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# From DEM Simulations towards a Continuum Theory of Granular Matter

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The macroscopic balance equations for mass, momentum and energy can be used for the modeling of the behavior of granular media. However, they rely on constitutive relations between the physical quantities, in order to close the system of equations. The determination of both the physical quantities, important for the behavior of the system, and their inter-relations are subject of current research \[Behringer and Jenkins (1997), Herrmann et al. (1998), Vermeer et al. (2000)\]. One possible way to obtain an observable like, for example, the stress is to perform experiments with photo-elastic material \[Veje et al. (1999), Howell and Behringer (1999), Howell et al. (1999)\] which allows for non-invasive force measurements. The alternative is to perform discrete particle simulations \[Cundall and Strack (1979), Herrmann et al. (1998), Lätzel et al. (2000b)\] and to average over the “microscopic” forces and contact vectors in the simulation. A typcal snapshot from a two-dimensional DEM simulation is displayed in Fig. 1.

Besides the trivial definitions for averages over scalar and vectorial quantities like density, velocity, and particle-spin, one can find differing definitions for stress and strain averaging procedures in the literature \[Bathurst and Rothenburg (1988), Kruyt and Rothenburg (1996), Liao et al. (1997), Calvetti et al. (1997), Lätzel et al. (2000b), Dedecker et al. (2000)\].

The aim of this paper is to review recent results for tensorial, averaged continuum quantities involving also micro-polar aspects \[Lätzel et al. (2000a), Zervos et al. (2000)\].

In section 2 our averaging method is introduced and applied to obtain some macroscopic fields in section 3. Section 4 contains the definitions and averaging strategies for fabric, stress, and elastic deformation gradient. The particle rotations are taken into account in section 5, averages are presented for selected macroscopic quantities in section 6 and material parameters are discussed in section 7.

## 2 FROM MICRO- TO MACRO-DESCRIPTION

In a microscopic, discrete picture, the knowledge of the forces acting on each particle is sufficient to model the dynamics and the statics of the system. Tensorial quantities like the stress $`𝝈`$ or the strain $`𝜺`$ are not required for a discrete model. In order to establish a correspondence to continuum theories one has to compute tensorial fields as well as scalar material properties like, e. g., the bulk and shear moduli \[Cambou et al. (1995), Kruyt and Rothenburg (1996), Emeriault and Chang (1997), Liao et al. (1997), Lätzel et al. (2000b), Luding et al. (2000), Lätzel et al. (2000a)\]. In the following, a consistent averaging strategy is introduced.

### 2.1 Averaging Strategy

Most of the measurable quantities in granular materials vary strongly both in time and on short distances. At a fixed point in space, one has either a particle or one finds an empty space. Therefore, density flips between the two values zero and $`\varrho ^p`$, where the latter is the material density. During the “homogenization” presented in the next subsection, we average over space and time, in order to reduce the fluctuations. The averaging over space is an option in systems with some translational or rotational invariance (simple shear or ring shear apparatus); averaging over long times is feasible only in a steady state situation. In a ring shear apparatus, as introduced later in section 6, all points at a certain distance from the origin are equivalent to each other and, after several shear cycles, the system reaches a quasi-steady state. Averaging over many snapshots is somehow equivalent to an ensemble average. However, we remark that different snapshots are not necessarily independent of each other \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\] and the duration of a simulation might be too short to explore a representative part of the phase space.

The final assumption for the averaging procedure presented below, is that all quantities are smeared out over one particle. This is a good approximation for the density, but not for the stress. However, since we aim at macroscopic, averaged quantities, it is not our goal to solve for the stress field inside one particle. Details of the position dependency inside the particles are presumably smeared out due to the averaging in space and time.

### 2.2 Averaging Formalism

The mean value of some quantity $`Q`$ is defined as

$$Q=\frac{1}{V}\underset{pV}{}w_V^pV^pQ^p,$$
(1)
with the averaging volume $`V`$ and the particle volume $`V^p`$. $`Q^p=_{c=1}^{C^p}Q^c`$ is a quantity attributed to particle $`p`$, where the quantity $`Q^c`$ is attributed to contact $`c`$ of particle $`p`$ with $`C^p`$ contacts. The weight $`w_V^p`$ accounts for the particle’s contribution to the average, and corresponds to the fraction of the particle volume that is covered by the averaging volume. Since an exact calculation of the area of a circular particle that lies in an arbitrary volume is rather complicated, we assume that the boundaries of $`V`$ are locally straight, i. e. we cut the particle in slices, see \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\] for details. In the following section possible choices for observables are summarized and discussed.

## 3 MACROSCOPIC FIELDS

In the following, the averaging formalism in Eq. (1) is applied to obtain various macroscopic quantities. For example, the quantity $`Q^p`$ can be chosen as $`\varrho ^p`$ in order to obtain the density, as $`\varrho ^p𝒗^p`$ in order to obtain the momentum density, or as $`(1/2)\varrho ^p(𝒗^p)^2`$ for the kinetic energy density. In table 1, the macroscopic fields as well as particle-attributed quantities are collected. In this study, two tensors with no symbol in between mean a dyadic product, whereas ‘$``$’ is used for the scalar product, i. e. the order-reduction by one for each of the two tensors at left and right.

### 3.1 Volume Fraction

As a first example for an averaged scalar quantity, the local volume fraction $`\nu `$, see Tab. 1, is directly related to the local density via $`\varrho \varrho ^p\nu .`$

### 3.2 Flux Density

As a tensorial quantity of first order (vector), the velocity field $`𝒗`$ is obtained when dividing the flux density $`\nu 𝒗`$ by the volume fraction $`\nu `$. The momentum density is thus $`\varrho 𝒗\varrho ^p\nu 𝒗.`$

### 3.3 Velocity Gradient

Given the velocity field, it is possible to compute the velocity gradient $`\mathbf{}`$$`𝒗`$, a tensor of second order, by means of numerical differentiation. With $`\mathbf{}`$$`𝒗`$ one has the components of the symmetric deformation rate

$$D_{\alpha \beta }=\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{v_\alpha }{\beta }+\frac{v_\beta }{\alpha }\right]$$
(2)
and the anti-symmetric continuum rotation rate

$$W_{\alpha \beta }=\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{v_\alpha }{\beta }\frac{v_\beta }{\alpha }\right],$$
(3)
with the coordinates $`\alpha `$ and $`\beta `$. In the special case of cylindrical symmetry with radial direction $`r`$ and angular direction $`\varphi `$, Eqs. (2) and (3) reduce to

$$D_{r\varphi }=\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{v_\varphi }{r}\frac{v_\varphi }{r}\right]$$
(4)
and

$$W_{r\varphi }=\frac{1}{2}\left[\frac{v_\varphi }{r}+\frac{v_\varphi }{r}\right],$$
(5)
see \[Luding et al. (2000)\] for details and \[Zervos et al. (2000)\] for a similar approach.

### 3.4 Energy Density

The kinetic energy density is only a function of the velocity of the particles in the averaging volume and it is related to the trace of the dynamic stress tensor. However, we do not discuss this quantity here, since the system examined later is quasi-static so that the dynamic contributions are of minor importance \[Luding et al. (2000), Lätzel et al. (2000a)\].

## 4 MACROSCOPIC TENSORIAL QUANTITIES

In this section, the averaged, macroscopic tensorial quantities in our model system are introduced. The fabric tensor describes the statistics of the contact directions, the stress tensor describes the stress distribution due to the contact forces, and the elastic deformation gradient is a measure for the elastic, reversible deformations due to the stress.

