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# Instability of Shear Waves in an Inhomogeneous Strongly Coupled Dusty Plasma

## I Introduction

Dusty plasmas are of great interest because of their possible applications to a number of fields of contemporary research such as plasma astrophysics of interplanetary and interstellar matter, fusion research, plasmas used for semiconductor etching, arc plasmas used to manufacture fine metal and ceramic powders, plasmas in simple flames etc.. It is now widely recognized that the dust component in these plasmas is often in the strongly coupled coulomb regime with the parameter, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(Z_de)^2/T_dd`$, typically taking values much greater than unity ($`(Z_de)`$ is the charge on the dust particle, $`dn_d^{1/3}`$ is the interparticle distance and $`T_d`$ is the temperature of the dust component). This leads to many novel physical effects such as the formation of dust plasma crystals , modified dispersion of the compressional waves , the existence of the transverse shear waves  etc. Many of these novel features have now been verified by experiments and computer simulations .

Recently, an experiment on the self–excitation of the vertical motion of the dust particles trapped in a plasma sheath boundary, has been reported . The physics of this excitation is related to charging of the dust particles by the inflow of ambient plasma currents in the inhomogeneous plasma sheath and the delay resulting because of the finite time required by the charging process to bring the dust charge to its ambient steady state value. In this paper, we demonstrate that the same physical mechanism can be used for the excitation of the transverse shear modes in an inhomogeneous strongly coupled dusty plasma. Using a generalized hydrodynamic viscoelastic formalism  to describe the strongly coupled dusty plasma and incorporating the novel feature of time variation of the dust charge through a charge dynamics equation , we have derived a general dispersion relation for low frequency shear and compressional modes in the plasma. We find that in a plasma with finite gradients of the equilibrium dust charge density, the two modes are coupled and we show that the shear mode is driven unstable if certain threshold values are exceeded.

Our paper is organized as follows. In the next section we briefly discuss the equilibrium of an inhomogeneous dusty plasma that is confined against gravity by the electric field of a plasma sheath. In such a configuration dust particles of varying sizes and charges arrange themselves in horizontal layers at different heights to form a nonuniform cloud . In section 3 we carry out a linear stability analysis of such an equilibrium in the framework of the generalized hydrodynamic equations. The dispersion relation of the coupled shear wave and compression wave is solved analytically (in simple limits) as well as numerically in section 4. The physical mechanism of the shear wave instability is also discussed and the modifications in the threshold and growth rate brought about by the coupling to compressive waves are elucidated. Section 5 is devoted to a summary and discussion of the principal results.

## II Dust Cloud Equilibrium

We consider an inhomogeneous sheath equilibrium in which the dust particles are suspended with electric field forces balancing the gravitational force on the particle and in which the dust charge $`(Z_de)`$ and dust size $`r_d`$ are both functions of the vertical distance $`z`$. Then the force balance equation gives,

$$Z_d(z)eE_0(z)=\frac{4}{3}\pi r_d(z)^3\rho g,$$
(1)
where, $`\rho `$, $`g`$, $`E_0`$ refer respectively to the dust mass density, gravitational acceleration and the sheath electric field. For particle sizes of the order of a few microns, other forces acting on the particle (such as the drag and viscous forces) are about an order of magnitude smaller than the electric and gravitational forces and can be neglected for the equilibrium calculation. Note that for dust particles of a uniform size (monodispersive size distribution) the above equilibrium can only be attained at one vertical point leading to a monolayer of dust. A dispersion in sizes leads to a large number of layers resulting in a nonuniform dust cloud with a gradient in the equilibrium charge $`(Z_de)`$ and the dust size $`r_d`$. The electric field $`E_0`$ is determined by the sheath condition,

$$\frac{dE_0}{dz}=4\pi e\left(n_en_i+Z_dn_d\right)$$
(2)
where $`n_{e,i,d}`$ are the local electron, ion and dust densities respectively. The charge $`(Z_de)`$ on a dust particle in the sheath region is given by $`(Z_de)=C_d(\varphi _f\varphi )`$ where $`C_d`$ is the capacitance, $`\varphi _f`$ is the floating potential at the surface of the dust particle and $`\varphi `$ is the bulk plasma potential. For a spherical dust particle $`C_d=r_d`$, and the floating potential can be determined by the steady state condition from the dust charging equation, namely,

$$I_e+I_i=0$$
(3)
where the electron and ion currents impinging on the dust particle are given by

$$I_e=\pi r_d^2e\left(\frac{8kT_e}{\pi m_e}\right)^{1/2}n_e\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{e}{kT_e}(\varphi _f\varphi )\right],$$
(5)
$$I_i=\pi r_d^2e\left(\frac{8kT_i}{\pi m_i}\right)^{1/2}n_i\left[1\frac{2e}{kT_i+m_iv_{id}^2}(\varphi _f\varphi )\right].$$
(6)
Here $`T_e`$ and $`T_i`$ are the electron and ion temperatures, $`m_i`$ is the ion mass and $`v_{id}`$ is the mean drifting velocity of the ions in the electric field of the sheath (it is assumed to be the ion sound velocity at the sheath edge). We also assume that the dust particles have much smaller thermal velocities than the electrons and ions.

Equations (1 \- 3) selfconsistently determine the equilibrium of the dust cloud. Such clouds have been experimentally observed in a number of experiments. In  theoretical modeling along the lines discussed above, agree very well with the experimental observations of clouds formed with polydispersive particle size distribution of dust particles trapped in the plasma sheath region. A typical equilibrium variation of the dust particle size with the vertical distance, when the Child Langmuir law holds for the plasma sheath potential, is given as,

$$r_d=\left(\frac{3(\varphi _f\varphi )}{4\pi \rho g}\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{6\pi en_sC_s}{\mu _i}\right)^{1/3}(\delta z)^{1/3}$$
(7)
where $`n_s`$, $`C_s`$ are the plasma density and the ion sound velocity, $`\delta `$ is the thickness of the sheath and $`\mu _i=(e\lambda _{in}/m_i)^{1/2}`$ with $`\lambda _{in}`$ representing the mean free path of ions colliding with the background neutrals. Using (7) we can obtain the corresponding $`z`$ variation for $`Z_d`$.

As discussed in detail in , this dust cloud equilibrium is confined to the plasma sheath boundary region in the potential well created from the upward electrostatic and downward gravitational forces. Note that the force balance equation (1) does not prevent the particles from oscillating about their mean positions especially if they have significant kinetic energy or temperature. However their mean positions are at various vertical distances and the mean $`Z_d`$ is a function of $`z`$. This is reminiscent of particle gyrations in a magnetic field. If we consider wave motions in which dust oscillation excursions are much smaller than wavelengths, we can use a fluid theory to analyze such behaviour. In the next section, we adopt this view point and carry out a linear stability analysis of the equilibrium discussed above to low frequency wave perturbations.

## III Linear Stability Analysis

For low frequency perturbations in the regime $`kv_{thd}<<\omega <<kv_{the},kv_{thi}`$, where $`v_{thd}`$, $`v_{the}`$ and $`v_{thi}`$ are the thermal velocities of the dust, electron and ion components respectively, the electron and ion responses obey the Boltzmann law which can be simply obtained from an ordinary hydrodynamic representation. The dust component on the other hand can be in the strongly coupled regime for which a proper description is provided by the generalized viscoelastic formalism. Using such a description a general dispersion relation for low frequency waves (with typical wavelengths longer than any lattice spacings) was obtained in  for longitudinal sound waves and transverse shear waves. The shear modes exist in a strongly coupled dusty plasma because of elasticity effects introduced by strong correlations . Our objective in this work is to look for the effect of dust charge dynamics on these shear modes in the strongly coupled regime. As demonstrated in our earlier work , the coupling of the low frequency shear modes to transverse electromagnetic perturbations is finite but negligibly small; we ignore this coupling here. However, introduction of the dust charge dynamics in the inhomogeneous plasma leads to a coupling of the low frequency shear and compressional modes; thus the space charge dynamics and quasineutrality condition play an important role in describing the perturbations. The basic equations for the dust fluid  we work with, are the continuity equation,

$$\frac{}{t}\delta n_d+n_{d0}\stackrel{}{}\delta \stackrel{}{u}_d+\frac{n_{d0}}{M}(\delta \stackrel{}{u}_d\stackrel{}{})M=0,$$
(8)
the equation of motion,

$`(1+\tau _m{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}})[({\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}+\nu )\stackrel{}{\delta u_d}+{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{}\delta P}{Mn_{d0}}}+{\displaystyle \frac{Z_de}{M}}\stackrel{}{\delta E}`$ (9)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\delta Z_d}{M}}e\stackrel{}{E_0}]={\displaystyle \frac{1}{Mn_{d0}}}[\eta \stackrel{}{}^2\stackrel{}{\delta u_d}+(\zeta +{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{3}})\stackrel{}{}(\stackrel{}{}\stackrel{}{\delta u_d})],`$ (10)
and the equation of state, $`(P/n)_TMC_d^2`$, given in terms of the compressibility, $`\mu _d`$, as

$$\mu _d\frac{1}{T_d}\left(\frac{P}{n}\right)_T=1+\frac{u(\mathrm{\Gamma })}{3}+\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{9}\frac{u(\mathrm{\Gamma })}{\mathrm{\Gamma }},$$
(11)
with the excess internal energy of the system given by the fitting formula

$$u(\mathrm{\Gamma })=0.89\mathrm{\Gamma }+0.95\mathrm{\Gamma }^{1/4}+0.19\mathrm{\Gamma }^{1/4}0.81.$$
(12)
In the above, $`M`$ is the dust mass, $`\nu `$ is the dust–neutral collision frequency, $`\delta u_d`$, $`\delta n_d`$ and $`\delta Z_d`$ are the perturbations in the dust velocity, number density and dust charge, $`\delta P`$, $`\delta E`$ are the pressure and electric field perturbations, $`n_{d0}`$ and $`Z_d`$ are the equilibrium number density and charge for the dust and $`E_0`$ is the unperturbed electric field. $`\eta `$ and $`\zeta `$ refer to the coefficients of the shear and bulk viscosities and $`\tau _m`$ is the viscoelastic relaxation time. Note that in the continuity equation we have a contribution from the equilibrium inhomogeneity in the dust mass distribution (arising from the size dispersion of the particles). This term as we shall see later modifies the real frequency of the shear waves.

