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# Spin Foam Models of Riemannian Quantum Gravity

## 1. Introduction

Despite increasing interest in spin foam models of 4-dimensional quantum gravity , most work so far has focused on the formal properties of these models, rather than the crucial question of whether they yield reasonable physics at experimentally accessible length scales. Apart from the predilections of the researchers working in this field, there are two main reasons for this.

First, it is not obvious which computations would settle this issue. Second, it is difficult to do any sort of computation with these models. If the discreteness of a typical spin foam occurs at the Planck scale, a brute-force simulation of a region of space the size of a proton for the time it takes light to cross this region would require summing over spin foams having roughly $`10^{80}`$ vertices. Of course, it would be interesting to simulate even a much smaller spin foam. However, in the Barrett–Crane model of 4-dimensional quantum gravity we must compute a quantity called the $`10j`$ symbol for each spin foam vertex . In the Lorentzian versions of this theory, no efficient way to compute the $`10j`$ symbol is known so far: the only existing methods are Monte Carlo calculations that sometimes require over $`10^{10}`$ samples to achieve reasonable accuracy . This makes even very small spin foams difficult to deal with.

The situation is a bit better for Riemannian versions of the Barrett–Crane model. An efficient algorithm has been developed which computes the Riemannian $`10j`$ symbols in $`O(j^5)`$ time using $`O(j^2)`$ memory, where $`j`$ is the average of the ten spins involved . As an example, on a 1GHz Pentium III CPU, this algorithm takes about 5 milliseconds to compute the $`10j`$ symbol with all spins equal to $`\frac{5}{2}`$, and about 2.5 seconds to compute the $`10j`$ symbol with all spins equal to $`10`$. This makes it feasible to compare the qualitative behavior of different versions of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model by means of computer calculations for small spin foams. As it turns out, the results are dramatic and enlightening.

In what follows, we start with a quick review of the existing spin foam models of Riemannian quantum gravity. Then we study three versions of the Barrett–Crane model of 4-dimensional Riemannian quantum gravity. In all three versions the spin foam vertex amplitudes are given by the Riemannian $`10j`$ symbols; they differ only in their formulas for edge and face amplitudes. In Section 3 we show that in the model due to De Pietri, Freidel, Krasnov and Rovelli , the partition function diverges very rapidly for the simplest triangulation of the 4-sphere, and probably for many other triangulated 4-manifolds as well. In Section 4 we turn to the model due to Perez and Rovelli . Here it is already known that the partition function converges for any nondegenerate triangulation of any compact 4-manifold . We show that in fact the partition function converges so fast that the sum over spin foams is dominated by those where almost all the spins labelling faces are zero. In Section 5 we describe a new model with intermediate behavior. This model seems to have a convergent partition function without drastic spin-zero dominance. In Section 6 we discuss the implications of our results.

## 2. Review

Spin foam models are an attempt to describe the geometry of spacetime in a way that takes quantum theory into account from the very start. A spin foam is a 2-dimensional analogue of a Feynman diagram. Abstractly, a Feynman diagram can be thought of as a graph with edges labelled by group representations and vertices labelled by intertwining operators. Similarly, a spin foam is a 2-dimensional cell complex with polygonal faces labelled by representations and edges labelled by intertwining operators. Like Feynman diagrams, spin foams serve as a basis of ‘quantum histories’: the actual time evolution of the system is described by a linear combination of these quantum histories, weighted by certain amplitudes. Feynman diagrams are 1-dimensional because they describe quantum histories of collections of point particles; spin foams are 2-dimensional because in loop quantum gravity, the gravitational field is described not in terms of point particles but 1-dimensional ‘spin networks’.

An ordinary quantum field theory provides a recipe for computing the amplitude for any Feynman diagram in terms of amplitudes for edges and vertices. Similarly, a spin foam model consists of a recipe to compute an amplitude for any spin foam as a product of face, edge and vertex amplitudes. The partition function in a spin foam model is computed as a sum or integral of these spin foam amplitudes. Using suitably weighted sums and normalizing by dividing by the partition function, one can also compute expectation values of observables.