### 4.1 Fabric Tensor

In assemblies of grains, the forces are transmitted from one particle to the next only at the contacts of the particles. Therefore, the local geometry and direction of each contact is important \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\]. The fabric tensor, in our definition, involves the contact normal vector $`𝒏^c`$, related to the so-called branch vector via $`𝒍^{pc}=a_p𝒏^c`$, with particle radius $`a_p`$. For each contact the dyadic product $`𝒏^c𝒏^c`$ is used, i. e. a degenerate tensor of order two with non-zero value in $`𝒏^c`$-direction only. In average over many contacts (and over many particles) one obtains the fabric tensor.

The fabric tensor in table 2 is symmetric by definition and thus consists of up to three independent scalar quantities in two dimensions. The first of them, the trace (or volumetric part) $`F_V=\mathrm{tr}(𝐅)=(F_{\mathrm{max}}+F_{\mathrm{min}})`$, is the contact number density, with the major and the minor eigenvalues $`F_{\mathrm{max}}`$ and $`F_{\mathrm{min}}`$, respectively. With other words, one obtains the relation $`\mathrm{tr}(𝐅)=\nu C`$ with reasonable accuracy for monodisperse particles, where $`C`$ is the average number of contacts per particle. For polydisperse size distribution functions, a multiplicative correction factor was recently proposed \[Madadi et al. (2001)\], which depends on the first three moments of the size distribution function only.

The second scalar, the deviator $`F_D=F_{\mathrm{max}}F_{\mathrm{min}}`$, accounts for the anisotropy of the contact network to first order, and the third, the angle $`\varphi _F`$, gives the orientation of the “major eigenvector”, i. e. the eigenvector corresponding to $`F_{\mathrm{max}}`$, defined with respect to the radial outwards direction for cylindrical symmetry. In other words, the contact probability distribution is proportional to the function $`F_V+F_D\mathrm{cos}(2(\varphi \varphi _F))`$ \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\], when averaged over many particles. Note that this approximation, a fourier expansion up to second order, is not always sufficient, i. e. a more general fabric tensor of rank four should be used \[Mehrabadi et al. (1988), Herrmann et al. (1998)\].

### 4.2 Stress Tensor

The stress tensor $`𝝈`$ is a measure for the force $`𝒇=𝝈𝒏`$, acting on an imaginary surface with normal $`𝒏`$, per unit area. A force is equivalent to some momentum transfer per unit time, so that also the momentum flux density contributes to the stress in a dynamic way. The dynamic stress, see table 1, corresponds to the stress in an ideal gas, whereas the static stress, see table 2, is caused by the transfer of forces from a contact to the center of mass of a particle.

In order to account for both the stress and the distance of transfer, the static component of the stress tensor \[Rothenburg and Selvadurai (1981), Satake and Jenkins (1988), Kruyt and Rothenburg (1996), Lätzel et al. (2000b)\] is defined as the dyadic product of the force $`𝒇^c`$ acting at contact $`c`$ with the corresponding branch vector, see table 2. Note that the formerly introduced surface quantity is here expressed as the sum over all particles in the averaging volume, with the respective weight factor in Eq. (1), for a detailed derivation see \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\].

### 4.3 Elastic Deformation Gradient

In order to reach the final goal, i. e. to measure the material properties of a granular ensemble, one is interested, e. g., in the stress-strain relationship of the material. The strain $`𝜺`$ can be obtained by time integration of the velocity gradient, see subsection 3.2, and subsequent symmetrization and linearization. Here, an alternative quantity is introduced by application of “Voigt’s hypothesis”, i. e. assuming that the deformation is uniform and that every particle displacement conforms to the corresponding mean displacement field, but fluctuates about it \[Liao et al. (1997), Lätzel et al. (2000b)\]. The deformation gradient in table 2 is calculated for the special case of two-dimensional disks with height $`h`$.

This relates the actual deformations to a virtual, stress-free reference state where all contacts start to form, i. e. the particles are just touching, see \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\] for a detailed derivation. The result is a non-symmetric tensor $`\mathit{ϵ}`$, which is not the strain. Instead, we refer to it as the elastic deformation gradient, since it accounts only for reversible (elastic) deformations.

## 5 ROTATIONAL DEGREES OF FREEDOM

Due to the particles’ surface roughness, forces are transmitted also tangentially and thus granular particles will rotate. Therefore, also micro-polar macroscopic quantities related to the rotational degrees of freedom are of interest \[Lätzel et al. (2000a), Zervos et al. (2000)\]. The particle rotation, the couple-stress and the curvature are discussed in this section.

### 5.1 Particle Rotation

The mean angular velocity of the particles is obtained by using $`Q^p=𝝎^p`$, see table 3. Note that $`𝝎`$ also contains the continuum angular velocity

$$𝝎_c=𝐈\times 𝐖,$$
(6)
i. e. the vector product ‘$`\times `$’ of the continuum rotation rate from Eq. (3) and the unit tensor $`𝐈`$. The excess rotation, or particle eigen rotation, with respect to the underlying mean motion, is thus

$$𝝎^{}=𝝎𝝎^c,$$
(7)
i. e. the total mean spin minus the continuum spin.

### 5.2 Couple stress

In the framework of a Cosserat continuum \[Zervos et al. (2000)\] one has, in addition to the stress, also the couple stress $`𝐌`$. When an applied stress leads to a deformation, an applied couple-stress causes a rotational motion. It can thus be defined in analogy to the stress by replacing the force by the torque due to the tangential component of the force, see table 3. In a two dimensional system with cylindrical symmetry, only the components $`M_{zr}`$ and $`M_{z\varphi }`$ of the tensor survive. Note that $`𝐌=\mathrm{𝟎}`$, when the sum of the torques acting on spherical particles vanishes by definition in static equilibrium.

### 5.3 Elastic Curvature

In analogy to the elastic deformation gradient, we define the curvature $`𝜿`$ by replacing the overlap with the respective axial vector, $`𝒍^{pc}\times 𝚫^{pc}`$, see table 3. This leads to a measure for the reversible or “frozen in” rotations in the system. Consequently, in static equilibrium of spherical particles, one has $`𝜿=\mathrm{𝟎}`$.

## 6 RESULTS

The elementary units of granular materials are mesoscopic grains. With DEM \[Lätzel et al. (2000b), Lätzel et al. (2000a)\] the grains are treated as rigid particles but their local deformation at their contact points is realized as virtual overlaps. We relate the interaction forces to this overlap $`\delta `$ and to the tangential displacement of two particles during contact. The force laws used are material dependent and have to be validated by comparison with experimental measurements \[Foerster et al. (1994), Labous et al. (1997), Falcon et al. (1998), Luding (1998)\].

### 6.1 The Model System

In the simulations presented in this study, a two-dimensional Couette shear-cell is used. $`N`$ disks are confined between an outer ring and an inner ring with radius $`R_o`$ and $`R_i`$, respectively. The particles are of slightly different size $`d_{\mathrm{small}}=7.42`$ mm and $`d_{\mathrm{large}}=8.99`$ mm, in order to reduce ordering effects. These boundary conditions are based on an experiment \[Howell and Behringer (1999), Veje et al. (1999)\]; for more details and other simulations, see \[Lätzel et al. (2000b), Luding et al. (2000)\].

The outer wall is fixed and the inner wall rotates and thus introduces a slow shear deformation to the system. The simulations are started in a dilute state with an extended outer ring while the inner ring already rotates counter-clockwise with constant angular velocity $`\mathrm{\Omega }=2\pi /T_i=0.1`$ s<sup>-1</sup> and period $`T_i=62.83`$ s. The radius of the outer ring is reduced within about two seconds to reach its desired value $`R_o`$ and thereafter it is kept fixed. Averages are performed after about three rotations at $`t=180`$ s (to get rid of the arbitrary initial configuration), and during about one rotation, until $`t=239`$ s. In Fig. 1, a typical snapshot is displayed, where the potential energy of the particles is coded in greyscale so that the stress-chains become visible.