These equations are supplemented with the dynamical equation for the dust charge perturbations which, for perturbations with phase velocity much smaller than the electron and ion thermal velocities, is given as

$$\frac{}{t}(\delta Z_d)+\stackrel{}{\delta u_d}\stackrel{}{}Z_d+\eta _c\delta Z_d=\frac{|I_{e0}|}{e}\left(\frac{\delta n_i}{n_{i0}}\frac{\delta n_e}{n_{e0}}\right),$$
(13)
where, $`\eta _c=\left(e|I_{e0}|/C\right)\left(1/T_e+1/w_0\right)`$ is the inverse of charging time of dust grains and $`w_0=T_ie(\varphi _f\varphi )_0`$. Note that the second term on the left hand side of eq.(13) arises because of the inhomogeneity of the mean charge on the dust particles; as shall be shown later, this is the critical term responsible for the instability. It is also obvious that the dust charge variation in space will lead to shielding by electrons and ions with the associated coupling of the perturbation to dust compressional modes. We must thus extend the above set of equations to include the quasi-neutrality condition,

$$\delta n_e+Z_d\delta n_d+n_{d0}\delta Z_d\delta n_i0,$$
(14)
and the equation describing the electron and ion density perturbations in terms of the potential, as

$$\frac{\delta n_e}{n_{e0}}=\frac{e\delta \varphi }{T_e};\frac{\delta n_i}{n_{i0}}=\frac{e\delta \varphi }{T_i}.$$
(15)
These are the Boltzmann relations which arise whenever the perturbations satisfy $`\omega <<kv_{the},kv_{thi}`$.

We shall next derive the dispersion relation for the low frequency mode. We may note that the typical time scale for the decay of the charge fluctuations for the dust can be very small , with $`\eta _c>>\omega `$ and we shall work in that limit. We use the local approximation (wave lengths smaller than characteristic equilibrium scale lengths) and choose the propagation vector for the wave perturbation as $`\stackrel{}{k}=(k,0,0)`$, the perturbed dust velocity, $`\stackrel{}{\delta u_d}=(\delta u_1,0,\delta u_3)`$ and the perturbation in the electric field as $`\stackrel{}{\delta E}=ik\delta \varphi (1,0,0)`$. Using the continuity equation (8) and the equations (13) – (15), and after some simple algebra, one obtains the fluctuation in the dust charge and the potential as

$$\delta Z_d=\frac{a_1}{D}\left(\frac{k}{\omega }\right)\delta u_1+\left(\frac{a_2}{D}+\frac{a_3}{(i\omega )D}\right)\delta u_3,$$
(17)
$$\delta \varphi =\frac{Z_dn_{d0}\eta _c}{eD}\left(\frac{k}{\omega }\right)\delta u_1+\frac{n_{d0}}{eD}\left(Z_d^{}\frac{Z_dM^{}\eta _c}{M(i\omega )}\right)\delta u_3,$$
(18)
where,

$`a_1`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{|I_{e0}|}{e}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_i}}\right)Z_dn_{d0};a_2=Z_d^{}\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_{e0}}{T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n_{i0}}{T_i}}\right),`$ (19)
$`a_3`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{|I_{e0}|}{e}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_i}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{M^{}}{M}}n_{d0}Z_d`$ (20)
$`D`$ $`=\eta _c\left({\displaystyle \frac{n_{e0}}{T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{n_{i0}}{T_i}}\right)+n_{d0}{\displaystyle \frac{|I_{e0}|}{e}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_e}}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{T_i}}\right),`$ (21)
and the primes denote derivatives with respect to $`z`$ the vertical direction. We then write down the longitudinal and transverse components of the dust momentum equation (i.e. of equation (10)), as

$`(1i\omega \tau _m)\left[(i\omega +\nu )\delta u_1+ik{\displaystyle \frac{\delta P}{Mn_{d0}}}{\displaystyle \frac{Z_de}{M}}(ik\delta \varphi )\right]`$ (23)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{Mn_{d0}}}\eta _lk^2\delta u_1`$ (24)
$$(1i\omega \tau _m)\left[(i\omega +\nu )\delta u_3+\frac{\delta Z_d}{M}eE_0\right]=\frac{1}{Mn_{d0}}\eta k^2\delta u_3,$$
(25)
where, $`\eta _l=\frac{4}{3}\eta +\zeta `$. In the limit $`\omega \tau _m>>1`$, using equations (18)– (25), we obtain the dispersion relation for the coupled shear–compressional mode, as

$`\left[\omega ^2+i\omega \nu +i\omega {\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}a_2+{\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}a_3C_{sh}^2k^2\right]\left[\omega ^2+i\omega \nu C_{DA}^2k^2\right]`$ (26)
$``$ $`i\omega k^2{\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_1Z_dZ_d^{}n_{d0}}{MD}}+k^2{\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_1M^{}}{M}}\left(C_d^2+C_{da}^2\right)=0,`$ (27)
where $`C_{sh}^2=(\eta /Mn_{d0}\tau _m)`$, $`C_{da}^2=(Z_d^2n_{d0}\eta _c/MD)`$ and $`C_{DA}^2=C_d^2+C_{da}^2+(\eta _l/Mn_{d0}\tau _m)`$. In the above equation the expression in the first set of brackets represents the dispersion relation for the transverse shear wave, the second set of brackets contains the compressive mode dispersion relation and the final two terms denote the coupling between the two branches. We will now study the behaviour of the shear mode in the presence of the charge inhomogeneity and the coupling to the compressive mode.

## IV Shear Wave Instability

In the limit when the coupling to the compressive wave is weak, so that the last two terms in the dispersion relation (27) can be neglected, we can obtain the roots for the shear branch as,

$$\omega =\frac{i}{2}\left(\nu +\frac{eE_0}{MD}a_2\right)\pm \left[k^2C_{sh}^2\frac{eE_0}{MD}a_3\frac{1}{4}\left(\nu +\frac{eE_0}{MD}a_2\right)^2\right]^{1/2}.$$
(28)
In the absence of the inhomogeneities and the collision term, this is the basic shear wave described in . The collisional term introduces wave damping. The inhomogeneous terms introduce two important modifications. The term proportional to the mass (size) inhomogeneity contributes to the real part of the frequency whereas the charge inhomogeneity term can drive the wave unstable if $`E_0a_2<0`$ (i.e., $`E_0Q_0^{}<0`$) and the threshold condition $`\nu <|\frac{eE_0}{MD}a_2|`$ is satisfied. Physically, this instability arises because of delayed charging effect, the same physical mechanism which was used by Nunomura et al  to explain the observed instability of single particle vertical displacement in their sheath experiments. Specifically, the charge on the vertically oscillating dust particle in the shear wave propagating in the inhomogeneous plasma, is always different from the equilibrium value $`Z_d`$ because of the finite charging time $`\eta _c^1`$. This perturbation is of order $`\delta Z_dZ_d^{}\delta u_3/\eta _c`$ and leads to an energy exchange between the shear wave and the ambient electric field at a rate $`\delta Z_dE_0\delta u_3^{}|E_0Z_d^{}||\delta u_3|^2/\eta _c`$. When this energy gain by the shear wave exceeds the loss rate due to collisions $`\frac{\nu M}{2}|\delta u_3|^2`$, we have an instability. This gives us the approximate threshold condition described above. If we express the dust neutral collision frequency, $`\nu `$ in terms of the ambient neutral pressure as $`\nu =p\left(\frac{2m_n}{T_n}\right)^{1/2}\frac{\pi a^2}{M}`$, our threshold condition is functionally identical to that derived by Nunomura et al on the basis of physical arguments. The only substantial difference is their use of exponential charging time which follows from our equation (13) viz. $`\delta Z_d(\delta u_3Z_d^{}/\eta _c)[1exp(\eta _ct)]`$; since we have assumed the frequency of the shear mode $`\omega <<\eta _c`$, we use the asymptotic condition described above.

We now demonstrate that for the collective shear mode being described here, the coupling to the compressional dust acoustic wave due to the last two terms in equation (27) is very crucial; thus the above single particle results are strongly modified by the hydrodynamic treatment. A simple analytic result clearly demonstrating the modification is obtained by neglecting $`\omega ^2+i\omega \nu `$ compared to $`k^2C_{DA}^2`$ in the second bracket of equation (27); this is reasonable when the wave–vector $`k`$ is not too small. In this limit, the shear modes are described by the root

$`\omega `$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}\left(\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}\left(a_2+a_1{\displaystyle \frac{Z_dZ_d^{}}{MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_{d0}}{C_{DA}^2}}\right)\right)`$ (29)
$`\pm `$ $`\left[k^2C_{sh}^2{\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}\left(a_3a_1{\displaystyle \frac{M^{}}{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{(C_d^2+C_{da}^2)}{C_{DA}^2}}\right){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\left(\nu +{\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}\left(a_2+a_1{\displaystyle \frac{Z_dZ_d^{}}{MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{n_{d0}}{C_{DA}^2}}\right)\right)^2\right]^{1/2}.`$ (30)
We thus note that the threshold condition and the growth rates are significantly modified by the inclusion of coupling to compressional waves. In order to quantitatively illustrate the effect of coupling terms, we now present a detailed numerical investigation of the dispersion relation equation (27). It is generally the case that the bulk viscosity coefficient $`\zeta `$ is negligible compared to the shear viscosity coefficient, $`\eta `$, particularly in the one component plasma (OCP) limit and so we shall drop it in our calculations. Further, the viscoelastic relaxation time, $`\tau _m`$, is given as ,

$$\tau _m=\frac{4\eta }{3n_{d0}T_d(1\gamma _d\mu _d+\frac{4}{15}u)}$$
(31)
with $`\gamma _d`$ as the adiabatic index and the compressibility, $`\mu _d`$ defined through (11). We assume the gradient of the equilibriated dust charge to be of the form, $`Z_d^{}=Z_d/L_Z`$, the mass gradient to be of the form $`M^{}=M/L_M`$ where $`L_ZL_M=L`$ is a few Debye lengths. In our computations, we choose $`L5`$ times the Debye length, which is the typical order of magnitude as observed experimentally . For further computations, we introduce the dimensionless quantities,

$`\widehat{\omega }=\omega /\omega _{pd};\widehat{\nu }=\nu /\omega _{pd};\widehat{k}=kd;\widehat{\tau }_m=\tau _m\omega _{pd};`$ (32)
$`\widehat{\eta }={\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{Mn_{d0}\omega _{pd}d^2}};\widehat{C}_\alpha ^2=C_\alpha ^2/(\omega _{pd}^2d^2);\alpha sh,d,da,DA,`$ (33)
$`e_0={\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_2}{\omega _{pd}}};e_1={\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{a_3}{\omega _{pd}^2}};`$ (34)
$`e_{01}={\displaystyle \frac{a_1Z_dZ_d^{}n_{d0}}{a_2MD}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _{pd}^2d^2}};e_{11}={\displaystyle \frac{eE_0}{MD}}a_1{\displaystyle \frac{M^{}}{M}}(\widehat{C}_d^2+\widehat{C}_{da}^2){\displaystyle \frac{1}{\omega _{pd}^2}},`$ (35)
where $`\omega _{pd}`$ and $`d`$ are the dust plasma frequency and the inter–grain distance respectively. The dispersion relation for the shear mode (27) can then be written as

