998, Allen et al. 2000, and Gladman et al. 2001 for discussion) and the lack of detection of the so-called ‘Kuiper Wall’ (Trujillo 2000).

## 5 Conclusion

We estimate that the majority of the TNO surveys to date, searching within $`5^{}`$ of the ecliptic to limiting magnitude $`m_R`$=23–24, are capable of detecting 2000 CR105 for $`<1`$% of its orbital period. Given this extreme detection bias against finding objects like 2000 CR105, there must be a large number of objects with perihelia higher than the 34–36 AU range for the scattered disk (used by Trujillo et al. 2000).

Thus, the ‘scattered disk’ may be much more massive than that component which is currently strongly coupled to Neptune, and likely merges into an ‘extended scattered disk’ where objects are only weakly coupled to Neptune. If the eccentricity and inclination distribution does not have the structure of a fossilized disk (with a gap in eccentricity) then it will be difficult to say where the ‘extended scattered disk’ ends! We propose that for the moment this object should not be classified as a scattered disk object unless a definition can be arrived at which would delineate SDOs from an object on a regular orbit (for example, $`a`$=210 and e=0.7, which is neither chaotic nor coupled to Neptune, and yet clearly not a member of the cold disk. These nomenclature problems are expanded upon in Gladman (2001).

The lesson provided by our tracking of this exceptional TNO is that follow up inside the first year (2–3 months after discovery) is critical in order to detect these large orbits, for without such a recovery the TNO will be very far from even a ‘normal’ scattered orbit one year later, at which point recovery becomes difficult. It is difficult to estimate what fraction of previously-lost objects may have been similar to 2000 CR105; of the objects already detected in the flux-limited sample, (roughly 30 SDOs and/or $``$400 TNOs designated), the existence of 2000 CR105 likely implies a strong lower limit of 5% of SDOs and $``$0.2% of TNOs to be on orbits like 2000 CR105, given the fraction of the TNOs that have had observations on only a single opposition.

We are not yet able to estimate the likelihood that 2000 CR105 has diffused to a large $`q`$ orbit if it was scattered to $`a`$200 AU by Neptune. The rarity of similar particles in the integrations of Levison and Duncan (1996) may simply mean that this is rarer than $``$1 in $`10^3`$ of the SDOs initially populating the scattered disk; the fraction of the SDOs remaining in this state after 5 Gyr will likely be roughly two orders of magnitude higher (Duncan and Levison 1996) and thus only 1 in $`10^5`$ initial SDOs may need to reach the high-$`q`$ state. However, given the direct detection bias against, and the possible earlier loss of other already-discovered objects that may have been on similar orbits, the actual fraction of the visible trans-neptunian region that is also on high-$`q`$ orbits could be as large as several percent. In this case the diffusive hypothesis may become untenable and some of the more cosmogonically dramatic scenarios may be necessary. If a high-$`a`$ TNO totally decoupled from the planetary system can be identified then the reality of these dramatic scenarios can be constrained; the fact that the first high-$`q`$ TNO is in the diffusive boundary regime would then be understood to be due to detection bias which favors the latter’s discovery. One cannot stress enough that continued tracking of all discovered TNOs, especially 2–3 months after discovery, is necessary in order to insure that additional interesting objects are not lost.

## 6 Acknowledgements

B. Gladman, J. Kavelaars, and M. Holman were visiting astronomers at the Canada France Hawaii telescope, operated by the National Research Council of Canada, le Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique de France, and the University of Hawaii. Data from VLT collected at the European Southern Observatory, Chile, proposals 66.C-0048A and 66.C-0029A. Observations at the Palomar Observatory were made as part of a continuing collaborative agreement between the California Institue of Technology and Cornell University.

K. Aksnes, T. Grav, and M. Holman were visiting astronomers at the Nordic Optical Telescope. The Nordic Optical Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma jointly by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias. Some of the data presented here have been taken using ALFOSC, which is owned by the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia (IAA) and operated at the Nordic Optical Telescope under agreement between IAA and the NBIfAFG of the Astronomical Observatory of Copenhagen.

M. Holman, B. Gladman, and T. Grav were visiting astronomers at the Kitt Peak National Observatory, National Optical Astronomy Observatory, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. (AURA) under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation.

This work was supported in part by an ACI Jeune grant from the French Ministry of Research, and NASA grants NAG5-10365 and NAG5-9678 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.

We thank Joe Burns, Brian Marsden, Alessandro Morbidelli, and Norm Murray for helpful input.