Different global volume fractions $`\overline{\nu }`$ were examined in the simulations. Here, we present data from three different simulations A, B, and C with $`\overline{\nu }=0.8084`$, $`0.8149`$ and $`0.8194`$, respectively. For the different simulations the number of large and small particles is $`N_{\mathrm{small}}`$: $`2511`$, $`2545`$, $`2555`$ and $`N_{\mathrm{large}}`$: $`400`$, $`394`$, $`399`$. For the calculation of the global volume fraction, the small particles glued to the wall are counted with half their volume only, and thus contribute with $`\overline{\nu }_{\mathrm{wall}}=0.0047`$ to $`\overline{\nu }`$. For more details and material parameters, see \[Lätzel et al. (2000b)\].

### 6.2 Volume Fraction

In Fig. 2, the volume fraction is plotted against the rescaled distance from the inner ring. Starting from an initially uniform volume fraction, a dilated shear-zone forms near to the inner wheel as a consequence of the applied shear. This effect is less pronounced for higher initial global densities and, in the outer region of the shear-cell ($`\stackrel{~}{r}>10`$), the structure of the packing remains frozen, i. e. not much reorganization takes place within the duration of the simulation.

### 6.3 Velocity Field

In Fig. 3, the tangential velocity is plotted against the rescaled distance from the inner ring. The simulation data are fitted by a function $`v_\varphi (r)=v_0\mathrm{exp}(\stackrel{~}{r}/s)`$ with $`v_o`$: $`0.670`$, $`0.756`$, $`0.788`$ and $`s`$: $`1.662`$, $`1.584`$, $`1.191`$, thus showing an exponential profile corresponding to the shear band. The shear band, has a width of a few particle diameters, before the velocity $`v_\varphi `$ reaches the noise level.

### 6.4 Fabric Tensor

The trace of the fabric tensor is a measure for the contact number density, whereas the deviator of the fabric is a measure for the anisotropy of the contact network \[Lätzel et al. (2000b), Lätzel et al. (2000a)\], see Fig. 4. In our situation, the contact number density is reduced in the shear zone and the anisotropy, i. e. the deviatoric fraction, is increased in the shear zone, but remains below 20 per-cent.

### 6.5 Stress Tensor

In Fig. 5, the static stress components are plotted. Here, the diagonal elements are almost constant, whereas the off-diagonal elements decay proportional to $`r^2`$, as indicated by the lines, in consistency with continuum theoretical equilibrium conditions \[Luding et al. (2000)\]. The trace of the stress tensor, i. e. the volumetric stress, is almost constant over the whole shear-cell besides fluctuations. In contrast, the deviatoric fraction $`\sigma _D/\sigma _V`$ decays with increasing distance $`r`$ from the inner ring, similar to the behavior of the deviatoric fraction of $`𝐅`$.

### 6.6 Tensor Orientations

The orientations of the tensors $`𝐅`$, $`𝝈`$, and $`\mathit{ϵ}`$ (data not shown here) are tilted from the radial outwards direction into shear direction \[Lätzel et al. (2000b), Luding et al. (2000), Lätzel et al. (2000a)\]. Interestingly, the orientations of the three tensors are different, indicating an anisotropic material. All orientation angles show the same qualitative behavior, however, the fabric is tilted more than the stress which, in turn, is tilted more than the deformation gradient. Thus, the three tensorial quantities examined so far are *not* co-linear.

### 6.7 Angular velocity field

In Fig. 6 the ($`z`$-components of the) macroscopic particle rotations $`\omega `$, the continuum rotation $`\omega _c`$ and the particle excess-rotation $`\omega ^{}=\omega \omega _c`$, are displayed. Both the particle- and the continuum-angular velocity decay exponentially with increasing $`\stackrel{~}{r}`$, paralleling the behavior of the velocity $`v_\varphi `$. The inset of Fig. 6 shows an oscillation of the excess-rotation near the inner wheel, from one disk layer to the next. This is due to the fact that the disks in adjacent layers are able to roll over each other in the shear zone.

## 7 MATERIAL PARAMETERS

### 7.1 Bulk Stiffness

The material stiffness $`\overline{E}=\mathrm{tr}(𝝈)/\mathrm{tr}(\mathit{ϵ})`$ is here defined as the ratio of the volumetric parts of stress and elastic deformation gradient. In a mean field estimate it is found to be proportional to the “microscopic” contact stiffness $`k_n^{}`$ and the trace of the fabric tensor: $`\overline{E}(k_n^{}/2\pi )\mathrm{tr}(𝐅).`$ In Fig. 7 the rescaled stiffness of the granular material is plotted against the trace of the fabric. Note that all data collapse almost on a line, but the mean-field value underestimates the simulation data by some per-cent. The few data points which deviate most are close to the boundaries. The deviation from the mean field prediction (solid line in Fig. 7) seems to disappear in the absence of shear.

### 7.2 Shear Stiffness

The typical shear stiffness of the material is defined as the ratio of the deviatoric parts of stress and elastic deformation gradient $`G=\mathrm{dev}(𝝈)/\mathrm{dev}(\mathit{ϵ})`$ and scales in a crude mean field approximation as $`G(k_n^{}/\pi )\mathrm{tr}(𝐅)`$. In Fig. 8 the ratio of the deviatoric parts of stress and strain is plotted against the trace of the fabric. Like the bulk stiffness, both quantities are proportional, at least for points near or within the dilute shear band. In the denser outer part of the shear-cell, the particles are strongly inter-locked and thus resist much more against shear, so that $`G`$ diverges. The critical contact number density grows with increasing global density, i. e. with increasing stress.

### 7.3 Torque Resistance

Since we are interested in the role the rotational degree of freedom plays for the constitutive equations, we define a new material parameter, the “torque resistance” $`\mu _c`$, as the ratio of the magnitudes of the couple stress and the curvature components. This quantity describes how strongly the material resists against applied torques. In Fig. 9, $`\mu _c`$ is plotted against the scaled distance from the inner ring. In the dilute regions near to the shear zone, where the particles are able to rotate more easily, $`\mu _c`$ is smaller than in the denser regions, where the particles are interlocked and thus frustrated. This is consistent with the results for increasing global densities, i. e. the torque resistance increases with density. Note that the strongest fluctuations are due to the division by small values and have no physical relevance in our interpretation.

## 8 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

A micro-macro averaging procedure was presented and specific boundary conditions were chosen to allow for averaging over large volumes and long times. A shear band is obtained, localized close to the inner, rotating cylindrical wall. The local configurations changed rather rapidly in the shear band, whereas the system is almost frozen in the outer part.

The averaging strategy used assumes the quantities to be homogeneously smeared out over the whole particle which is cut in slices by the averaging volumes. The material density, i. e. the volume fraction, the velocity field, the fabric tensor, the stress tensor and the elastic, reversible deformation gradient were obtained from DEM simulations. The volumetric stress is constant in radial direction while its deviatoric fraction and also the mean velocity gradient decay with increasing distance from the inner wall. The ratio of the volumetric parts of stress and strain gives the material stiffness of the granulate, which is small in the shear band, due to dilation, and larger outside.

In the shear-cell, large deviators, i. e. anisotropy, of all tensorial quantities is evidenced. All tensors are tilted from the radial direction. The system organizes itself such that more contacts are created to act against the shear and also the shear resistance increases with the contact density. An essential result is that the macroscopic tensors are not co-linear, i. e. their orientations are different. Thus, the material cannot be described by a simple elastic model involving only the two Lamé constants (or bulk modulus and Poisson’s ratio).

Finally, the particles’ angular velocity was averaged in analogy to the particle velocity. Subtraction of the continuum rotation from the particle rotation leads to the excess-eigen rotation of the particles with respect to the mean rotation, in the spirit of a micro-polar or Cosserat continuum theory. In analogy to the stress and elastic deformation gradient, we defined couple stress and curvature. The quotient of the respective non-zero components gives a “torque-resistance” which increases with increasing local density and stress.