$`\left[\widehat{\omega }^2+i\widehat{\omega }\widehat{\nu }+i\widehat{\omega }e_0+e_1\widehat{C}_{sh}^2\widehat{k}^2\right]\left[\widehat{\omega }^2+i\widehat{\omega }\widehat{\nu }\widehat{C}_{DA}^2\widehat{k}^2\right]`$ (36)
$``$ $`i\widehat{\omega }\widehat{k}^2e_0e_{01}+\widehat{k}^2e_{11}=0,`$ (37)
Equation (37) has been solved numerically for the shear mode roots and some typical results are presented in figures (1) and (2). Figures (1a) and (1b) display a comparison of the dispersion curve for the shear mode ($`\widehat{\omega }_R`$ vs $`\widehat{k}`$ and $`\widehat{\gamma }`$ vs $`\widehat{k}`$ for fixed values of $`e_0=0.0008`$ and $`e_1=0.05`$), with and without the inclusion of the coupling to the compressional mode. The various fixed parameter values corresponding to these curves are $`\widehat{C}_{sh}^2=0.02`$, $`\widehat{C}_{DA}^2=0.4`$, $`\widehat{\nu }=0.0004`$ and $`e_{01}=0.3`$, $`e_{11}=0.01`$ when the coupling is on. The choice of these numerical values for the dimensionless parameters $`\widehat{\nu }`$, $`\widehat{k}`$, $`e_0`$, $`e_{01}`$, $`\widehat{C}_{sh}`$ and $`\widehat{C}_{DA}`$ has been guided by the magnitude of these quantities observed in some of the laboratory plasmas. It is seen from these plots that there is a substantial influence of the compressional mode coupling, described through the parameter, $`e_{01},e_{11}`$, on the growth rate and the real frequency of the shear wave emphasizing the importance of the collective physics of coupling to the compressional mode. We next plot in figure (2) the gas pressure, $`p`$, versus $`n_{e0}`$ profiles for various values of $`\gamma `$, the imaginary part of $`\omega `$. Plotting the $`\gamma =0`$ curve, we get a threshold relation between $`p`$ and $`n_{e0}`$, where we fix the other parameters as follows – dust radius, $`r_d`$=2.5 microns, the inter–grain distance, $`d`$=430 microns, $`T_e=T_i1eV`$, $`kd=1`$, and dust mass density, $`\rho _d`$=2.5 gms/cm<sup>3</sup>. We see that the qualitative trend of the curve is similar to that observed in the single particle instability studies of  illustrating the commonality of the underlying physical mechanism. However it should be emphasized that the experiment in  did not observe any collective excitations and their equilibrium consisted of a monolayer of equal sized particles. The equilibria of  are more appropriate for observing collective excitations of shear waves and our theoretical results can be usefully employed in such a situation. In Fig.(2) we have once again highlighted the significance of the coupling to the compressive wave, in this case for its effect on the threshold values, by displaying the uncoupled threshold and growth rate curves (dashed curves). Note that the influence of the coupling is to raise the threshold value at low values of $`n_{e0}`$ (i.e. a higher value of $`p`$ is needed to excite the instability) whereas it reduces the threshold at the higher end of the $`n_{e0}`$ scale. The rest of the curves displayed in the figure (2) correspond to the various positive values of $`\gamma `$, which correspond to the situation where the shear mode is excited and saturates at some values. These figures are again qualitatively similar to the curves obtained in  for various saturation amplitudes. However a direct comparison is again not appropriate for the reason discussed above and also because our calculations are linear and cannot provide any quantitative results about nonlinearly saturated amplitudes.

## V Conclusion and Discussion

To summarize, in this paper we have investigated the stability of a low frequency shear mode in an inhomogeneous dusty plasma in the strongly correlated regime. The equilibrium dust cloud has both an inhomogeneity in the dust charge distribution and in the dust mass distribution (arising from a distribution in the sizes of the dust particles). The shear mode in such a plasma undergoes two significant modifications. Its real frequency is shifted by a contribution from the mass inhomogeneity and the dust charge inhomogeneity can drive it unstable through the dynamics of dust charge fluctuations in a manner very similar to the instability of the vertical motion of single particles in a plasma sheath as observed in the recent experiment of Nunomura et al. The finite charging time, $`\eta _c^1`$ of the dust particles plays a critical role in the instability. We also show how collective effects due to coupling with the compressional modes strongly modify the threshold conditions for the instability as well as its growth rate and real frequency. Our calculations have been carried out in the hydrodynamic formalism including viscoelastic effects and we have neglected any kinetic effects. Our results are therefore strictly valid in the low frequency limit. Finite corrections arising from kinetic effects can occur at higher frequencies and wave numbers. This has recently been demonstrated for the compressive dust acoustic mode in a dusty plasma from a kinetic calculation based on the dynamic local field correction (DLFC) method. Such corrections, if any, for the transverse shear mode has not yet been done and needs to be examined.

Finally we would like to remark that the transverse dust shear mode which is a collective mode of the strongly coupled plasma regime has only been observed in computer simulations till now; its detailed experimental investigation is therefore of great current interest. Such waves can be excited in inhomogeneous dust clouds that have been obtained in the experiments carried out with varying grain sizes . It would be of interest therefore to look for the wave features discussed in our model calculations in controlled propagation experiments on such equilibria. It is also apparent that free energy sources, such as ion beams, which may readily couple with the compressional waves may also be useful for exciting the more interesting shear waves in the strongly coupled inhomogeneous plasma. Investigation of these and related effects are in progress.


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# Removing Coincidences of Maps Between Manifolds of Different Dimensions.

## 1. Introduction

Let $`N^{n+m}`$ and $`M^n`$ be orientable compact smooth manifolds (possibly with boundaries $`N,M)`$, $`n2,`$ and suppose $`f,g:NM`$ are maps. We shall call $`m`$ the codimension. The coincidence set is a compact subset of $`N`$ defined by $`Coin(f,g)=\{xN:f(x)=g(x)\}.`$

The Coincidence Problem asks what can be said about the coincidence set. When $`m=0,`$ the main tools for studying the problem is the Lefschetz number $`L(f,g)`$ defined as the alternating sum of traces of certain endomorphism on the (co)homology group of $`M`$. The famous Lefschetz coincidence theorem provides a sufficient condition for the existence of coincidences: $`L(f,g)0Coin(f,g)\mathrm{}.`$ Under some circumstances the converse is also true (up to homotopy): $`L(f,g)=0`$ there are maps $`f^{},g^{}`$ homotopic to $`f,g`$ respectively such that $`Coin(f^{},g^{})=\mathrm{}.`$ Now the problem reads as follows: “Can we remove coincidences by a homotopy of $`f`$ and $`g`$?”

Let $`K=Coin(f,g)`$. By $`H_{}`$ ($`H^{}`$) we denote the integral singular (co)homology. For any space $`Y`$ we define the diagonal map $`d:YY\times Y`$ by $`d(x)=(x,x).`$ Let

$$Y^\times =(Y\times Y,Y\times Y\backslash d(Y)).$$

For codimension $`m=0,`$ the (cohomology) coincidence index $`I_{fg}`$ of $`(f,g)`$ is defined as follows. Since all coincidences lie in $`K,`$ the map $`(f,g):(N,N\backslash K)M^\times `$ is well defined. Let $`\tau `$ be the generator of $`H^n(M^\times )=𝐙`$ and $`O_N`$ the fundamental class of $`N`$ around $`K,`$ then let

$$I_{fg}=<(f,g)^{}(\tau ),O_N>𝐙.$$

The coincidence index satisfies the following natural properties. (1) Homotopy Invariance: the index is invariant under homotopies of $`f,g`$; (2) Additivity: The index over a union of disjoint sets is equal to the sum of the indices over these sets; (3) Existence of Coincidences: if the index is nonzero then there is a coincidence; (4) Normalization: the index is equal to the Lefschetz number; (5) Removability: if the index is zero then the coincidence set can be removed by a homotopy.

While the coincidence theory for codimension $`m=0`$ is well developed \[1, VI.14\], , , \[17, Chapter 7\], very little is known beyond this case. For $`m>0,`$ the vanishing of the coincidence index does not always guarantee removability. For codimension $`m=`$ $`1,`$ the secondary obstruction to removability was considered by Fuller ,  for $`M`$ simply connected. In the context of Nielsen Theory the sufficient conditions of the local removability for $`m=1`$ were studied by Dimovski and Geoghegan , Dimovski  for the projection $`f:M\times [0,1]M,`$ and by Jezierski  for $`M,N`$ subsets of Euclidean spaces or $`M`$ parallelizable. Necessary conditions of the global removability for arbitrary codimension were considered by Gonçalves, Jezierski, and Wong \[9, Section 5\] with $`N`$ a torus and $`M`$ a nilmanifold (see also ).

The main purpose of this note is to provide sufficient conditions of removability of coincidences for some codimensions higher than $`1`$. Under a certain technical condition, the coincidence index defined below is the only obstruction to removability. This condition holds when (1) $`M`$ is a surface;  (2) fibers $`f^1(y)`$ of $`f`$ are acyclic; or (2) fibers of $`f`$ are $`m`$-spheres for $`m=4,5,12`$ and $`n`$ large. The main theorem partially complements the results listed above. The proof follows and extends the one of Brown and Schirmer \[4, Theorem 3.1\] for codimension $`0`$ (see also Vick \[17, p. 194\]).

An area of possible applications is discrete dynamical systems. A dynamical system on a manifold $`M`$ is determined by a map $`f:MM.`$ Then the next position, or state, $`f(x)`$ depends only on the current one, $`xM`$. Suppose we have a fiber bundle $`FN^\underset{}{g}M`$ and a map $`f:NM.`$ Then this is a parametrized dynamical system, where the next position $`f(x,s)`$ depends not only on the current one, $`xM,`$ but also the “input”, $`sF.`$ Then the Coincidence Problem asks whether there are a position and an input such that the former remains unchanged, $`f(x,s)=x`$. A parametrized dynamical system can also be a model for a non-autonomous ordinary differential equation: $`M`$ is the space, $`F`$ is the time, and $`N`$ is the space-time.