A number of spin foam models have been developed for both Lorentzian and Riemannian quantum gravity. By ‘Lorentzian quantum gravity’, we mean any quantum theory whose partition function is, at least morally speaking, given by

$$e^{iS},$$

where $`S`$ is the Einstein–Hilbert action for a Lorentzian metric on spacetime, or some closely related action. If all goes well, a theory of this sort should reduce in a suitable limit to the classical Einstein equations for Lorentzian metrics. ‘Riemannian quantum gravity’ is the same sort of thing, but for Riemannian metrics. It is important not to confuse Riemannian quantum gravity with ‘Euclidean quantum gravity’, which also uses the Einstein–Hilbert action for a Riemannian metric, but where the partition function is given by

$$e^S.$$

With the help of analytic continuation to imaginary times, Euclidean quantum gravity is a widely used (though controversial) tool for studying Lorentzian quantum gravity. Riemannian quantum gravity is a wholly different theory, which at best will reduce in some limit to the classical Einstein equations for Riemannian metrics. Thus the large body of conventional wisdom about Euclidean quantum gravity may not apply to spin foam models of Riemannian quantum gravity — only further work can decide this.

Riemannian quantum gravity seems to have limited relevance to real-world physics. Nonetheless, spin foam models of Riemannian quantum gravity have proved to be a useful warmup for work on spin foam models of Lorentzian quantum gravity. The Riemannian models are simpler because the rotation group is compact, unlike the Lorentz group. For a compact group, the irreducible unitary representations are finite-dimensional and indexed by discrete rather than continuous parameters. This means that in Riemannian spin foam models there is no difficulty showing the convergence of a single spin foam amplitude, and the partition function is computed as a sum rather than an integral over spin foams.

In retrospect, the very first spin foam model was the Ponzano–Regge model of 3-dimensional Riemannian quantum gravity . In this model, one triangulates a given 3-manifold and expresses the partition function $`e^{iS}`$ as a sum over spin foams lying in the dual 2-skeleton of the triangulation. The gauge group in this theory is the double cover $`\mathrm{Spin}(3)=\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ of the 3d rotation group. A heuristic argument suggested that the result was actually independent of the triangulation. In fact the sum diverges, and contrary to Ponzano and Regge’s original expectations, the naive way of regularizing it does not give triangulation independent results.

Much later, Turaev and Viro  discovered that one could regularize the Ponzano-Regge model by replacing $`\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ with the corresponding quantum group, $`\mathrm{SU}_q(2)`$. In this $`q`$-deformed model the partition function converges for any compact 3-manifold. Even better, it turns out to be triangulation independent. By now it is clear that this partition function is that of 3-dimensional Riemannian quantum gravity with a positive cosmological constant; the deformation parameter $`q`$ is related to the cosmological constant by a simple formula .

In 1997, one week before the concept of spin foam was formalized , Barrett and Crane proposed a spin foam model of 4-dimensional Riemannian quantum gravity . Here the partition function is computed as a sum over spin foams lying in the dual 2-skeleton of a triangulated 4-manifold. The spin foam faces are all labelled by ‘balanced’ representations of $`\mathrm{Spin}(4)=\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$, that is, those of the form $`jj`$. The edges are all labelled by a specific intertwiner called the Barrett–Crane intertwiner. The idea behind these choices was to express Riemannian quantum gravity as a constrained version of the spin foam model for topological gravity due to Turaev, Ooguri, Crane and Yetter . This idea also motivated using the $`10j`$ symbols for the vertex amplitudes.