Current research concerns the application of the averaging formalism to other boundary conditions, the use of more realistic particle interaction models, and the measurement of other macroscopic quantities not discussed here.

## 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks M. Lätzel for data and discussions and acknowledges financial support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

The aim of this work is to investigate the phenomenological implications of a model recently proposed for the electroweak interactions based on a $`SU(2)_L`$ confining theory . We shall concentrate on orbital and radial excitations of the electroweak bosons. Our model makes use of the confinement mechanism proposed in Ref. . It was emphasized in Ref. that models of a similar class imply different search strategies for the Higgs boson than those usually adopted when searching for the standard model, supersymmetric or fermiophobic Higgs bosons.

In our model the left-handed particles appear as bound states of fundamental, unobservable fermions $`f_L`$ and $`q_L`$ and a scalar $`h`$. These particles transform as doublets under $`SU(2)_L`$. Besides this, $`q_L`$ is a triplet under $`SU(3)_c`$. We can then identify the following physical left-handed fermions, Higgs boson and electroweak bosons.

$`\begin{array}{ccccccc}\text{neutrino:}\hfill & \nu _L\hfill & \hfill & \overline{h}l\hfill & & & \\ \text{electron:}\hfill & e_L\hfill & \hfill & hl\hfill & & & \\ \text{up type quark:}\hfill & u_L\hfill & \hfill & \overline{h}q\hfill & & & \\ \text{down type quark:}\hfill & d_L\hfill & \hfill & hq\hfill & & & \\ \text{Higgs particle:}\hfill & \varphi \hfill & \hfill & \overline{h}h\hfill & (s\text{-wave})\hfill & & \\ W^3\text{ boson:}\hfill & W^3\hfill & \hfill & \overline{h}h\hfill & (p\text{-wave})\hfill & & \\ W^{}\text{ boson:}\hfill & W^{}\hfill & \hfill & hh\hfill & (p\text{-wave})\hfill & & \\ W^+\text{ boson:}\hfill & W^+\hfill & \hfill & (hh)^{}\hfill & (p\text{-wave}),\hfill & & \end{array}`$ (9)
assuming a $`SU(2)_L`$ confinement. The right-handed particles are those of the standard model. In our approach the electroweak bosons appear as excited states of the Higgs boson. It was shown in Ref. that the minimal sector of the model, i.e., the sector containing only the particles predicted by the standard model, is identical to the standard model  if one chooses the unitary gauge, we call this property duality. This is done by fixing the gauge and performing a $`1/F`$ expansion, where $`F492`$ GeV is the scale of the theory. In this model new particles corresponding to exotic particles like leptoquarks can be introduced. But, they do not obey to this expansion, and the duality cannot be applied to describe their properties. Forces between two fermions can be very much different than those between a fermion and a scalar or between two scalars. If leptoquarks do exist, their mass scale is presumably very high.

Of particular interest are radially excited versions of the Higgs boson $`H^{}`$ and of the electroweak bosons $`W^3`$ and $`W^\pm `$. As described in , the most promising candidates for energies available at the LHC or at future linear colliders are the excited states of the Higgs boson and of the electroweak bosons. Especially the orbital excitation, i.e., the spin 2 $`d`$-waves $`D_{\mu \nu }^3`$, $`D_{\mu \nu }^{}`$ and $`D_{\mu \nu }^+`$, of the electroweak bosons have a well defined $`1/F`$ expansion (we use the unitary gauge: $`h=(h_{(1)}+F,0)`$:

$`D_{\mu \nu }^3`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2}{g^2F^2}}\left(\left(D_\mu h\right)^{}\left(D_\nu h\right)+\left(D_\nu h\right)^{}\left(D_\mu h\right)\right)b_\nu ^3b_\mu ^3+b_\nu ^+b_\mu ^{}+b_\mu ^+b_\nu ^{}`$ (10)
$`D_{\mu \nu }^{}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{g^2F^2}}ϵ^{ij}\left(\left(D_\mu h\right)_i\left(D_\nu h\right)_j+\left(D_\nu h\right)_i\left(D_\mu h\right)_j\right)b_\mu ^3b_\nu ^{}+b_\nu ^3b_\mu ^{}`$
$`D_{\mu \nu }^+`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{\sqrt{2}}{g^2F^2}}ϵ^{ij}\left(\left(D_\mu h\right)_i\left(D_\nu h\right)_j+\left(D_\nu h\right)_i\left(D_\mu h\right)_j\right)\right)^{}b_\mu ^3b_\nu ^++b_\nu ^3b_\mu ^+`$
where $`D_\mu `$ is the covariant derivative, $`b_\mu ^a`$, $`a=\{3,+,\}`$ are the gauge fields and $`g`$ the coupling constant corresponding to the gauge group $`SU(2)_L`$. Although the masses and the couplings of these electroweak $`d`$-waves to other particles are fixed by the dynamics of the model, it is difficult to determine these parameters. In analogy to Quantum Chromodynamics, it is expected that these $`d`$-waves couple with a reasonable strength to the corresponding $`p`$-waves, the electroweak bosons. In the following, we assume in accordance with the duality property, that the $`d`$-waves only couple to the electroweak bosons and not to the photon, Higgs boson or the fermions.

## 2 Production of the electroweak $`d`$-waves

The cross-sections and decay width of $`d`$-waves predicted in a variety of composite models were considered in Ref.. Here we shall consider different effective couplings of our electroweak $`d`$-waves that are more suitable for the model proposed in . If their masses are of the order of the scale of the theory, they will be accessible at the LHC. Of particular interest is the neutral electroweak $`d`$-wave because it is expected to couple to the $`W^\pm `$ electroweak bosons. This particle can thus be produced by the fusion of two electroweak bosons at the LHC or at linear colliders.

We shall use the formalism developed by van Dam and Veltman  for massive $`d`$-waves to compute the decay width of the $`D_{\mu \nu }^3`$ into $`W^+W^{}`$. We use the following relation:

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{5}{}}}e_{\mu \nu }^i(p)e_{\alpha \beta }^i(p)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\delta _{\mu \alpha }\delta _{\nu \beta }+\delta _{\mu \beta }\delta _{\nu \alpha }\delta _{\mu \nu }\delta _{\alpha \beta }\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left(\delta _{\mu \alpha }{\displaystyle \frac{p_\nu p_\beta }{m_D^2}}+\delta _{\nu \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\alpha }{m_D^2}}+\delta _{\mu \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{p_\nu p_\alpha }{m_D^2}}+\delta _{\nu \alpha }{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\beta }{m_D^2}}\right)`$
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _{\mu \nu }{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{m_D^2}}\right)\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\delta _{\alpha \beta }{\displaystyle \frac{p_\alpha p_\beta }{m_D^2}}\right)`$
for the sum over the polarizations $`e_{\mu \nu }^i`$ of the $`d`$-wave. In the notation of Ref. the sum over the polarizations of the $`W^\pm `$ is given by

$`{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}e_\mu ^i(p)e_\nu ^i(p)`$ $`=`$ $`\delta _{\mu \nu }+{\displaystyle \frac{p_\mu p_\nu }{m_W^2}}`$ (12)
where $`\delta _{\mu \nu }`$ is the Euclidean metric. Averaging over the polarizations of the $`d`$-wave, we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^3W^+W^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_D^2}{1920m_D\pi }}\left(x_W4\right)^2\sqrt{\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4}{x_W}}\right)}`$ (13)
with $`x_W=(m_D/m_W)^2`$, where $`m_D`$ is the mass of the $`d`$-wave and $`g_D`$ is a dimensionfull coupling constant with $`\text{dim}[g_D]=\text{GeV}`$. A dimensionless coupling constant is obtained by a redefinition of the coupling constant $`g_Dm_D\overline{g}_D`$. We shall discuss plausible numerical inputs in the next section. Assuming that the $`Z`$ boson couples with the same strength to the $`d`$-wave as the $`W`$-bosons, we can approximate the decay width into $`Z`$ bosons in the following way