## 2. Normalization Property.

For nonzero codimension the homology coincidence index $`I_{fg}^{}=(f,g)_{}(O_N)`$ is replaced with the homology coincidence homomorphism

$$I_{fg}^{}=(f,g)_{}:H_{}(N,N\backslash V)H_{}(M^\times ),$$

where $`V`$ is a neighborhood of $`Coin(f,g)`$. Let $`\pi :M\times MM`$ be the projection on the first factor, then $`\zeta =(M,\pi ,M\times M,d)`$ is the tangent microbundle of $`M`$ and the Thom isomorphism $`\phi :H_{}(M^\times )H_{}(M)`$ is given by $`\phi (x)=\pi _{}(\tau x),`$ where $`\tau H^n(M^\times )`$ is the Thom class of $`\zeta .`$ The Lefschetz number is replaced with the Lefschetz homomorphism  $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{fg}:H_{}(N,N\backslash V;𝐐)H_{}(M;𝐐)`$ of degree $`(n)`$ defined as follows. Suppose $`f(N\backslash V)M`$. For each $`zH_{}(N,N\backslash V),`$ let

$$f_!^z=(f^{}D^1)z,$$

where $`D:H^{}(M,M;𝐐)H_n(M;𝐐)`$ is the Poincaré-Lefschetz duality isomorphism $`D(x)=xO_M`$. Now let

$$\mathrm{\Lambda }_{fg}(z)=\underset{k}{}(1)^{k(k+m)}\underset{j}{}x_j^kg_{}f_!^z(a_j^k),$$

where $`\{a_1^k,\mathrm{},a_{m_k}^k\}`$ is a basis for $`H_k(M)`$ and $`\{x_1^k,\mathrm{},x_{m_k}^k\}`$ the corresponding dual basis for $`H^k(M).`$ Then the Lefschetz-type coincidence theorem \[15, Theorem 6.1\] states that $`\phi I_{fg}^{}=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{fg}.`$ This is the Normalization Property, which makes the coincidence homomorphism computable by algebraic means.

Since obstructions to removability of coincidences lie in certain cohomology groups, we need a cohomological analogue of the theory outlined above. Just as in the homology case, the cohomology coincidence index can be replaced with the cohomology coincidence homomorphism.

###### Definition 1.

Let $`C`$ be an isolated subset of $`Coin(f,g),`$ $`W,V`$ neighborhoods of $`C,`$ $`CV\overline{V}WN,`$ and $`WCoin(f,g)=C.`$ Then let

$$I_{fg}=(f,g)^{}:H^{}(M^\times )H^{}(W,W\backslash V).$$

However in this paper we consider only the restriction of $`I_{fg}`$ to $`H^n(M^\times )=𝐙`$. Therefore the only thing that matters is the class $`I_{fg}(\tau )H^n(W,W\backslash V),`$ where $`\tau `$ is the generator of $`H^n(M^\times )=𝐙,`$ which will still be called the (cohomology) coincidence index. This index satisfies the properties of additivity, existence of coincidences and homotopy invariance proven similarly to Lemmas 7.1, 7.2, 7.4 in \[17, p. 190-191\] respectively.

We will state the Normalization Property under assumptions similar to the ones in \[14, Section 2\], \[15, Section 5\]. Assume that $`f(W\backslash V)M.`$

###### Definition 2.

For each $`zH_n(W,W\backslash V;𝐐),`$ define homomorphisms $`\mathrm{\Theta }_q:H^q(M,M;𝐐)H^q(M,M;𝐐)`$ by

$$\mathrm{\Theta }_q=D^1g_{}(f^{}z).$$

Then

$$L_z(f,g)=\underset{q}{}(1)^qTr\mathrm{\Theta }_q$$

is called the (cohomology) Lefschetz number with respect to $`z`$ of the pair $`(f,g).`$

###### Theorem 1 (Normalization).

Suppose that $`f(W\backslash V)M.`$ Then for each $`zH_n(W,W\backslash V;𝐐),`$

$$<I_{fg}(\tau ),z>=(1)^nL_z(f,g).$$

Therefore, $`L_z(f,g)0Coin(f,g)\mathrm{}.`$

###### Proof.

The proof repeats the computation in the proof of Theorem 7.12 in \[17, p. 197\] with Lemmas 7.10 and 7.11 replaced with their generalizations, Lemmas 3.1 and 3.2 in . ∎

The theorem is true even when $`N`$ is not a manifold.

## 3. Local Removability.

Let $`f:𝐒^3𝐒^2`$ be the Hopf map. Then $`f`$ is onto, in other words, it has a coincidence with any constant map $`c`$. However the coincidence homomorphism $`I_{fc}:H^{}((𝐒^2)^\times )H^{}(𝐒^3)`$ is zero. Therefore Theorem 1 fails to detect coincidences. In fact, $`f`$ has a coincidence with any map homotopic to $`c`$ , therefore the converse of the Lefschetz coincidence theorem for spaces of different dimensions fails in general. Our main result below is a partial converse.

###### Theorem 2 (Local Removability).

Suppose $`f(C)=g(C)=\{u\},uM\backslash M,`$ and the following condition is satisfied:

$$\text{(A) }H^{k+1}(W,W\backslash V;\pi _k(𝐒^{n1}))=0\text{ for }kn+1.$$

Then $`I_{fg}(\tau )=0`$ implies that $`C`$ can be removed via a local homotopy of $`f`$; specifically, there exists a map $`f^{}:NM`$ homotopic to $`f`$ relative $`N\backslash W`$ such that

$$WCoin(f^{},g)=\mathrm{}.$$

The proof uses the classical obstruction theory. Condition (A) guarantees that only the primary obstruction to the local removability, i.e., the coincidence index, may be nonzero.

###### Proof.

We can assume that $`U=𝐃^n`$ is a neighborhood of $`u`$ in $`M`$ such that $`f(W)=U`$ and $`g(W)U.`$ Define $`Q:𝐃^n\times 𝐃^n\backslash d(𝐃^n)𝐃^n\backslash \{0\}`$ by $`Q(x,y)=1/2(yx).`$ Consider the following commutative diagram:

$$\begin{array}{ccccc}H^{n1}(𝐒^{n1})& & & & \\ {}_{}{}^{}_{}^{p^{}}& & & & \\ H^{n1}(𝐃^n\backslash \{0\})& ^\underset{}{\delta ^{}}& H^n(𝐃^n,𝐃^n\backslash \{0\})& & \\ ^Q^{}& & {}_{}{}^{}_{}^{Q^{}}& & \\ H^{n1}(𝐃^n\times 𝐃^n\backslash d(𝐃^n))& ^\underset{}{\delta ^{}}& H^n((𝐃^n)^\times )& ^\underset{}{k^{}}& H^n(M^\times )\\ ^{(f,g)^{}}& & ^{(f,g)^{}}& {}_{}{}^{I_{fg}}& \\ H^{n1}(W\backslash V)& ^\underset{}{\delta ^{}}& H^n(W,W\backslash V).& & \end{array}$$

Here $`\delta ^{}`$ is the connecting homomorphism, $`k`$ the inclusion, $`p`$ the radial projection. Let $`q=pQ(f,g):W\backslash V𝐒^{n1}.`$ Then $`q^{}`$ is given in the first column of the diagram.

Now we apply the Extension Theorem, Corollary VII.13.13 in \[1, p. 509\]. Suppose $`I_{fg}=0.`$ Then from the commutativity of the diagram, $`\delta ^{}q^{}=0`$. Thus the primary obstruction to extending $`q`$ to $`q^{}:W𝐒^{n1},`$ $`c^{n+1}(q)=\delta ^{}q^{},`$ vanishes. By condition (A) the other obstructions $`c^{k+1}(q),kn,`$ also vanish.

Next, $`q`$ has the form

$$q(x)=\frac{g(x)f(x)}{g(x)f(x)}.$$

Define a map $`f^{}:W𝐃^n`$ by $`f^{}(x)=g(x)a(x)q^{}(x),`$ where $`a:W(0,\mathrm{})`$ satisfies the following: (1) $`a`$ is small enough so that $`f^{}(x)𝐃^n`$ for all $`xW,`$ (2) $`a(x)=g(x)f(x)`$ for all $`xW\backslash V.`$ Then $`Coin(f^{},g)=\mathrm{}`$ since $`q^{}(x)0.`$

To complete the proof observe that $`f^{}`$ is homotopic to $`f|_W`$ relative $`W\backslash V`$ because $`𝐃^n`$ is convex. ∎

The implications of this result for Nielsen theory will be addressed in a forthcoming paper.

## 4. Further Results.

Suppose $`C=f^1(y),`$ where $`yM\backslash M`$ is a regular values for both $`f`$ and $`f|_N.`$ Then $`C`$ is a neat submanifold of $`N`$ and it has a tubular neighborhood $`T`$. Now $`T`$ can be treated as a disk bundle $`(𝐃^m,𝐒^{m1})(T,T^{})C.`$ Therefore condition (A) takes the form

$$\text{(A}^{}\text{}H^{k+1}(T,T^{};\pi _k(𝐒^{n1}))=0\text{ for }kn+1.$$

In case $`C`$ is a boundaryless $`m`$-submanifold of $`N,`$ we have $`H^{n+m}(T,T^{};G)=H^{n+m}(T,T;G)=G\mathrm{}G.`$ Therefore if we let $`k=n+m1,`$ then condition (A) implies the following:

$$\text{(A}^{}\text{}\pi _{n+m1}(𝐒^{n1})=0.$$

This restriction cannot be relaxed, in the following sense. Suppose

$$[h]\pi _{n+m1}(𝐒^{n1})\backslash \{0\}.$$

Then $`h`$ can be extended to a map $`f:𝐃^{n+m}𝐃^nM`$ by setting $`f(0)=0`$ and $`f(x)=xh\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{x}}\right)`$ for $`x𝐃^{n+m}\backslash \{0\}.`$ Hence any map homotopic to $`f`$ relative $`𝐒^{n+m1}`$ is onto \[1, Theorem VII.5.8, p. 448\]. Therefore coincidences of $`f`$ and $`g,`$ where $`g`$ is constant, cannot be locally removed.

Below we treat condition (A) as a restriction on an arbitrary fiber $`C=f^1(y),yM\backslash M`$ of $`f.`$

###### Lemma 1.

Suppose for $`1pm,`$ the submanifold $`C`$ satisfies

$$\begin{array}{c}\text{(1) }H^p(C)\pi _{n+p1}(𝐒^{n1})=0,\text{ and}\\ \text{(2) }Tor(H^{p+1}(C),\pi _{n+p1}(𝐒^{n1}))=0.\end{array}$$

Then $`C`$ satisfies condition (A).