Barrett and Crane wisely refrained from giving formulas for edge and face amplitudes, which later turned out to be the most controversial aspect of the whole theory. Unfortunately, without these, their model was incomplete. In particular, it was impossible to say whether or not the partition function converges. They did note that one can $`q`$-deform their model, obtaining a model based on the quantum group $`\mathrm{SU}_q(2)\times \mathrm{SU}_{\overline{q}}(2)`$. In this $`q`$-deformed version the partition function becomes a finite sum, so it converges regardless of the choice of edge and face amplitudes. However, nobody has been able to find a nontrivial choice of edge and face amplitudes that makes the result triangulation independent. By analogy with the 3-dimensional case, it is widely expected that the $`q`$-deformed Barrett–Crane model is related to 4-dimensional Riemannian quantum gravity with positive cosmological constant. Since this is not a topological field theory, there is actually no reason to expect a triangulation-independent partition function.

Further progress was made by De Pietri, Freidel, Krasnov and Rovelli , who showed that the Barrett–Crane model naturally arises from a quantum field theory on a product of 4 copies of the 3-sphere, thought of as a homogeneous space of the group $`\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$. Feynman diagrams in this ‘group field theory’ correspond precisely to the spin foams appearing in the Barrett-Crane model, and the vertex amplitudes are the same as well. There are two important differences, however. First, the group field theory approach gives specific formulas for edge and face amplitudes! Second, instead of summing over spin foams lying in the dual 2-skeleton of a fixed triangulation of a fixed 4-manifold, one computes the partition function by summing over spin foams lying in the dual 2-skeleta of all triangulations of all compact 4-manifolds — and even a more general class of well-behaved ‘pseudomanifolds’, namely spaces made by gluing finitely many 4-simplices together pairwise along their tetrahedral faces. In short, the DFKR approach naturally extends the Barrett–Crane model to incorporate a sum over triangulations and even a sum over topologies. This sidesteps the awkward need for an arbitrary choice of triangulation, but makes the convergence of the partition function even less likely.

Later, Perez and Rovelli  modified the DFKR proposal, describing a group field theory that corresponds to a version of the Barrett–Crane model with modified edge and face amplitudes. Their goal was to eliminate divergences from the model, and they made substantial progress: Perez  was able to prove that in this modified model, the sum of spin foam amplitudes converges if we restrict to spin foams lying in the dual 2-skeleton of a given well-behaved pseudomanifold, so long as each triangle of this pseudomanifold lies in at least three 4-simplices. The issue of pseudomanifolds not satisfying this condition remains a challenge, as does the sum over pseudomanifolds.

As we shall see in Section 6, it is not completely obvious that one needs a convergent partition function for a well-behaved spin foam model. After all, for physics we need to compute, not the partition function, but expectation values of observables. Only after we can compute these can we tackle the important question of whether a given spin foam model reduces to general relativity (possibly coupled to matter) in the large-scale limit. Nonetheless, it appears that convergence or divergence of the partition function is closely tied to other important qualitative features of a spin foam model. This makes it worthwhile to study the convergence issue. In the next three sections, we do this for three versions of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model: the DFKR version, the Perez–Rovelli version, and a new version. We only consider the convergence issue for one pseudomanifold at a time, not the sum over pseudomanifolds.

## 3. The De Pietri–Freidel–Krasnov–Rovelli model

We begin by recalling the general idea of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model. As mentioned already, this model can be defined for any simplicial complex formed by taking a finite set of 4-simplices and attaching distinct ones pairwise along their tetrahedral faces until all faces are paired. In what follows we shall restrict attention to manifolds, but only to simplify the terminology; everything generalizes painlessly to these well-behaved pseudomanifolds.

Let $`M`$ be a triangulated compact 4-manifold and let $`\mathrm{\Delta }_n`$ be the set of $`n`$-simplices in the triangulation. By definition, 4-simplices, 3-simplices and 2-simplices correspond to vertices, edges and faces of the dual 2-skeleton, respectively. In all versions of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model, a spin foam $`F`$ simply amounts to a labelling of each face $`f\mathrm{\Delta }_2`$ by a spin $`j(f)\{0,\frac{1}{2},1,\mathrm{}\}`$. Note that there are four faces incident to each edge in the dual 2-skeleton. We require that the spins $`j_1,\mathrm{},j_4`$ labelling the faces incident to any edge be ‘admissible’, meaning that there exists a nonzero $`\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ intertwining operator $`f:j_1j_2j_3j_4`$.