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^3ZZ)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{g_D^2}{3840m_D\pi }}\left(x_Z4\right)^2\sqrt{\left(1{\displaystyle \frac{4}{x_Z}}\right)}`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^3W^+W^{})`$
with $`x_Z=(m_D/m_Z)^2`$. The Breit-Wigner resonance cross section for the reaction $`W^++W^{}D^3`$ thus reads (see e.g. )

$`\sigma _{W^++W^{}D^3}^{(res)}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{10\pi }{q^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{m_D^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{\text{(tot)}}\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^3W^+W^{})}{\left(m_D^2s\right)^2+m_D^2\mathrm{\Gamma }_{D}^{\text{(tot)}}{}_{}{}^{2}}}`$ (15)
where $`q^2=(s4m_W^2)/4`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_D^{(\text{tot})}3/2\mathrm{\Gamma }(D^3W^+W^{})`$ is the total decay width of the neutral $`d`$-wave. Due to the background, the $`W`$ bosons might be difficult to observe. But, if the electroweak $`d`$-waves states are produced we expect an excess of $`Z`$ bosons compared to the standard model expectation. Note that the $`Z`$ bosons are easier to observe.

As we shall see in the next section, the neutral $`d`$-waves give a sizable contribution to the reaction $`W^++W^{}W^++W^{}`$.

## 3 The reaction $`W^++W^{}W^++W^{}`$

A considerable attention has been paid to the scattering of electroweak bosons since this represents a stringent test of the gauge structure of the standard model. In particular the reaction $`W^++W^{}W^++W^{}`$ is known to be of prime interest. If the Higgs boson is heavier than 1 TeV, the electroweak bosons will start to interact strongly . This reaction has been studied in the framework of the standard model in Ref.  and the one loop corrections were considered in  and are known to be sizable. For the sake of this paper the tree level diagrams are sufficient to show that the contribution of the neutral electroweak $`d`$-wave will have a considerable impact to that reaction and cannot be overlooked in forthcoming experiments. As described in  (see also Ref. ) the $`W`$’s emitted by the beam particles are dominantly longitudinally polarized if the following relations are fulfilled: $`m_W^2m_{WW}^2s`$ at an $`e^+`$ $`e^{}`$ collider, and $`m_W^2m_{WW}^2s_{q\overline{q}}s`$ at a hadron collider, and we shall only consider the especially interesting reaction $`W_L^++W_L^{}W_L^++W_L^{}`$ as described in .

In the standard model, this reaction is a test of the gauge structure of the theory . The Feynman graphs contributing in the standard model to this reaction can be found in figures 3, 3, 3, 5 and 5.

The amplitudes corresponding to these graphs are

$`A_{s\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig^2xs^2\beta ^2(3\beta ^2)^2\mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$ (16)
$`A_{sZ}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig^2(1x){\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{s\xi _Z}}\beta ^2(3\beta ^2)^2\mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$
$`A_{t\gamma }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32}}ig^2x{\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{t}}[\beta ^2(42\beta ^2+\beta ^4)+\beta ^2(410\beta ^2+\beta ^4)\mathrm{cos}\theta `$
$`+(211\beta ^2+10\beta ^4)\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}^3\theta ],`$
$`A_{tZ}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32}}ig^2(1x){\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{t\xi _Z}}[\beta ^2(42\beta ^2+\beta ^4)+\beta ^2(410\beta ^2+\beta ^4)\mathrm{cos}\theta `$
$`+(211\beta ^2+10\beta ^4)\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}^3\theta ],`$
$`A_4`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig^2s^2(1+2\beta ^26\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta \mathrm{cos}^2\theta ),`$
$`A_{sH}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig^2s^2{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\beta ^2)^2}{s\xi _H+i\gamma _H}},`$
$`A_{tH}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig^2s^2{\displaystyle \frac{(\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta )^2}{t\xi _H+i\gamma _H}},`$
where $`x=\mathrm{sin}^2\theta _W`$, $`\xi _Z=(1x)^1=m_Z^2/m_W^2`$, $`\xi _H=m_H^2/m_W^2`$, $`\gamma _H=m_H\mathrm{\Gamma }_H/m_W^2`$ and $`\beta =\sqrt{14/s}`$. The variables $`s`$ and $`t`$ are scaled with respect to $`m_W^2`$. The scattering angle is $`\theta `$, $`t=1/2s\beta ^2(1\mathrm{cos}\theta )`$. These notations are the same as those introduced in Ref.. The standard model amplitude is thus

$`A_{SM}^{sum}`$ $`=`$ $`A_{s\gamma }+A_{sZ}+A_{t\gamma }+A_{tZ}+A_4+A_{sH}+A_{tH}.`$ (17)
In the high energy limit, one observes the cancellation of the leading powers in $`s`$ and finds

$`A_{SM}^{sum}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ig^2\left[\xi _Z\left(1+{\displaystyle \frac{s}{t}}+{\displaystyle \frac{t}{s}}\right)+\xi _Hi\gamma _H\right]`$ (18)
for the sum of these amplitudes. The cross section with the angular cut $`z_0<\mathrm{cos}\theta <z_0`$ is then

$`\sigma `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16\pi s^2\beta ^2}}{\displaystyle _t_{}^{t_+}}|A^{sum}|^2\text{d}t`$ (19)
in dimensionless units, $`t_\pm =(2s/2)(1z_0)`$.

The excitations of the Higgs and electroweak bosons also contribute via the $`s`$ and $`t`$ channel. The amplitudes corresponding to the contribution of a radially excited Higgs boson ($`H^{}`$) of mass $`m_H^{}`$ and decay width $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_H^{}`$ to this reaction are

$`A_{sH^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig_H^{}^2s^2{\displaystyle \frac{(1+\beta ^2)^2}{s\xi _H^{}+i\gamma _H^{}}},`$ (20)
$`A_{tH^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig_H^{}^2s^2{\displaystyle \frac{(\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta )^2}{t\xi _H^{}+i\gamma _H^{}}},`$
where $`\xi _H^{}=m_H^{}^2/m_W^2`$, $`\gamma _H^{}=m_H^{}\mathrm{\Gamma }_H^{}/m_W^2`$ and $`g_H^{}`$ is the strength of the coupling between two $`W`$ bosons and the $`H^{}`$ scalar particle.

We shall now consider the contribution of the radially $`(W^3)`$ and orbitally $`(D^{\mu \nu })`$ excited neutral $`Z`$ boson. The amplitudes for the $`W^3`$ can be at once deduced from those of the standard model contribution of the $`Z`$ boson

$`A_{sW^3}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{16}}ig_{W^3}^2{\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{s\xi _{W^3}+i\gamma _{W^3}}}\beta ^2(3\beta ^2)^2\mathrm{cos}\theta ,`$ (21)
$`A_{tW^3}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{32}}ig_{W^3}^2{\displaystyle \frac{s^3}{t\xi _{W^3}+i\gamma _{W^3}}}[\beta ^2(42\beta ^2+\beta ^4)`$
$`+\beta ^2(410\beta ^2+\beta ^4)\mathrm{cos}\theta +(211\beta ^2+10\beta ^4)\mathrm{cos}^2\theta +\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}^3\theta ],`$
where $`\xi _{W^3}=m_{W^3}^2/m_W^2`$, $`\gamma _{W^3}=m_{W^3}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{W^3}/m_W^2`$ and $`g_{W^3}`$ is the strength of the coupling between two $`W`$ bosons and the $`W^3`$ boson.