###### Proof.

By the Thom Isomorphism Theorem \[1, Section VI.11\], we have

$$H^{k+1}(T,T^{};\pi _k(𝐒^{n1}))=H^{k+1n}(C;\pi _k(𝐒^{n1})).$$

By condition (2) and the Universal Coefficient Theorem, Corollary 25.14 in \[11, p. 263\], we have also

$$H^p(C;\pi _k(𝐒^{n1}))=H^p(C)\pi _k(𝐒^{n1}).$$

It is known  that $`\pi _{n+m1}(𝐒^{n1})=0,`$ for the following values of $`m`$ and $`n`$:

(1) $`m=4`$ and $`n6;`$

(2) $`m=5`$ and $`n7;`$

(3) $`m=12`$ and $`n=7,8,9,14,15,16,\mathrm{}.`$

###### Corollary 1.

The conclusion of Theorem 2 holds when (a) $`M`$ is a surface; (b) fibers of $`f`$ are acyclic; or (c) fibers of $`f`$ are unions of homology $`m`$-spheres for the above values of $`m`$ and $`n`$.

###### Proof.

(a) $`n=2`$ and $`\pi _{n+p1}(𝐒^{n1})=0`$ for all $`p>0.`$ (b) $`H^p(C)=0`$ for all $`p>0.`$ (c) Either $`\pi _{n+p1}(𝐒^{n1})=0`$ or $`H^p(C)=H^{p+1}(C)=0`$ for all $`p>0.`$ Thus the two conditions of Lemma 1 are satisfied. Now the conclusion follows from Theorem 2. ∎

###### Corollary 2.

Let $`FN^{n+m\underset{}{g}}M^n`$ be an $`m`$-sphere bundle with the above values of $`m`$ and $`n,`$ or an $`m`$-disk bundle. Then the set $`C`$ of stationary points of the parametrized dynamical system $`FN^{n+m\underset{}{f,g}}M^n`$ can be removed via a local homotopy of $`f`$ provided $`I_{fg}=0.`$

## 5. Coincidence-Producing Maps.

A boundary preserving map $`f:(N,N)(M,M)`$ is called coincidence-producing if every map $`g:NM`$ has a coincidence with $`f`$. Brown and Schirmer \[4, Theorem 7.1\] showed that if $`M`$ is acyclic, $`dimN=dimM=n2,`$ then $`f`$ is coincidence-producing if and only if $`f_{}:H_n(N,N)H_n(M,M)`$ is nonzero. Based on the Normalization and Removability Properties we prove a generalization of this theorem. We call a map $`f:(N,N)(M,M)`$ weakly coincidence-producing \[14, Section 5\] if every map $`g:NM`$ with $`g_{}=0`$ (in reduced homology) has a coincidence with $`f.`$ In particular every weakly coincidence-producing map is onto.

A corollary to the Lefschetz type coincidence theorem \[14, Corollary 5.1\] states that if $`f_{}:H_n(N,N)H_n(M,M)`$ is nonzero then the appropriate Lefschetz homomorphism is nontrivial and, therefore, $`f`$ is weakly coincidence-producing. For the converse we need condition (A) as an additional assumption.

###### Theorem 3.

Suppose $`f`$ is boundary preserving and suppose that each fiber $`C`$ of $`f`$ satisfies condition (A). Then the following are equivalent:

(1) $`f`$ is weakly coincidence-producing;

(2) $`f_{}:H_n(N,N)H_n(M,M)`$ is nonzero.

###### Proof.

Suppose $`f_{}:H_n(N,N)H_n(M,M)`$ is zero. Choose $`g`$ to be identically equal to $`yM\backslash M.`$ Then $`C=Coin(f,g)=f^1(y)N\backslash N`$. Recall $`I_{fg}=(f,g)^{}:H^{}(M^\times )H^{}(N,N).`$ Then for all $`zH_n(N,N),`$ we have the following.

| $`<I_{fg}^N(\tau ),z>`$ | $`=(1)^nL_z(f,g),`$ by Theorem 1 |  |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  | $`=(1)^nTr\mathrm{\Theta }_n,`$ because $`g_{}=0`$ |  |
|  | $`=(1)^n<f^{}(\overline{O}_M),z>,`$ where $`\overline{O}_M`$ is the dual of $`O_M`$ |  |
|  | $`=(1)^n<\overline{O}_M,f_{}(z)>`$ |  |
|  | $`=0.`$ |  |

Hence $`I_{fg}(\tau )=0.`$ Therefore by Theorem 2 the coincidence set can be removed. Thus $`f`$ is not weakly coincidence-producing ∎

Condition (A) is clearly satisfied for $`m=0`$. Therefore Brown and Schirmer’s Theorem \[4, Theorem 7.1\] follows. Our theorem also includes the well-known fact that a map has degree $`0`$ if and only if it can be deformed into a map which is not onto.

Examples of maps satisfying condition (1) of the theorem can be found in \[4, Section 7\], see also \[15, Section 6\].

I would like to thank the referee for a number helpful suggestions.


text:
# The Spin Temperature of Warm Interstellar H I

## 1 Introduction.

It is an article of faith among H I observers that the spin (excitation) temperature $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ of the ground-state $`\lambda `$21cm hyperfine transition is equal to the kinetic temperature of the ambient gas. This belief of course arises from the weakness of the transition, the consequent long lifetime against spontaneous emission (A$`{}_{21}{}^{}=2.85\times 10^{15}`$ s-1 for H I), and the easily-demonstrated dominance of particle collisions with other H-atoms in cool gas. Much of our basic understanding of the phases of the ISM derives directly from measurements of the H I spin temperature, for instance by comparing nearby or overlapping absorption and emission profiles (Dickey et al., 1978; Payne et al., 1982).

But spin temperature measurements often seem to imply unphysical kinetic temperatures: not wildly so, say negative or infinite, but definitely in a range – 1000 to 5000 K – where the interstellar gas is unstable in multi-phase models (Wolfire et al., 1995; McKee & Ostriker, 1977) and therefore should be so short-lived as to be unobservable. One might be tempted to disparage either theory or the data but Davies & Cummings (1975) took a somewhat less doctrinaire view and showed that, for some assumed combinations of conditions chosen to be representative of gas which might produce pulsar dispersion measures, the density of collision partners in warm or intercloud gas is simply too small to thermalize the line. Although little attention seems to have been paid to this warning, it suggests that we remain open to the possibility that blind faith in the equality of the spin and kinetic temperatures might be misplaced.

Calculation of the H I spin temperature turns out to be a remarkably complex problem, involving intimate knowledge of the ionization and phase structure of the ISM, as well as its topology. Here we update and expand upon the discussion of Davies & Cummings (1975) by actually calculating the ionization and collisional excitation in interstellar H I regions, in the process demonstrating the inability of particle collisions to thermalize the $`\lambda `$21 cm transition. But we also consider an important mechanism which Davies & Cummings (1975) ignored, whereby the Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field threading and partly produced by the gas tends to impart to the $`\lambda `$21 cm transition its own effective temperature. Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons acquire this temperature while undergoing large numbers (107 or more) of repeated scatterings on many spatial scales ranging upward from the line-center mean free path, $`0.11`$ ($`T_\mathrm{D}`$/100K)$`{}_{}{}^{0.5}/`$nH AU ($`T_\mathrm{D}`$ is the Doppler temperature), and it is therefore representative of the motions (thermal, turbulent, $`etc.`$) which are established in the gas on those scales.

That excitation by light dominates hyperfine excitation locally around individual stars is well known in the context of scattering of Solar Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation: Braskén & Kyrölä (1998), for instance, point out that Solar Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation dominates in local intercloud H I within 1000 AU of the Sun, and that the sphere of influence of an O-star would necessarily be much larger. In the interstellar context, we will refer to excitation of the hyperfine line by scattered Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation as the Wouthuysen-Field mechanism or WF effect following the discussions in Wouthuysen (1952) and Field (1958, 1959) and we find that it opens up interesting possibilities for the spin temperature. At low density in the intercloud medium, warm neutral H I may (or may not) be Dopplerized by Galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons but is certainly not thermalized by local particle collisions. In general, the importance which is assigned to Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation in intercloud gas depends directly on the topology and large-scale structure which is assumed to apply in the interstellar medium.

The plan of the current discussion is as follows. In Section 2 we show what is needed to calculate the excitation of the hyperfine transition. In Section 3 we lay out the basics of the ionization equilibrium calculations which are needed to determine the densities of the main collision partners (electrons and neutral H-atoms) under given conditions of local gas density and gas thermal pressure. These calculations also serve to determine the locally-produced field of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons. In Section 4 we discuss results of the combined ionization and particle excitation calculations. In Section 5 we introduce the behaviour of the internally- generated Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field, and conclude that it also is not strong enough to influence the hyperfine excitation in neutral gas. In Section 6 we discuss the effect of the much stronger galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field on the H I in various multiphase models of the ISM.

## 2 Hyperfine excitation

Discussions of the excitation of the $`\lambda `$21cm transition generally follow that of Field (1958) who distinguished among three types of excitation; radiative, by a radiation field around the rest wavelength of the hyperfine transition having a characteristic brightness temperature $`T_\mathrm{R}`$ as seen in the gas ($`T_\mathrm{R}`$ = 2.73K here); collisional with a total downward rate R$`{}_{21}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{c}`$ (s-1) at kinetic temperature $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ ; and radiative in the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field, with a net downward rate R$`{}_{21}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{\alpha }`$, at an effective temperature $`T_\mathrm{L}`$ . Field derived an expression for the Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation which was used in an equivalent form by Bahcall & Ekers (1969) and which will be discussed below.

In these terms the spin (i.e. excitation) temperature of the $`\lambda `$21cm line can be expressed as

$$T_{\mathrm{sp}}=(T_\mathrm{R}+y_c+y_\alpha )/(1+y_c/T_\mathrm{K}+y_\alpha /T_\mathrm{L})$$
$`(1)`$
with

$$y_c=T_{21}R_{21}^c/A_{21},$$

$$y_\alpha =T_{21}R_{21}^\alpha /A_{21}$$

and where T$`{}_{21}{}^{}h\nu _{21}/k=0.068`$ K, A$`{}_{21}{}^{}=2.85\times 10^{15}\text{s}\text{-1}`$.

Equation 1 shows that R$`{}_{21}{}^{}>>15T_\mathrm{K}A_{21}`$ is required in order to thermalize the transition.

### 2.1 Collisional excitation by electrons, protons, and neutral H-atoms

The required rate R$`{}_{21}{}^{}{}_{}{}^{c}`$ is the sum of the downward collision rates over all collision partners (H-atoms, protons, and electrons). The downward rate constant for interactions with electrons is taken from Smith (1966): we note that is well-represented by the functional form

$$\mathrm{log}\gamma _{21}^e(T_\mathrm{K})=9.607+\mathrm{log}(\sqrt{T_\mathrm{K}})\mathrm{exp}((\mathrm{log}T_\mathrm{K})^{4.5}/1800)$$

for $`T_\mathrm{K}`$$``$ 104 K and

$$\gamma _{21}^e(T_\mathrm{K}10^4K)=\gamma _{21}^e(10^4K)$$

over the range considered here (the logs are base 10 and the units of $`\gamma _{21}^e`$ are cm3s-1)

Smith (1966) also gives the rate coefficient for proton de-excitation, which is just 3.2 times larger than that for neutral atoms at $`T_\mathrm{K}`$$`>`$ 30 K. We used $`\gamma _{21}^p=3.2\gamma _{21}^H`$ but employed the more recent neutral atom de-excitation rates of Allison & Dalgarno (1969) which we fit in piece-wise continuous fashion, following their tabular presentation. Excitation by protons is unimportant because it is so much weaker than that by electrons at the same temperature and because n$`{}_{e}{}^{}>\mathrm{n}_p`$ under all conditions.