In all versions of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model, the amplitude of a spin foam is computed by a formula of this sort:

(1)
$$Z(F)=\underset{f\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{}A(f)\underset{e\mathrm{\Delta }_3}{}A(e)\underset{v\mathrm{\Delta }_4}{}A(v)$$

and the partition function is given by

(2)
$$Z(M)=\underset{F}{}Z(F).$$

Here the complex numbers $`A(f),A(e)`$ and $`A(v)`$ are called face, edge and vertex amplitudes, respectively. Each face amplitude is computed only using the spin $`j(f)`$ labelling that face. Each edge amplitude is computed using the spins labelling the 4 faces incident to that edge; we call these spins $`j_1(e),\mathrm{},j_4(e)`$. Finally, each vertex amplitude is computed using the spins labelling the 10 faces incident to that vertex; we call these spins $`j_1(v),\mathrm{},j_{10}(v)`$.

To give formulas for these amplitudes we use the standard graphical notation for $`\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ spin networks . Normalization issues are crucial here. We call a triple of spins $`j_1,j_2,j_3`$ ‘admissible’ if there exists a nonzero intertwining operator $`f:j_1j_2j_3`$; this happens precisely when these spins satisfy the triangle inequality and sum to an integer. Given an admissible triple of spins, we normalize the canonical intertwining operator $`f:j_1j_2j_3`$ so that

$$\text{}=1.$$

As this normalization sometimes requires dividing by the square root of a negative number, it introduces a potential sign ambiguity. Luckily, in our calculations trivalent vertices always come in matching pairs, so these signs cancel.

Actually, in what follows almost all our diagrams will be balanced spin networks . In such a spin network, labelling an edge by the spin $`j`$ really means that it is labelled by the irreducible representation $`jj`$ of the group $`\mathrm{Spin}(4)=\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$. Such representations are called ‘balanced’. Also, in a balanced spin network, an unlabelled 4-valent vertex is really labelled by the Barrett-Crane intertwiner. This is defined in terms of $`\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ spin networks by:

(3)
$$\text{}=\underset{k}{}(1)^{2k}(2k+1)\text{}\text{},$$

where we sum over spins $`k`$ such that the triples $`j_1,j_2,k`$ and $`j_3,j_4,k`$ are both admissible.

In terms of balanced spin networks, the face, edge and vertex amplitudes of the DFKR model are given as follows:

(4)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}A(f)\hfill & =& \text{}\text{}\\ & & \\ A(e)\hfill & =& \frac{1}{\text{}}\\ & & \\ A(v)\hfill & =& \text{}.\end{array}$$

Here the intertwiner in the first spin network is just the identity operator, so the face amplitude $`A(f)`$ is just the dimension of the representation $`j(f)j(f)`$, that is, $`(2j(f)+1)^2`$. The ‘$`4j`$ symbol’

equals the dimension of the space of $`\mathrm{SU}(2)`$ intertwining operators

$$f:j_1j_2j_3j_4.$$

This in turn equals the number of spins $`k`$ such that the triples $`j_1,j_2,k`$ and $`j_3,j_4,k`$ are both admissible. Finally, the vertex amplitude $`A(v)`$ is called the ‘$`10j`$ symbol’. There is no simple formula for this, so to compute it we shall need the algorithm developed by Christensen and Egan .