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Table 1. Astrometric observations and calculated orbit for 2000 CR105

| Object | UT Date | $`\alpha `$(2000) | $`\delta `$ (2000) | R | Obs. | Note |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|  | yyyy mm dd.ddddd | hh mm ss.ss | dd mm ss.s | mag | Code |  |
| K00CA5R | 2000 02 06.30637 | 09 14 02.39 | +19 05 58.7 | 22.5 R | 695 | 1 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 02 06.43541 | 09 14 01.90 | +19 06 01.4 |  | 695 | 1 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 02 27.12907 | 09 12 44.37 | +19 13 04.6 | 23.0 R | 695 | 1 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 02 27.22612 | 09 12 43.98 | +19 13 06.3 |  | 695 | 1 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 03 28.38346 | 09 11 17.68 | +19 20 37.4 |  | 568 | 2 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 03 28.40927 | 09 11 17.63 | +19 20 37.6 |  | 568 | 2 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 03 28.43164 | 09 11 17.59 | +19 20 37.9 |  | 568 | 2 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 03 29.23055 | 09 11 15.99 | +19 20 46.3 |  | 568 | 2 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 03 29.25196 | 09 11 15.95 | +19 20 46.5 | 23.1 R | 568 | 2 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 03 29.27248 | 09 11 15.91 | +19 20 46.7 | 23.4 R | 568 | 2 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 11 24.30080 | 09 22 07.39 | +18 49 14.6 |  | 809 | 3 * |
| K00CA5R | 2000 11 25.30941 | 09 22 06.97 | +18 49 25.1 |  | 809 | 3 * |
| K00CA5R | 2000 11 27.48283 | 09 22 05.77 | +18 49 49.1 | 23.5 R | 675 | 4 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 11 27.54557 | 09 22 05.73 | +18 49 49.1 | 23.7 R | 675 | 4 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 11 28.48968 | 09 22 05.11 | +18 49 59.8 | 24.1 R | 675 | 4 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 11 28.52381 | 09 22 05.08 | +18 50 00.3 | 23.6 R | 675 | 4 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 12 17.45692 | 09 21 38.68 | +18 54 34.5 | 23.0 R | 695 | 5 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 12 17.49240 | 09 21 38.62 | +18 54 34.9 | 23.2 R | 695 | 5 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 12 17.53331 | 09 21 38.54 | +18 54 35.9 | 23.4 R | 695 | 5 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 12 18.43274 | 09 21 36.63 | +18 54 51.1 | 23.0 R | 695 | 5 |
| K00CA5R | 2000 12 18.50613 | 09 21 36.52 | +18 54 52.2 | 22.8 R | 695 | 5 * |
| K00CA5R | 2001 01 20.39079 | 09 19 58.51 | +19 06 04.4 | 23.1 R | 675 | 6 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 01 20.39910 | 09 19 58.46 | +19 06 04.6 |  | 675 | 6 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 01 20.46716 | 09 19 58.24 | +19 06 06.2 | 23.1 R | 675 | 6 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 02 15.99209 | 09 18 17.96 | +19 15 46.4 | 23.7 R | 950 | 7 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 02 16.03317 | 09 18 17.80 | +19 15 47.2 | 23.4 R | 950 | 7 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 02 16.08746 | 09 18 17.59 | +19 15 48.4 | 23.5 R | 950 | 7 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 02 23.15703 | 09 17 51.48 | +19 18 11.2 | 23.3 R | 309 | 8 |
| K00CA5R | 2001 02 24.24770 | 09 17 47.52 | +19 18 32.4 |  | 309 | 8 |

Notes: 1 – Millis et al. KPNO 4-m and WIYN (MPEC 2000-F07)

2 – Gladman, Kavelaars, Holman, Petit (CFHT-3.5m); 3 – Gladman (ESO-2.2m);

4 – Nicholson, Kavelaars (Palomar-5m); 5 – Holman, Gladman, Grav (KPNO-4m);

6 – Nicholson, Gladman (Palomar-5m); 7 – Grav, Holman (NOT-2.5m);

8 – Gladman (VLT UT1-8m)

Astrometric uncertainties $`\alpha \pm 0.03s`$ , $`\delta \pm 0.4^{\prime \prime }`$ except * for which $`\alpha \pm 0.07s`$, $`\delta \pm 1^{\prime \prime }`$.

Photometric uncertainties $`\pm `$ 0.5 mag

Table 2. Orbital elements for 2000 CR105

| Orbital element (J2000) | Value | 1-sigma error |
| --- | --- | --- |
| semimajor axis $`a`$ | 216 AU | 9 AU |
| eccentricity $`e`$ | 0.795 | 0.010 |
| perihelion distance $`q`$ | 44.2 | 0.3 AU |
| inclination $`i`$ | 22.759 | 0.002 |
| longitude of node $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ | 128.287 | 0.001 |
| argument of pericenter $`\omega `$ | 317.0 | 0.6 |
| Date of pericenter passage (JD) | 2438870 | 70 |
| mean anomaly $`M`$ | 3.9 | 0.2 |