The results of Allison & Dalgarno (1969) are given up to 1000 K at which point they are increasing as $`T_\mathrm{K}`$0.33, but with a negative second derivative. The neutral-atom rate coefficients of Smith (1966) increase somewhat faster for $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ $`>`$ 1000 K with a slightly positive second derivative, but are not substantially different in the mean. We extrapolated the rate coefficients of Allison & Dalgarno (1969) to higher temperature as $`T_\mathrm{K}`$0.33. In this regime the excitation is increasingly dominated by electrons and the results reported here are not noticeably influenced by the manner of the extrapolation.

### 2.2 Excitation by the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field

Recoil – momentum conservation – at each scattering causes the field of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons to have a slope (color temperature) at the line center which corresponds to the Doppler temperature of the ambient medium (Field, 1959; Adams, 1971a); Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons sample the gas kinematics and then tend to impart to the hyperfine transition a corresponding excitation temperature. Bahcall & Ekers (1969) and Urbaniak & Wolfe (1981) employed this mechanism to show how the H I spin temperature could remain low, rendering $`\lambda `$21cm absorption detectable, even in neutral gas near quasars. In cases where the gas kinematics are affected by non-thermal motion, this will be reflected in the spin temperature, depending on the relative importance of collisional and Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation.

Field (1958) considered detailed balance in the various transitions between sublevels which constitute the Ly-$`\alpha `$ line and arrived at the following expression for yα

$$y_\alpha =(cT_{21}/36\pi )(m_\mathrm{H}/kT_\mathrm{D})^{0.5}\lambda _\alpha ^3(A_\alpha /A_{21})n_\alpha $$
$`(2)`$
where $`A_\alpha `$ is the spontaneous emission rate ($`4.7\times 10^8`$ s-1 corresponds to the mean Ly-$`\alpha `$ absorption f-value f=0.4167), nα is the number density of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons at the line center and $`T_\mathrm{D}`$, the Doppler temperature, represents the width of the Gaussian core of the line. $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ is defined in the usual way (Leung & Liszt, 1976) by the expression

$$2kT_\mathrm{D}/m_H=2kT_\mathrm{K}/m_H+\text{v}\text{turb}^2$$
$`(3)`$
leading to $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ = $`T_\mathrm{K}`$+121 K (vturb/1 km s-1)2. This expression accords with the definition used by Payne et al. (1982) $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ = 21.86K W2 where W is the FWHM (km s-1) and differs from the earlier usage of Dickey et al. (1978), $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ = 121K W2 taking W as the HWHM. The Doppler temperatures shown by Dickey et al. (1978) are actually too large by a factor 2\*ln(2) $``$ 1.4.

Evaluating the constants in equation (2) we find

$$y_\alpha =5.90\times 10^{11}\mathrm{n}_\alpha T_\mathrm{D}^{0.5}.$$

## 3 Ionization equilibrium in H I regions

### 3.1 Calculations

To obtain number densities of the various collision partners which determine the equilibrium of the hyperfine transition it is necessary to calculate the ionization equilibrium of a dilute gas. We duplicated the relevant portions of the work of Wolfire et al. (1995) which is a very comprehensive study of two-phase equilibrium in the interstellar medium and must be regarded as the standard reference on this subject. That is, we consider a gas consisting of hydrogen, helium and carbon, ionized by soft x-rays and cosmic rays (and their secondary electrons) which recombines in both the gas phase and on small grains (following the formalism of Draine & Sutin (1987)). This calculation is fully described in the original reference and a detailed discussion will not be repeated here. We note that it uses Solar metallicity, no appreciable gas-phase depletion of carbon (\[C\]/\[H\]$`=3.3\times 10^4`$), and a primary cosmic ray ionization rate $`\zeta _H^{cr}=1.7\times 10^{17}`$ s-1. The ionization fractions are overestimates by factors of 2-3 in higher-density gas if gas-phase depletion is important.

Wolfire et al. (1995) parametrized their model in terms of a column density of hydrogen nuclei Nw which attenuates part of the soft x-ray flux; their standard model takes a value Nw = $`10^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ for this quantity, with factor of ten variations in either sense as subsidiary examples. To model the x-ray ionization rate, we calculated the total attenuation at each energy over a gas column Nw (due to all the important elements, not just those whose ionization is calculated) using the absorption cross-sections of Balucinska-Church & McCammon (1992) and modulated the free-space x-ray spectrum accordingly. The product of this attenuated and modulated x-ray spectrum and the absorption cross section is then integrated over energy to give the primary ionization rate for hydrogen and helium. We also calculated the mean photoelectron energy for use in determining the secondary ionization; this is typically 40-50 eV as for cosmic-ray events.

### 3.2 Recombination coefficients

We took recombination coefficients for various species from the 1999 update of the UMIST reaction database. They are expressed in the form $`\alpha _Y=a_Y\times (T_\mathrm{K}/300)^{b_Y}`$ where the coefficients are given in Table 1. Hydrogen of course is a special case whereby the needed recombination coefficient is that into the n=2 state and higher, since recombinations into n=1 produce ionizing photons which are immediately reabsorbed in the surrounding gas. A special case is considered below whereby we require the recombination rate for production of Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation. In this case, recombinations into the metastable 2S state must be ignored, and the effective recombination rate is diminished by an amount which is given in the second entry of the Table, taken from Martin (1988).

### 3.3 Photoionization of carbon

For this we take from the UMIST database the free space value $`\zeta _C^\gamma `$(0) = $`3.0\times 10^{10}`$ s-1. This can then be traced into a gas column as $`\zeta _C^\gamma `$(AV)= $`\zeta _C^\gamma `$(0)exp($`2.42A_V`$) following Black & Dalgarno (1977) but we will consider only the case $`A_V=0`$. The major contribution to the ionization fraction for the warm gas considered here is generally from H and He, not from carbon.

### 3.4 Collisional ionization of hydrogen by electrons

We used the electron-impact collisional ionization rates of Scholz & Walters (1991). The reader is cautioned to ignore an unfortunate 10 order of magnitude error in labelling of the vertical scale of their Figure 1, lest this crucial process be ignored.

## 4 Ionization equilibrium and hyperfine excitation in the interstellar hydrogen

### 4.1 The ionization fraction as a function of gas pressure and density

In Figure 1 we show the results of our ionization calculations for four values of the gas thermal pressure, using the standard value Nw $`=10^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$. The ionization fraction is shown as solid lines and the electron density is shown shaded. The kinetic temperature is traced across the set of four curves of varying pressure. Clearly, the ionization fraction in neutral gas is controlled by the total density, while the electron density – which varies remarkably little with $`n_\mathrm{H}`$ until the gas ionizes fully – is influenced somewhat by the pressure. The soft x-ray ionization rate scales the overall behaviour, albeit somewhat weakly (not shown).

The filled dark squares in Figure 1 represent the limiting cases at high and low pressure for the model of two-phase equilibrium from Wolfire et al. (1995). Table 2 gives the range of pressure and kinetic temperature over which two phases can coexist for various values of Nw and it shows that two-phase equilibrium is possible over a wider range in $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ than is sometimes considered when interpreting spin temperature measurements. Comparison of the Table entries for the standard case Nw $`=1\times 10^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ with the locations of the filled dark symbols in the Figure shows that our results mimic those of Wolfire et al. (1995), as intended. Both sets of calculations produce the same ionization at any given density and temperature.

In Figure 1, two unfilled symbols represent the results of McKee & Ostriker (1977) for the warm neutral and warm ionized gas (both at 8000K). The pressure in the McKee-Ostriker model is P/k = 3700 K $`\mathrm{cm}^3`$ but the ionization fraction in three-phase warm neutral and ionized gas is considerably higher than that in our calculations. McKee & Ostriker (1977) explain in the caption to their Figure 1 that the warm neutral medium can only be produced in appreciable quantity at the assumed pressure by assuming a higher than average value of the soft x-ray flux. In the context of our modelling, the soft x-ray flux would have to be increased by a factor of about 50 in order to give the same total ionization which occurs in warm, neutral gas in the McKee-Ostriker model. It is unfortunate that the basic parameters of the three-phase model have not been revised in so long.

### 4.2 Evaluation of $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$

Figure 2 shows that for kinetic temperatures above 2000 K, and especially at 8000 K, the particle excitation rate is too small to thermalize the $`\lambda `$ 21cm line in any model of the ISM, including the McKee-Ostriker three-phase picture. The extreme conditions assumed for the three- phase model result in $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$$`5400`$ K in warm neutral gas with $`T_\mathrm{K}`$= 8000 K. In the two-phase model, the spin temperature of warm gas would be smaller, 1800 - 3200 K for the standard conditions where $`T_\mathrm{K}`$= 8700 - 5500 K (the models at higher $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ have lower pressure and lower $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$). Table 2 shows the range of spin temperature which results from various conditions of two- and three-phase equilibrium. Figure 3 displays the y-factor for collisional excitation corresponding to the conditions shown in Figures 1 and 2. In the warm gas, $`y_c/T_\mathrm{K}1`$, while $`y_c/T_\mathrm{K}>>1`$ is the relevant condition for thermalization.

Physically, the subthermal excitation comes about because the condition for thermalization becomes ever more stringent at higher kinetic temperature, while the neutral particle excitation rate coefficient only increases as $`T_\mathrm{K}`$0.3 (Allison & Dalgarno, 1969). The neutral particle density declines as 1/$`T_\mathrm{K}`$ at constant pressure until the gas begins to ionize, at which point new particles enter the gas and the decline is even more rapid. Once the gas ionizes even slightly (a few percent), excitation by electrons begins to dominate and the remaining neutral atoms will be more strongly excited. But the transition from neutral to ionized gas (which increasingly precludes observation of the $`\lambda `$21cm line) occurs at too low a density to preserve the thermalization of the line even when a very large soft x-ray flux is asserted, as in the model of McKee & Ostriker (1977) 111Perhaps this model might also be referred to as the Lake Woebegon solution, since it seems to assume that the soft xray field is everywhere brighter than average..