The orbitally excited $`Z`$ boson $`(D^{\mu \nu })`$ is a $`d`$-wave, and its propagation is thus described by a propagator corresponding to a massive spin 2 particle. The propagator of a massive spin two particle is as follows (see Ref. ):

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{\mu \nu \rho \sigma }`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p^2m_D^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(g_{\mu \rho }g_{\nu \sigma }+g_{\mu \sigma }g_{\nu \rho }{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}g_{\mu \nu }g_{\rho \sigma })`$ (22)
and we assume that the vertex $`W^{+\mu }W^\nu D_{\mu \nu }`$ is of the form $`ig_D`$. We obtain the following amplitudes for the $`s`$ and $`t`$ channel exchange

$`A_{sD}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{48}}ig_D^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_D^2}{m_W^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{s\xi _D+i\gamma _D}}\left(2\beta ^4+3\mathrm{cos}^2\theta 2\beta ^21\right)`$ (23)
$`A_{tD}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{96}}ig_D^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_D^2}{m_W^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{t\xi _D+i\gamma _D}}\left(4\beta ^4+6\beta ^2+3+10\beta ^2\mathrm{cos}\theta +1\mathrm{cos}\theta ^2\right)`$ (24)
Since there is a pole in the $`t`$ channel whose origin is the photon exchange, one has to impose cuts on the cross sections. For the numerical evaluation of the cross section, we impose a cut of $`10^{}`$, which is the cut chosen in Ref. . The spin of the particle can be determined from the angular distribution of the cross section. We have neglected the decay width of the $`Z`$ boson and that of the Higgs boson since we assume that the energy of the process is such that no $`Z`$ boson or Higgs resonance appear. For numerical estimates, we took $`m_H=100`$ GeV.

We have considered only the reaction involving longitudinally polarized $`W`$. The amplitudes for different polarizations for the standard model can be found in the literature . The amplitudes for a $`H^{}`$ or a $`W^3`$ can be deduced from the standard model calculations by replacing the masses, the decay widths and the coupling constants. Those for the neutral $`d`$-wave can be easily calculated using

$`𝒜_s^{p_1p_2p_3p_4}`$ $`=`$ $`ig_D^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_D^2}{m_W^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{s\xi _D+i\gamma _D}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ^\mu (p_1)ϵ^\nu (p_2)(g_{\mu \rho }g_{\nu \sigma }+g_{\mu \sigma }g_{\nu \rho }{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}g_{\mu \nu }g_{\rho \sigma })ϵ^\rho (p_3)ϵ^\sigma (p_4)`$
and

$`𝒜_t^{p_1p_2p_3p_4}`$ $`=`$ $`ig_D^2{\displaystyle \frac{m_D^2}{m_W^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{t\xi _D+i\gamma _D}}`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}ϵ^\mu (p_1)ϵ^\rho (p_2)(g_{\mu \rho }g_{\nu \sigma }+g_{\mu \sigma }g_{\nu \rho }{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}g_{\mu \nu }g_{\rho \sigma })ϵ^\nu (p_3)ϵ^\sigma (p_4)`$
where $`p_i`$ stands for the polarization and also using the following relations

$`ϵ_1^\mu (0)=(p,0,0,E)/m_W`$ $`ϵ_1^\mu (\pm )=(0,1,\pm i,0)/\sqrt{2}`$
$`ϵ_2^\mu (0)=(p,0,0,E)/m_W`$ $`ϵ_2^\mu (\pm )=(0,1,\pm i,0)/\sqrt{2}`$
$`ϵ_3^\mu (0)=(p,E\mathrm{sin}\theta ,0,E\mathrm{cos}\theta )/m_W`$ $`ϵ_3^\mu (\pm )=(0,\mathrm{cos}\theta ,i,\mathrm{sin}\theta )/\sqrt{2}`$
$`ϵ_4^\mu (0)=(p,E\mathrm{sin}\theta ,0,E\mathrm{cos}\theta )/m_W`$ $`ϵ_4^\mu (\pm )=(0,\mathrm{cos}\theta ,i,\mathrm{sin}\theta )/\sqrt{2}`$
valid in the center of mass system where $`E`$ is the energy of the $`W`$ bosons, $`p=\sqrt{E^2m_W^2}`$ is their momentum and $`\theta `$ is the scattering angle.

## 4 Discussion

The differential decay widths for the reaction $`W_L^+W_L^{}W_L^++W_L^{}`$ can be found in figure 6 for the reaction involving the neutral $`d`$-wave, figure 7 for that involving the $`W^3`$ spin 1 boson and figure 8 for that involving the $`H^{}`$ scalar. The particles $`W^3`$ and $`H^{}`$ are assumed to couple, in a first approximation, only to the $`W`$’s. This allows to compute their decay rates using standard model formulas. As mentioned previously it is not an easy task to predict the mass spectrum of the model, thus we assumed, for numerical illustration, three different masses: 350 GeV, 500 GeV and 800 GeV. The coupling constants are assumed to sizable (see figures). If the cross sections are extrapolated to very high energies, the unitarity is violated. However, as expected in any substructure models, it will be restored by bound states effects.

It is very instructive to plot the ratio of the differential cross section involving new physics to the standard model differential cross section. We have done so for the neutral $`d`$-wave (Ref. 9). It is obvious from this picture that any deviation from the standard model, even at high energy will manifest it-self already in a deviation from one for that ratio. Already at an energy which is low compared to the mass of the new particle, i.e. well bellow the resonance, one observes a deviation from unity.

Nevertheless the calculation of the full reaction e.g. $`e^+e^{}W^+W^{}\nu \overline{\nu }`$ involves the convolution of the cross section of the reaction $`W^+W^{}W^++W^{}`$ with functions describing the radiative emission of the $`W`$’s from the fermions. When this integral is performed some sensitivity is lost. Nevertheless the effects are expected to be so large that they cannot be overlooked. The reaction will allow to test a mass range of a few TeV’s so that even if the new particles are too massive to be produced on-shell, their effects will be noticeable at future colliders.

## 5 Conclusions

We have discussed the production of a neutral $`d`$-wave $`D^3`$ at the LHC or at a linear collider. If the mass of this particle is of the order of the scale of the theory, i.e. 300 GeV, it can be produced at these colliders. We have also shown that this particle as well as radial excitations of the Higgs boson and $`Z`$ boson would spoil the cancellation of the leading powers in $`s`$ of in the reaction $`W_L^++W_L^{}W_L^++W_L^{}`$, thus any new particle contributing to that reaction will have a large impact already at energies well below the mass of this new particle. This reaction is thus not only of prime interest if the Higgs boson is heavy but should also be studied if the Higgs boson was light.

## Acknowledgements

We should like to thank P. Bambade, G. L. Kane, A. Leike, Z. Xing, V. I. Zakharov and P. Zerwas for useful discussions.


text:
# ROSAT and BeppoSAX evidence of soft X–ray excess emission in the Shapley supercluster: A3571, A3558, A3560 and A3562

## 1 Introduction

Clusters of galaxies are strong emitters of soft X–rays, often in excess of the contribution from the hot intra–cluster medium (ICM; Lieu at al. 1196a; Lieu et al. 1996b; Mittaz, Lieu and Lockman 1998; Lieu, Bonamente and Mittaz 1999; Bonamente, Lieu and Mittaz 2001). The PSPC detector onboard ROSAT is well suited for the observation of diffuse sources in the 1/4 keV band: along with a large effective area (of about 200 cm2 at 0.28 keV), the large field-of-view of 1 degree radius allowed the contemporaneous acquisition of source signals (usually near boresight) and local background (at large detector radii) with equal exposures. The Low–Energy Concentrator Spectrometer (LECS) aboard BeppoSAX also has appreciable effective areas (of $`10`$ cm2 at 0.28 keV) and can be used for similar investigations.