At this point some comments might be helpful. The above formulas were first derived by De Pietri, Freidel, Krasnov and Rovelli  using the group field theory approach. However, they also arise naturally from the idea that the Barrett–Crane model is a constrained version of the $`\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$ Turaev–Ooguri–Crane–Yetter model. In the latter model one works with spin foams where faces are labelled by arbitrary irreducible representations of $`\mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)`$ and edges are labelled by arbitrary intertwiners chosen from an orthonormal basis. Here one uses the fact that intertwiners $`f:HH^{}`$ between finite-dimensional unitary group representations naturally form a Hilbert space with

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

To get the above version of the Barrett–Crane model, one restricts the Turaev–Ooguri–Crane–Yetter formulas to spin foams where faces are labelled by balanced intertwiners and edges are labelled by the normalized Barrett–Crane intertwiner. The Barrett–Crane intertwiner in equation (3) is not normalized; instead, its inner product with itself is

$$\text{},$$

so to normalize it we must divide by the square root of this quantity. However, since each Barrett–Crane intertwiner in the $`10j`$ symbols appears twice in the formula for the $`Z(F)`$ — once for each of the two 4-simplices incident to a given 3-simplex — we obtain a factor of

$$\frac{1}{\text{}},$$

which gives the edge amplitude $`A(e)`$.

We can study the convergence of the partition function (2) by imposing a cutoff on the spins labelling spin foam faces. Since these spins determine the areas of the corresponding 2-simplices in the triangulation of the spacetime manifold, we can think of this as a sort of ‘infrared cutoff’ which rules out large areas. Let us write $`|F|`$ for the maximum of the spins labelling the faces of the spin foam $`F`$. Imposing a spin cutoff $`|F|J`$, the partition function becomes a finite sum

(5)
$$Z_J(M)=\underset{|F|J}{}Z(F).$$

For a simple but interesting example, we can take $`M`$ to be a 4-sphere triangulated as the boundary of a 5-simplex. In Table 1 we show the results of computing $`Z_J(M)`$ in this case for various low values of $`J`$.

| $`J`$ | $`Z_J\left(M\right)`$ |
| --- | --- |
| $`0`$ | $`\mathrm{1.000\cdot 10}^0`$ |
| $`1/2`$ | $`\mathrm{3.722\cdot 10}^5`$ |
| $`1`$ | $`\mathrm{7.812\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`3/2`$ | $`\mathrm{2.128\cdot 10}^{13}`$ |
| $`2`$ | $`\mathrm{1.345\cdot 10}^{16}`$ |

Table 1: $`S^4`$ partition function — DFKR model with spin cutoff $`J`$

It seems that $`Z_J(M)`$ grows at a spectacular rate as $`J`$ increases. We can begin to understand this by estimating the face, edge and vertex amplitudes in equation (4). In the limit of large spins, the face amplitudes clearly grow as $`O(j^2)`$ where $`j`$ is the spin labelling the face in question. For the edge amplitudes, we can use the fact that

equals the number of spins $`k`$ such that both $`j_1,j_2,k`$ and $`j_3,j_4,k`$ are admissible triples. In general, if $`j_1,\mathrm{},j_4`$ are admissible and of order $`j`$, the number of such spins $`k`$ is also of order $`j`$, so the edge amplitudes grow as $`O(j)`$ when all spins are rescaled by the same factor. The only exception occurs when $`j_1,\mathrm{},j_4`$ lie at the ‘border of admissibility’, that is, when

$$\text{}=1.$$

In this case the $`4j`$ symbol remains equal to one as all four spins are rescaled.

The asymptotic behavior of the vertex amplitude is much more subtle. Starting from the integral formula for the $`10j`$ symbols and doing a stationary phase approximation, Barrett and Williams  computed the asymptotics of the $`10j`$ symbols as all ten spins are multiplied by some factor $`j`$ which approaches infinity. This calculation yields a factor of $`j^{9/2}`$ times an oscillating function of $`j`$. Unfortunately, computer calculations show a different rate of decay and no significant oscillatory behavior . It now seems clear that the stationary phase points do not dominate the integral. In general, it appears that the $`10j`$ symbols decay as $`O(j^2)`$ as all spins are rescaled by the same factor. The only exception occurs when the four spins labelling edges incident to some vertex lie at the border of admissibility; then the $`10j`$ symbols decay more rapidly. The more vertices lie at the border of admissibility, the more rapid the decay.