We conclude that in the context of these calculations, one simply cannot expect to observe spin temperatures which are directly indicative of the 8000 K kinetic temperature typically assumed (by observers) for warm gas. Instead, seemingly unphysical, intermediate values will appear, even when the contribution of warm gas can be isolated. This situation comes about mostly because the excitation is sub-thermal, but also because multi-phase equilbrium is not entirely oblivious of local conditions; the kinetic temperature of warm neutral gas can vary between 5000 and 9000 K in two-phase models depending on the pressure, elemental abundances, etc. Moreover, Wolfire et al. (1995) note that the time to reach thermal equilibrium in warm gas is too long to ensure that a steady-state actually occurs; rather, two-phase equilibrium is an ideal, toward which the ISM may tend. If seemingly forbidden spin temperatures 1000-5000 K are actually measured in the $`\lambda `$21cm line, it is unfair and improper to impugn the multi-phase models on this account, because they predict them.

Finally, we note that the need to consider a wide range of spin temperatures in warm gas makes it harder to discern $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ in cool gas when both are seen blended along the line of sight. Of course, lines of sight in which the contribution of cool gas is not strongly blended are almost unknown. The presence of lower $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ in the intercloud medium would result in lower $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ in line blends, perhaps producing another range of seemingly unphysical $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ between $`1000`$ K and the range expected for cool gas alone, 40-200 K (Wolfire et al., 1995).

## 5 Excitation by the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field

In the previous section we showed that the $`\lambda 21`$cm hyperfine line will not be thermalized by particle collisions in warm weakly ionized gas. But there is another means of excitation available, the Wouthuysen-Field effect, which we now discuss.

### 5.1 Ly-$`\alpha `$ scattering

Our basic understanding of the behaviour of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons in very optically thick media dates from the discussion of Field (1959) on relaxation in Doppler broadening and the numerical work of Adams (1972) on scattering including strong damping. The latter showed that the mean number of scatterings $`N`$ of a photon before escape from a lossless medium never exhibits the behaviour expected of a pure one-dimensional random walk. Taking $`\tau _0`$ as the line-center optical depth at the midplane of a semi-infinite slab viewed along the outward normal, Adams found instead that, at sufficiently high optical depth (see Hummer & Kunasz (1980)), $`N\tau _0`$. This seems to have been unexpected, even though identical behaviour is discussed by Field (1959), citing Zanstra (1949), following essentially the same line of reasoning.

Adams (1972) explained this result heuristically by noting another aspect of the simulations, namely that photons escape the medium only in the far line wings of the Voigt profile $`\varphi (x)`$, where x is a normalized frequency displacement from line center just below. They escape at $`|x_{}||(\nu _{}\nu _0)|/\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _D(a\tau _0)^{1/3}`$ where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _D=(\nu _0/c)\sqrt{2ln(2)kT_\mathrm{D}/m_H}`$ is the Doppler HWHM and a is the damping constant measured in units of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _D`$. Although most scattering occurs nearer the Doppler core, photons move appreciably in space only when they scatter at frequencies where the medium is less opaque. The photons escape at a frequency where the optical depth is still well above unity; $`|x_{}|/|x_{\tau =1}|=0.285(T_\mathrm{D}/10^4K)^{1/6}(N_H/10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2)^{1/6}`$ where $`\pm x_{\tau =1}`$ are the frequency shifts at which the optical depth drops to unity for a pure damping profile.

Given that the rms Dopper shift in any scattering is $`|\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _D|`$ (the mean shift is 0 in the core and $`1/|x|`$ in the far wings), Adams reasoned that, occasionally, a photon would experience one series of scatterings into the far wings carrying it at once $`|x_{}|`$ frequency units from the line center and entirely out of the scattering medium. If a photon must travel a distance $`\tau _0`$ to escape, $`x_{}`$ should satisfy the condition $`x_{}/\varphi (x_{})=\tau _0`$ since the scattering length is proportional to $`1/\varphi (x)`$. This recovers the behaviour seen in the simulations since $`\varphi (x)a/x^2`$ in the damping wings.

Shortly after this work, the transfer equation was effectively solved in closed form by Harrington (1973) in the case of very large optical depths $`(a\tau _0)^{1/3}>1`$. The behaviour seen in the simulations of Adams (1972) was recovered analytically in the change of variables needed to effect the solution: to something which varies as x3 in the line wings. The numerical work was extended by Adams (1975) and Hummer & Kunasz (1980), and the analytic work by Neufeld (1990, 1991). There, it was shown that the mean distance travelled by a Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon is actually $`(a\tau _0)^{1/3}\tau _0`$. Because $`a=0.0425/T_\mathrm{D}^{0.5}`$ is typically a small number, the cube root factor is of order 10-100. This description is correct to factors of order unity, as discussed by Hummer & Kunasz (1980).

For reference, we note that the line center optical depth $`\tau _0=5.90\times 10^{12}N_\mathrm{H}/T_\mathrm{D}^{0.5}`$ is proportional to A$`{}_{\alpha }{}^{}/\mathrm{\Delta }\nu _D`$, which is the damping constant a except for a numerical factor. Thus $`a\tau _0=1.39\times 10^{10}a^2N_\mathrm{H}=2.51\times 10^{13}N_\mathrm{H}/T_\mathrm{D}`$. If $`T_\mathrm{D}T_\mathrm{K}`$, the latter ratio of column density to temperature is familiar from the expression for the integrated optical depth of the hyperfine line. Thus we come full circle and find (but do not intend to claim a causal connection!) that the crucial parameter for Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation of the $`\lambda `$21cm line is proportional to the $`\lambda `$21cm optical depth. 222The discussion of the previous two paragraphs neglects internal absorption, which is discussed in detail in Section 5.3

### 5.2 Internal sources of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons

We included three locally generated sources of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons in H I gas: electron impact excitation of the 2P level using the rate constant calculated by Scholz & Walters (1991); electron-proton recombinations into levels n $`2`$ (except 2S) for which the relevant coefficients are summarized in Table 1 and for which our rates are very slight upper limits; and excitation by the same cosmic- and x-ray fluxes which ionize the gas. For the latter, we follow Draine & Salpeter (1978) and assume that 1.5 Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons are generated per primary ionization event.

In general, electron-impact excitation is unimportant except above 104 K and cosmic-ray and x-ray generated photons dominate in the denser gas.

### 5.3 The locally-generated Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field in a dusty H I cloud

The volume rate at which Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons are created, $`\dot{n}_\alpha `$, is straightforward to specify. But for the excitation rate we require in Field’s formulation the volume density of photons n$`{}_{\alpha }{}^{}=\dot{n}_\alpha \times t`$, where t is a characteristic retention time (the expression could just as well have been cast in terms of the local mean intensity). In fact, following Field (1958), the relevant time is R/c where 2R is the characteristic size of the medium. Although this seems naive, it is supported by the analytic solutions of Harrington (1973) which we now discuss: the actual distance travelled by a photon, $`(a\tau _0)^{1/3}\tau _0`$, is associated with a broadening of the profile by an amount $`(a\tau _0)^{1/3}`$, leaving the line-center Ly-$`\alpha `$ intensity unchanged.

Harrington (1973) presents an analytic solution for the case of a uniform slab with a uniform internal source of Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation $`\dot{n}_\alpha `$ such that 1 photon is created per unit area per unit time looking down through a slab of half-thickness R. To first approximation, the mean intensity at the slab midplane, assuming a lossless medium, is $`J(\tau =0,x)=(\sqrt{6}/2\pi ^3)\mathrm{exp}(1.34|x|^3/(a\tau _0))`$. To convert this normalized solution to “real” units, the density of photons at the line center is just $`4\pi /c\times 2R\times J(0,0)=(4\sqrt{6}/\pi ^2)\times (R/c)=0.993R/cf\times R/c`$.

A slightly more accurate expression for the photon field is given by Harrington (1973) as a series which includes the possibility of accounting for losses by continuous absorption in the medium. To calculate the loss it is necessary to evaluate the term $`(\sqrt{6}/2)ϵ\tau _0`$ where $`ϵ`$ is the (assumed small) probability of absorption per scattering (recall that there are on average $`\tau _0`$ scatterings). The mean distance travelled per scattering, measured in units of the distance necessary to traverse one optical depth at the line center, is $`(a\tau _0)^{1/3}`$ (Adams, 1975; Neufeld, 1990); the physical distance corresponding to one optical depth at the line center is found by equating $`\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _0=5.90\times 10^{12}n_\mathrm{H}\times \mathrm{\Delta }l/\sqrt{T_\mathrm{D}}=1`$. From this it follows that $`ϵ\tau _0=(a\tau _0)^{1/3}N_\mathrm{H}\sigma _{gr}^{}{}_{}{}^{abs}`$ where $`\sigma _{gr}^{}{}_{}{}^{abs}=1.27\times 10^{21}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ has been calculated recently by Weingartner & Draine (2001) (their value for the albedo is 0.32). Several cases of lossy media are treated at length by Neufeld (1990) (analytically) and by Adams (1971a) (numerically). The formalism discussed here reproduces the numerical results in the latter reference quite well but the grain model of Weingartner & Draine (2001) is about 30% more absorptive than the worst case considered by Adams.

In Figure 4 we show the scale factor f multiplying R/c as a function of $`ϵ\tau _0`$. For a lossless medium, the exact analytic solution yields f=0.909 at the line center and slab midplane(vs 0.993). Losses are relatively unimportant in the intercloud gas over columns which are only a few pc long, $`i.e.`$ those which might be associated with individual cloud envelopes (the case where the size of the medium is comparable to the galactic scale height is considered in the next Section). But the attenuation of Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation will be significant in any cool gas which absorbs strongly at $`\lambda 21`$cm.

### 5.4 Efficacy of the locally-generated Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field

Figure 3 is a behind-the-scenes look at the excitation of the hyperfine line as it occurs under the conditions used to produce Figures 1-2; it shows the y-values for collisions and Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation. For the purposes of the calculation, we took a characteristic size R = 1.5pc. Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation would compete strongly with particle excitation in cooler gas were it not for the effects of dust absorption and the decrease in ionization fraction due to recombination on grains. In warmer gas, the small physical size of the medium assumed for the calculation limits the effectiveness of Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation except where the gas ionizes fully.

We conclude that there is no locally-generated source of excitation within individual clouds which will suffice to thermalize the spin temperature of warm H I, although the small attenuation in warm gas means that Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation can become important if galaxian scales are considered. Because the Galaxy is a copious producer of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons, the galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field will dominate excitation of the $`\lambda `$21cm line under some assumed conditions, as discussed below.

## 6 Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation by Galactic radiation

The space-averaged volume creation rate of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons near the galactic plane dwarfs that generated in situ in H I gas by large factors. The galactic density of Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons is not known with certainty but estimates are enough to force consideration of its importance in exciting the neutral H I in warm media.