Soft X–ray fluxes are significantly absorbed by intervening Galactic material (mainly HI and HeI) along the line of sight. At the Galactic NH values of the Shapley supercluster ($`44.5\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2), 0.2 keV photons encounter a total optical depth of $`4`$, which accordingly reduces their flux by about 98 %. The HeI absorption cross–section was recently revised (Yan et al. 1998 and references therein), leading to a reinstatement of the original absorption code of Morrison and McCammon (1983) as the most reliable. This code is therefore employed in the present work. The crucial task, however, is to measure $`N_H`$ with a spatial resolution $``$ the cluster size. For details on how this was fulfilled, see section 2. In this paper we present results on a sample of nearby clusters (A3571, A3558, A3560 and A3562, at redshift z$``$ 0.04-0.05) in the Shapley concentration. The analysis of four PSPC observations revealed statistically significant 1/4 keV band ($``$ 0.2–0.4 keV) excess emission for all of the clusters, although the intrinsic low surface brightness of A3560 and A3562 implied a limited S/N. Data from two pointed SAX/LECS observations were available for two of the four clusters (A3571 and A3562); clear evidence of soft excess emission is present in the A3571 data, while results for A3562 were marginal, due to the faintness of the cluster. Thus the soft excess syndrome may be common to a large fraction of clusters, as suggested also by our earlier analyses of a nearby sample of clusters with EUVE, contrary to the findings of Bowyer et al. (1999,2001) which claim no general importance of the effect (see also Lieu et al. 1999 and Bonamente, Lieu and Mittaz 2001 for reinforcement of the original conclusions through confirmatory re-observations conducted in such modes as to address all the objections of our critics.). This paper presents the data analysis method and results for the current sample, with emphasis on the PSPC analysis; future works will be devoted to larger scale surveys, with both PSPC and LECS instruments, in order to assess the cosmological impact of the phenomenon.

## 2 Infrared, 21–cm and X–ray observations of A3571, A3558, A3562 and A3560

The Shapley Supercluster is a large region of galaxy overdensity around $`\alpha =13^h25^m`$, $`\delta =30^o`$ and redshift $``$ 0.045 (Shapley 1930; Ettori, Fabian and White 1997 and references therein) comprising more than 20 galaxy clusters. We focused our attention on four Supercluster members: A3571 and A3558 are rich and hot clusters (Markevitch et al. 1998; Markevitch and Vikhlinin 1997), A3560 (Ebeling et al. 1996) and A3562 (White 2000; see also Ettori et al. 2000) are within $``$ 2 degrees from the former and show lower X–ray luminosity (Fig. 1). All clusters were targets of pointed PSPC observations (archival identification code RP800287 for A3571, exp. time 5 ks; RP800076 for A3558, 28 ks; RP800381 for A3560, 5 ks; RP800237 for A3562, 18 ks), and two of them of pointed SAX LECS/MECS observation (observation number 60843002 for A3571, 29 ks of LECS exposure, and 60638001 for A3562, 19 ks) .

Dedicated narrow–beam 21–cm observations of galaxy clusters are available from the NRAO 100–meter GBT telescope 111The National Radio Observatory is operated by Associate Universities, Inc., under cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. with a resolution of 10 arcmin (Murphy, Sembach and Lockman 2001; see Table 1). In addition we also consulted the Dickey and Lockman (1990) survey data at lower resolution and IRAS 100 $`\mu `$m maps with $``$ 3 arcmin resolution (Wheelock et al. 1994). In particular, the IRAS data has a two–fold relevance to soft X–ray studies: on one hand the positive NH–IR correlation allows the use of 100 $`\mu `$m maps as tracer of the total column density of Galactic material (Boulanger and Perault 1988); on the other hand, the NH–soft X–ray background (SXB) anticorrelation (Snowden et al. 1998) requires precise knowledge of the HI column density at the position where the local background was determined. In the case of PSPC this is typically a few $`\times `$ 10 arcmin away from the cluster center.

## 3 PSPC analysis

The analysis of PSPC data was performed following the prescriptions of Snowden et al. (1994); in particular, detector gain corrections were applied using the dedicated FTOOL PCPICOR, and detector vignetting was accounted for in the background subtraction procedure. The spectral analysis involved only PI channels 20–201 ($``$ 0.2–2.0 keV by photon energy), in order to avoid any calibration uncertainties of the lower energy 1–19 PI channels. Following the nomenclature reported in Snowden et al. (1994), PI channels 20-41 will be referred to as the R2 band (also 1/4 keV or C band), and channels 42–69 as R34 band.

First, we compared the IR emission of the cluster regions with the emission in the corresponding background regions (Fig. 1); deviations were always within at most 10 %, and this implies that the SXB of the background regions is indeed relevant to the cluster regions without further scaling (see Snowden et al. 1998). Secondly, a comparison of the IR emission between the cluster regions covered by the GBT beam ($``$ 10 arcmin angular diameter) and the outer cluster regions showed that the NH is smoothly distributed on the cluster’s scale. In accordance to the NH–IR correlation (with a scaling factor of about 1.2 $`\times 10^{20}`$ cm-2 (MJy sr-1)-1; Boulanger and Perault 1988) the 100 $`\mu `$m maps implied only marginal adjustments from the central NH measurements; as a consequence, we decided to apply Galactic column densities as in Table 1 for all subsequent analyses.

The limited passband of the PSPC instrument can only be used to measure approximate values of the cluster hot gas temperatures. Thus we modelled the A3571 and A3558 spectra for annular regions with the best–fit temperatures of ASCA (Markevitch et al. 1998; Markevitch and Vikhlinin 1997; in agreement with SAX/MECS results for A3571, see Nevalainen et al. 2001), with the exception of the central regions where temperature gradients are too steep for the point spread function (PSF) of ASCA: here $`T`$ was fitted to the data. Temperatures of A3560 and A3562 were determined by spectral fits to the PSPC data, and results agreed with previously published measurements (White 2000 and Ebeling et al. 1996). We modelled the entire PSPC X–ray spectrum (0.2–2.0 keV) with a one–temperature photoabsorbed thin–plasma emission code (WABS and MEKAL codes in XSPEC).

Background spectra for subtraction purposes were extracted from same pointed observation as the cluster’s, and from annular regions immediately outside the detected cluster emission (see Fig. 1); statistical errors in the background were properly propagated. This provides a spatially and temporally contiguous (or in situ) background. Best parameter values for the hot gas are shown in Table 1. As the $`\chi ^2`$ values indicate, some of the fits are poor, due to the excess emission above the 1-T model at low energies. In more detail, we compared the best–fit model with the measured emission in the R2 and R34 bands (Fig. 2 and 3). The 1/4 keV band results show consistently positive residuals for all of the 4 clusters; the R34 band bears, on the other hand, evidence of depleted fluxes in some regions. For A3571 and A3558, there is evidence of an increasing relative importance of the excess component with cluster radius, an effect already found in EUVE data of other galaxy clusters (Virgo, A1795 and A2199; see, e.g., Bonamente, Lieu and Mittaz 2001 and Lieu, Bonamente and Mittaz 1999).