The triangulation of the 4-sphere as the boundary of a 5-simplex gives spin foams with 20 faces, 15 edges and 6 vertices. Thus, for a spin foam $`F`$ with all faces labelled by spins of order $`j`$, with no vertices lying on the border of admissibility, the amplitude is

$$Z(F)=O(j^{220}j^{115}j^{26})=O(j^{13}).$$

Together with the fact that $`Z(F)`$ is always nonnegative , so that no cancellations are possible, this is already enough to show that $`Z_J(M)+\mathrm{}`$ as $`J+\mathrm{}`$. In fact, just by summing over spin foams where all faces are labelled by the same spin, we already see that $`Z_J(M)`$ must tend to infinity at a rate no slower than $`J^{14}`$. However, this is a drastic underestimate. In fact, doing a least squares fit to a log-log plot of the above tabulated values of $`Z_J(M)`$, we estimate that $`Z_J(M)`$ grows as approximately $`J^{23}`$.

From these considerations it is clear that the partition function in the DFKR model will diverge, not just in this example, but for many triangulated 4-manifolds. Since the divergence is mainly due to rapid growth of the face amplitudes with increasing spin, it seems the partition function only has a chance of converging if there are few spin foam faces compared to spin foam edges and vertices. Spin foams of this sort come from triangulations where there are few triangles compared to tetrahedra and 4-simplices. Since the number of tetrahedra in a nondegenerate triangulation is always $`\frac{5}{2}`$ times the number of 4-simplices, this occurs when the average number of 4-simplices meeting along each triangle is high.

As explained more carefully in Section 6, we can try to extract physical information from spin foam models by computing expectation values of observables. These are weighted averages of functions assigning to each spin foam a real number, where the weight associated to each spin foam is its amplitude. The Metropolis algorithm  is a powerful tool for numerically computing weighted averages, but only when the weights are nonnegative. Quantum amplitudes are usually complex, so the Metropolis algorithm is normally applicable to quantum theory problems only after one has converted them into statistical mechanics problems via Wick rotation. Luckily, the amplitude for a spin foam in the DFKR model is always nonnegative! In fact, this is true for all the versions of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model that we consider here . This allows us to apply the Metropolis algorithm without becoming enmeshed in the subtleties of Wick rotation. As we shall see, this algorithm provides great insight into which spin foams dominate the partition function.

For readers unfamiliar with the Metropolis algorithm, let us briefly describe how it works in general before turning to our application here. This algorithm is a random walk technique for sampling configurations from some finite set $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ with desired relative frequencies given by some function $`p:\mathrm{\Lambda }[0,\mathrm{})`$. To use the algorithm one must first choose a finite set of ‘moves’ $`f_j:\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. Starting at an arbitrary configuration $`x_0\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, one then generates a random sequence of configurations $`x_i`$ as follows. For each $`i`$, choose a move $`f_j`$ uniformly at random. Let $`x_{i+1}=f_j(x_i)`$ with probability $`p(f_j(x_i))/p(x_i)`$ and otherwise let $`x_{i+1}=x_i`$. (If $`p(f_j(x_i))/p(x_i)>1`$, always set $`x_{i+1}=f_j(x_i)`$.) If the moves are chosen appropriately, the distribution of the entries $`x_i`$ in the sequence will tend to the desired distribution $`p`$ as $`i`$ tends to infinity.

To get the right limiting distribution, the moves must be chosen ‘large enough’ so that the algorithm is ergodic, i.e., so that any configuration $`x`$ with $`p(x)>0`$ has a nonzero chance of occurring. However, to get reasonably fast convergence to the limiting distribution, the moves must be chosen ‘small enough’ so that the algorithm spends much of its time moving between highly weighted configurations, rather than spinning its wheels rejecting configurations with small $`p`$. Choosing the moves to balance these opposing needs is a bit of an art. In practice, one determines experimentally whether one’s moves work well.