Vacca et al. (1996) have shown that the areal production rate of ionizing photons from 429 O- and early-B stars within 2.5 kpc of the Sun is $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0=3.7\times 10^7`$ photons $`\mathrm{cm}^2\text{s}\text{-1}`$. Each ionizing photon should produce of order one Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon. Thus, over a cylinder of height h = $`\pm 50`$ pc = 100 pc about the Galactic midplane, the mean volume production rate is $`\dot{n}_\alpha \mathrm{\Psi }_0/h=1.2\times 10^{13}\mathrm{cm}^3\text{s}\text{-1}`$. This is far higher than that generated solely by recombination in the warm neutral gas we modelled: the combination of a long path and higher volume production rate would result in a vastly increased line excitation by Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons. 333This value of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ is three times higher than that of Draine & Salpeter (1978) who added the separate contributions of H II regions, recombination in diffuse hydrogen, and production in supernova remants (any such extra contributions should in fact be included). Adams (1971b) cites an observational limit on the galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ flux due to Thomas & Krassa (1971) but this limit is consistent with large values of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$ given recent estimates of the continuous absorption by dust.

In Figure 5 we show the behaviour of $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ when a specified fraction Fα of the galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ flux threads the gas assuming Nw$`=10^{19}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ and $`T_\mathrm{L}`$= $`T_\mathrm{K}`$. Behaviour in the upper left panel of Figure 5 is identical to that in Figure 2. Figure 5 shows that even a very small fraction of the galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation suffices to dominate the excitation.

Apparently, there is an abundant source of non-collisional excitation, if only it can be used.

### 6.1 A two-phase ISM

We consider first an idealized two-phase interstellar medium which fills all space, and in which nearly all of the volume is occupied by warm intercloud gas. Following the discussion of this problem by Adams (1971a) we idealize the thin layer of young stars to be a plane source embedded in the much thicker, warm H I layer, and apply an analytic radiative transfer solution using the new value of the grain absorption cross-section from Weingartner & Draine (2001) as mentioned earlier. At first, we neglect the fact that most photons which enter cold H I clouds will be absorbed by dust.

Figure 6 shows our evaluation of the analytic solution (Harrington, 1973; Neufeld, 1990) to this idealized problem, performed for a gas with $`T_\mathrm{K}`$= $`T_\mathrm{D}`$= 7200 K and various values of the column density in the H I layer (which determines the loss due to continuous absorption by dust). Although the total column density of H I looking out from the midplane is about $`3\times 10^{20}\mathrm{cm}^2`$ (Liszt, 1983), that of the intercloud gas is somewhat less, of order half. Figure 6 shows that over most of the volume of this idealized model, the Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field threading the intercloud gas is certainly not less than 1% of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_0`$. In this case, the spin temperature in the intercloud gas at all but the highest galactic z-heights would be close to equilibrium with the temperature of the ambient galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation – $`T_\mathrm{K}`$, $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ or what have you, depending on how the photon field relaxes in its interactions with the gas.

Cool neutral gas packets dispersed throughout such a scattering medium would clearly be threaded by a substantial fraction of the galactic flux as well, raising the interesting possibility that the spin temperatures measured in strongly absorbing gas are also influenced by Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation. A calculation analogous to that used to produce Figure 5 shows that Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation dominates if more than 0.1% of the galactic radiation field threads cool gas. In this case, $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$= $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ rather than $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$= $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ and typical turbulent velocity contributions to $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ will put a 30 - 120 K floor on measurements of $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ (see Section 6.3) if the turbulence is established on the scale of the Ly-$`\alpha `$ scattering.

### 6.2 A multi-phase ISM

Neufeld (1991) pointed out that a multiphase ISM structure may foster escape of Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation and that individual neutral gas clouds – warm or cool – may not be threaded by much of the ambient Ly-$`\alpha `$ flux. If most of the volume of the ISM is in a contiguous hot phase having negligible neutral hydrogen or Ly-$`\alpha `$ absorption, scattered radiation escapes relatively easily even when neutral gas clouds have a very high surface covering factor. Photons scatter off individual clouds as if they were particles of a gas having a Doppler temperature corresponding to the cloud-cloud velocity dispersion, 6 km s-1, appreciably narrowing the interstellar line profile if the photons are scattered sufficiently often before escape. The crucial issue is the fraction and connectedness of the ISM occupied by very hot gas in which hydrogen is totally ionized, as opposed even to 6000-10000K H I intercloud gas which will still present a sizable opacity to Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation.

The fraction of incident photons which will be reflected back from the outer boundary of an isolated, discrete cloud is of order $`11/(\tau _0\varphi (x))`$ where x is the normalized frequency shift of the incident radiation from line center (Neufeld, 1990): see Section 5.1 here. An analytic solution to the problem of radiation incident on a lossless slab is presented by Neufeld (1990) in his equations 2.19-2.22; calculation is considerably simplified when Neufeld’s equation 2.22 444Note that the quantity plotted in Figure 2 of Neufeld (1990) is $`(a\tau _0)^{1/3}J(\tau _0,x)`$, not $`(a\tau _0)J(\tau _0,x)`$. is recast as

$$F(w,y)=g\times \mathrm{ln}(12\mathrm{exp}(\pi y)\mathrm{cos}(\pi w)+\mathrm{exp}(2\pi y)),$$

$$g\sqrt{6}/(16\pi ^2).$$

In Figure 7 we show the mean intensity at the line center inside lossless slabs of warm and cool gas as the frequency shift of the attempted injection (expressed in km s-1) varies; neglect of loss is appropriate for warm gas on the scale of individual clouds. Any cool gas in the ISM is either embedded in a strongly-scattering intercloud gas or enrobed in warmer H I and its internal radiation field could be much larger than that shown here; the reflectivity calculations for bare cool gas are included only to illustrate parameter sensitivities.

If the ambient Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field is as narrow as the 6 km s-1 cloud-cloud velocity dispersion after multiple reflections, little will penetrate cool gas and essentially none will enter the warm H I. But if the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field is appreciable at relative velocities of 30-100 km s-1 with respect to the line center, the internal radiation field in warm neutral gas could be as high as 0.1-1% of that which is incident. The interstellar Ly-$`\alpha `$ field would be quite broad in any model where the galactic layer harbors appreciable amounts of distributed warm H I (Adams, 1971b) and Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons will be injected into the ISM in the local line wings when they escape an H II region. But the ambient Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field and its Doppler temperature are not easily specified in extreme three-phase models in which no Ly-$`\alpha `$ scattering occurs between individual clouds (Neufeld, 1991).

### 6.3 Non-thermal Doppler excitation

For cool gas, where Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation would be important if galactic radiation enters via the intercloud or warm neutral gas which enrobes it, HI absorption features typically show a noticeable difference between $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ and $`T_\mathrm{D}`$, implying that excitation of the hyperfine transition is not dominated by Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation at a temperature other than $`T_\mathrm{K}`$.

In Figure 8, we show the turbulent velocity contributions derived from the measurements of Payne et al. (1982, 1983) where, for the stronger features ($`\tau 0.04`$) and excepting a few cases with very large quoted errors in $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$, we have derived values of vturb according to equation 3. In those few cases where $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ $`<`$ $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ in the data, the value is shown negative. The error estimates are ours, derived from analysis of the errors quoted in the original data.

Clearly, most of the data are consistent with an added microturbulent contribution of order vturb = 0.5-1.0 km s-1, equivalent to adding a 30 - 120 K turbulent contribution in quadrature with $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ to form $`T_\mathrm{D}`$. Of course, if Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation is actually operating at a Doppler temperature above $`T_\mathrm{K}`$, the measured spin temperatures are already somewhat inflated, and the turbulent velocities extracted from the comparison between $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ and $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ are only lower limits. Statistically, $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}/T_\mathrm{D}=0.56\pm 0.26`$ in this dataset.

Recent studies of stray-radiation-corrected Galactic emission profiles find evidence for three kinematic components having linewidths of 5, 13, and 31 km s-1 (Verschuur & Peratt, 1999). These correspond respectively to individual clouds (or to $`T_\mathrm{D}`$= 550 K; see Takakubo (1967) and references therein), to the 6 km s-1 cloud-cloud velocity dispersion (or $`T_\mathrm{D}`$= 3700 K), and to an anonymous component with $`T_\mathrm{D}`$ = 21000 K or a combination of $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ = 8000K, v$`{}_{\mathrm{turb}}{}^{}=10.4`$ km s-1. Suggestions of a pure intercloud component corresponding to $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ = 8000K, v$`{}_{\mathrm{turb}}{}^{}=0`$ km s-1have a somewhat checkered history, but seem now not to be clearly evident in the data. This is perhaps not too surprising given the panoply of phenomena which may influence an observed linewidth on galactic scales.

## 7 Summary

The major conclusions of this work may be summarized as follows:

Particle excitation does not thermalize warm (intercloud) H I in either the two- or three-phase models of the ISM. In the absence of other sources of excitation, one would expect to see $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ $`10005000`$ K, from regions where $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ $`500010000`$ K (note that regions of higher $`T_\mathrm{K}`$ typically are at lower pressure in two-phase equilibrium and produce lower $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$), even when the contribution of warm gas can be isolated. The presence of a wide range of $`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ in warm gas complicates the derivation of$`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$ in cool gas, which is nearly always seen blended with warm gas along the line of sight.

In the two-phase model, at all but the highest galactic z-heights, hyperfine excitation in warm, neutral intercloud gas will generally be dominated by the scattering of galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ photons produced by the ensemble of OB stars and supernova remnants, in which case the spin temperature will correspond to whatever Doppler temperature the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field acquires while interacting with the interstellar gas. Alternatively – recalling comments in the Introduction – excitation may be dominated locally by the Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation originating in or near particular objects.

In the three-phase model the ability of the galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field to penetrate individual H I clouds is somewhat problematic.

In any multi-phase model where the warm neutral gas is threaded by a substantial galactic Ly-$`\alpha `$ flux, excitation in the cool H I will be influenced by the Ly-$`\alpha `$ photon field also.

The excitation in cool H I clouds seems not to be totally dominated by Ly-$`\alpha `$ excitation at a temperature other than $`T_\mathrm{K}`$, judging from the ubiquity of an apparent turbulent velocity contribution to the H I absorption linewidth, i.e. $``$$`T_{\mathrm{sp}}`$/$`T_\mathrm{D}`$$`0.56`$.

The scattering calculations which will tell us the color temperature of the interstellar Ly-$`\alpha `$ radiation field remain to be performed and may require more knowledge of the structure of the ISM than is currently available to us.

###### Acknowledgements.

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is operated by AUI, Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the US National Science Foundation. I thank David Neufeld and John Dickey for helpful comments on the manuscript and Fred Schwab for providing a reference to a really good numerical representation of the Voigt function.