## 4 SAX LECS analysis

The SAX mission lends an additional view of the phenomenon, with an instrument, LECS, that employs different and complementary characteristics. With a field of view of radius $`16`$ arcmin, local background can be obtained only for compact clusters (such as A3562); a long-term campaign of accumulation of high Galactic latitude ‘blank’ fields, however, enables one to establish a template detector background applicable to clusters which fill the entire FOV (such as A3571; see Parmar et al. 1999). The energy dependent Point Spread Function (PSF) of the LECS instruments complicates the analysis of extended objects such as clusters of galaxies, as its 90% encircled energy radius increases from 6′ to 9′ between 8 keV and 0.2 keV. In this work, we accounted for the PSF by generating appropriate instrument response files to be used when fitting the accumulated spectra. For the response generation we used the ray-tracing code LEMAT (Lammers 1997), taking into account the extraction region size and source position on the detector, mirror vignetting and obscuration by the detector support structure (strongback). 222 For any given spatial region and energy range, LEMAT estimates the contribution of photons from regions external to the extraction region, and the number of photons originating from within the extraction region that are detected externally (see Kaastra et al. (1999); Nevalainen et al. (2001) for the application of LEMAT in the case of the clusters A2199 and A3571). Further applications of LEMAT to spectra of extended sources is in progress (Oosterbroek 2001); preliminary results indicate that using the LEMAT–produced responses in spectral fits of spectra obtained within a radius of 15’ removes the significant instrumental distortions (except for the whole band normalization which can vary by $`\pm `$ 30%).

Modeling of the low-energy emission from A3571 was performed through a joint fit of MECS/LECS spectra to a photoabsorbed MEKAL code (as for PSPC), which returned the best-fit parameters of the hot ICM consistent with those of Table 2 (see Nevalainen et al. 2001 for the details on the LECS/MECS analysis of this data set): excess emission in the 0.15-0.3 keV region333At 0.28 keV, the LECS energy resolution is $``$ 32% (Parmar et al. 1997), about 3 times better than PSPC’s. This renders it difficult to translate PSPC pulse-invariant (PI) channels into corresponding LECS band for the purpose of comparison. Our present choice of using 0.15-0.3 keV band of LECS as equivalent to PSPC PI channels 20-41 is based on the 10% peak response studies of Snowden et al. (1994). Similarly, PSPC R34 band has 10 % of peak response 0.2–1.01 keV; moreover LECS data of A3571 also bear evidence of depleted fluxes around 0.5 keV (Nevalainen et al. 2001), though no attempt is made here to extract and compare such fluxes with those of the PSPC. is again detected with high statistical significance (Fig. 4). The faint emission from the A3562 cluster was likewise assessed by modelling LECS spectra with the customary photoabsorbed MEKAL code, where the hot ICM parameters were fixed at the values of Table 2; results are marginalized by the lower S/N (see Fig. 4). It is worthwhile to point out that the in situ background, available for this cluster from an outer annulus where the source emission ceased, is fully consistent with the template ’blank’ field background. This is a crucial test which verifies the reliability of the latter for those cases where the size of the cluster renders the former unavailable.

## 5 Interpretation of R2 and R34 band fluxes

The results shown in Fig. 2 (and Fig. 4) indicate that the 1–T model employed to describe the ICM falls short of the detected soft emission, revealing the soft excess emission. The data quality for A3571 and A3558 warrants the employment of a more complex model to try to interpret the detected spectral features.

The A3558 soft excess is virtually unaccompanied by a R34 trough, and therefore a second optically–thin plasma component at lower temperature can model the excess. We shall present the 3–6 and 6–9 arcmin annuli as representative regions, just outside the central cooling flow, and where signals are of sufficient statistical quality to apply detailed modelling, see Table 2. We likewise tested the possiblity of the excess originating as an inverse Compton (IC) effect, with the result that the data equally well accomodates the non–thermal interpretation (see Table 2 for details). We also calculated the energetic requirements of the additional model, with the results that the luminosity of either thermal/non thermal component accounts for only a fraction of the hot ICM luminosity in the 0.1–0.4 keV band.

Moving to A3571, we again describe a representative region, the 4–8 arcmin annulus. Here the $`3\sigma `$ R2 band excess pairs with a depleted emission in the neighboring R34 band (Fig. 2 and 3.), i.e. the employement of a second thin plasma model at lower T brings only a modest improvement to the fit. We know, however, that warm photoionized gas (T $`10^6`$ K) may present substantial opacity to soft X–ray photons (e.g., Krolik and Kallman 1984), and the thin–plasma approximation may not necessarily apply. A phenomenological way of parametrizing such behaviour is the addition of a second thin–plasma model modified by an absorption edge, which in fact proves a successful fit to the data (see best–fit parameters in Table 2). Other regions of Table 2 show a qualitatively similar behavior, see Fig. 2 and 3; statistical quality of the data does not however warrant a more detailed modelling for them.

We also entertained the notion of a soft X–ray excess as peculiar variations of the Galactic NH (Arabadjis and Bregman 1999), by applying the same 1–T thermal models above leaving the NH to be fitted by the data. The A3571 and A3558 PSPC spectra would in such case require a Galactic column density at odds with the measured values, and some 1/4 keV band excess would nonetheless remain unexplained (see Table 1 and Fig. 5).

## 6 Discussion and conclusions

The analysis we present in this paper shows that, at soft X–ray energies, PSPC spectra of the clusters in our sample (A3571, A2558, A3560 and A3562) are not well described by a simple one–temperature thin plasma model. Similar conclusions hold for the LECS data of A3571 and A3562. The case of A3558, the cluster with the higest S/N data of the sample, indicates that the soft excess can be interpretated as having a thermal origin (from a second phase of the ICM at lower temperature) as well as the non–thermal. Earlier EUVE observations led to the discovery of soft excess emission for the brightest clusters with low Galactic HI columns (such as Coma and Virgo, see references in section 1), but they lack the necessary sensitivity to enable a reliable assesment of fainter sources, such as those reported in this work. The PSPC and LECS data presented here show that, given a sufficient sensitivity, low energy spectra of galaxy clusters consistently show excess emission above the hot ICM contribution, in sharp contrast with the conclusions of Bowyer et al. (2001). Settlement of the issue regarding the origin of the emission has to await forthcoming observations by detectors of higher resolution.

The BeppoSAX satellite is a joint Italian-Dutch programme. We thank the staff of the BeppoSAX Science Data and Operations Control Centers for help with these observations. MB and RL acknowledge the support of NASA/ADP. JN acknowledges an ESA Research Fellowship.

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## Figure captions

Figure 1: Schematic of the field of the four clusters (A3571, A3558, A3560 and A3562). Large solid circles represent the approximate cluster positions, the two small circles between A3562 and A3558 are the groups of galaxies SC1329 and A1327 (respectively from left to right; see Ettori et al. 1997 for more detailed maps). Each dotted annulus (or sector thereof) represents the approximate region from which the background for the corresponding cluster was extracted; care was taken in avoiding regions occupied by SC1329 and SC1327 and obvious point sources.

Figure 2: Radial distribution (in arcmin, x-axis) of the fractional R2 band excess, $`\eta `$, of the four clusters, defined as $`\eta =(p_2q_2)/q_2`$, where $`p_2`$ is observed R2 band flux and $`q_2`$ the expected R2 band flux from the hot ICM. Negative values of $`\zeta `$ indicate that detected emission is below the expected value.

Figure 3: As in Figure 2, except now for the fractional R34 band excess $`\zeta =(p_{34}q_{34})/q_{34}`$ where $`p_{34}`$ is observed R34 band flux and $`q_{34}`$ is expected R34 band flux from hot ICM.

Figure 4: Radial distribution of the SAX/LECS fractional excess in the 0.15-0.3 keV band for A3571 and A3562, plotted in the same manner as Figure 2.

Figure 5: As in Figure 2, except here the expected ICM fluxes are derived by fitting $`N_H`$. Soft excess fluxes in some regions of A3571 remain nonetheless unexplained. In order to eliminate such excesses, we estimate that a $`N_H`$ of 4.05 $`\pm _{0.2}^{0.15}\times 10^{20}`$ (4-8 arcmin region) and 3 $`\pm _{0.4}^{0.5}\times 10^{20}`$ (12-16 arcmin region) would be required, significantly lower than the measured values (see Table 1).

## Tables