To use the Metropolis algorithm to compute expectation values of observables in some version of the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model, we want to sample spin foams with relative frequencies given by their amplitudes. To do this we take $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$ to be some finite set of spin foams and let $`p:\mathrm{\Lambda }[0,\mathrm{})`$ assign to each spin foam its amplitude. We also need to choose a set of moves for going from one spin foam to another. For our example of the 4-sphere triangulated as the boundary of a 5-simplex, we chose to use moves that consist of picking a tetrahedron in the dual 2-skeleton and adding or subtracting $`\frac{1}{2}`$ to each of the spins labelling the four faces of this tetrahedron. The $`10j`$ symbols vanish unless the sum of the spins labelling faces incident to each edge is an integer. Our moves preserve this constraint. If subtracting $`\frac{1}{2}`$ from a spin would make it negative, we leave all the spins unchanged, but still count this process as a move. In our experiments, this collection of moves produces very fast convergence of the Metropolis algorithm, and the predicted answer is accurate in all cases in which we have been able to compute the exact answer by other means.

It is interesting to compare the behavior of this algorithm for various versions of the Barrett–Crane model. Unfortunately, in the DFKR version, the divergence of the partition function means that the random walk will drift toward spin foams with ever larger spins, since these have the largest amplitudes and there are many of them. Table 2 shows a small portion of a typical run of the Metropolis algorithm for this version, with a spin cutoff of $`J=\frac{5}{2}`$. The first column is the iteration number. In steps that are not shown, the program stayed at the same labelling. The second column displays the twenty spins labelling faces, each multiplied by two. The third column shows the amplitude of the corresponding spin foam. One can see that the sum over spin foams is dominated by those with many spins close to the cutoff.

| iteration | $`F`$ | $`Z\left(F\right)`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`335291`$ | $`34234252435354544545`$ | $`\mathrm{4.4\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335296`$ | $`34234152435454545555`$ | $`\mathrm{3.1\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335302`$ | $`34244142345454545555`$ | $`\mathrm{1.9\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335303`$ | $`34344043335454545555`$ | $`\mathrm{5.6\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`335304`$ | $`34444043335555555555`$ | $`\mathrm{1.0\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335310`$ | $`24443133335555555555`$ | $`\mathrm{3.4\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335312`$ | $`23444132235555555555`$ | $`\mathrm{2.0\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335320`$ | $`13443242235555555555`$ | $`\mathrm{1.1\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`335321`$ | $`04533242235555555555`$ | $`\mathrm{2.5\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`335323`$ | $`04543252345555555555`$ | $`\mathrm{4.6\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`335324`$ | $`04544252344555554455`$ | $`\mathrm{3.9\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`335327`$ | $`05545251244555554455`$ | $`\mathrm{9.9\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`335328`$ | $`05445150254555554455`$ | $`\mathrm{1.5\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`335351`$ | $`05445250254455555445`$ | $`\mathrm{1.4\cdot 10}^7`$ |

Table 2: sample Metropolis labellings — DFKR model with spin cutoff $`\frac{5}{2}`$

## 4. The Perez–Rovelli Model

In the Perez–Rovelli model, the face, edge and vertex amplitudes are as follows:

(6)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}A(f)\hfill & =& \text{}\text{}\\ & & \\ A(e)\hfill & =& \frac{\text{}}{\text{}\text{}\text{}\text{}\text{}\text{}\text{}\text{}}\\ & & \\ A(v)\hfill & =& \text{}.\end{array}$$

Here again a comment is in order: the original papers by Perez and Rovelli  give a different formula for the edge amplitudes, but that formula does not really follow from their group field theory. Above we use the corrected formula which appears in a forthcoming review article by Perez ; we have carefully translated from his normalization conventions to our own.

With these formulas, Perez has shown that the partition function converges for any well-behaved pseudomanifold satisfying the condition that each triangle lies in at least three 4-simplices. This includes the triangulation of $`S^4`$ as the boundary of a 5-simplex. Nonetheless it is illuminating to compute the cutoff partition function $`Z_J(M)`$ in this example with various choices of the spin cutoff. The results appear in Table 3.

| $`J`$ | $`Z_J\left(M\right)`$ |
| --- | --- |
| 0 | 1.000000000000 |
| $`1/2`$ | 1.000014319178 |
| 1 | 1.000014323656 |
| $`3/2`$ | 1.000014323670 |
| 2 | 1.000014323670 |

Table 3: $`S^4`$ partition function — Perez–Rovelli model with spin cutoff $`J`$

This time it appears that the convergence is spectacularly rapid. But again, this is easy to understand: it is mainly due to the denominator of the edge amplitude in formula (6). Since each triangle in this triangulation of the 4-sphere is the face of 3 tetrahedra, the factors of

$$\text{}\text{}=(2j(f)+1)^2$$

appearing in the edge and face amplitudes combine to give

$$Z_J(M)=\underset{|F|J}{}\underset{f\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{}(2j(f)+1)^4\underset{e\mathrm{\Delta }_3}{}\text{}\underset{v\mathrm{\Delta }_4}{}A(v).$$

The factors of $`(2j(f)+1)^4`$ strongly suppress faces labelled by nonzero spins. The $`10j`$ symbols also tend to suppress nonzero spins. While the $`4j`$ symbols grow with increasing spin, they do so too slowly to make much of a difference.

In particular, $`Z_0(M)=1`$ because there is one spin foam with all faces labelled by spin $`0`$, and every balanced spin network with all edges labelled by spin $`0`$ evaluates to $`1`$. In computing $`Z_{1/2}(M)`$, we must also consider spin foams where some faces are labelled by spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$. At each spin foam edge, if one of the incident faces is labelled by a nonzero spin, then at least one other must be as well, or else the Barrett-Crane intertwiner there will vanish. This is a powerful constraint. For the 4-sphere triangulated as the boundary of a 5-simplex, it implies that if there is one spin foam face labelled by a nonzero spin, then there must be at least four. When four of the faces are labelled by spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$, the factors of $`(2j(f)+1)^4`$ multiply to give $`2^{16}`$. Spin foams with more nonzero spins, or spins greater than $`\frac{1}{2}`$, will be suppressed even further.

In fact, it is instructive to work out by hand the contribution to the partition function given by spin foams with four spin foam faces labelled by $`\frac{1}{2}`$ and the rest zero. To give a nonzero result, the four faces must form a tetrahedron in the dual 2-skeleton. This results in a triangular spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ loop in four of the $`10j`$ symbols. Since

$$\text{}=1,\text{}=1,$$

$$\text{}=1,\text{and}\text{}=\frac{1}{2},$$

each spin foam of this sort contributes an amplitude of $`2^{16}(\frac{1}{2})^4=2^{20}`$. There are $`\left(\genfrac{}{}{0pt}{}{6}{4}\right)=15`$ spin foams of this sort, so their total contribution to the partition function is $`152^{20}.0000143051`$. Glancing at Table 3, we see that together with the spin foam having all faces labelled by spin zero, this accounts for the first seven decimal places of the partition function.

As a result, when we use the Metropolis algorithm to randomly walk through spin foams in this example, it focuses attention on spin foams where almost all spins are zero. Table 4 shows a complete run of the algorithm with a cutoff of $`5/2`$ and 5 million iterations. As in Table 2, the first column is the iteration number. In steps that are not shown, the program stayed at the same labelling. The second column displays the twenty spins labelling faces, each multiplied by two. The third column shows the amplitude of the corresponding spin foam. One can see that that after 256 steps the initial spin foam has randomly walked to the spin foam with all faces labelled by by spin zero. Except for a brief foray to a spin foam with four spin-$`\frac{1}{2}`$ faces between moves 611050 and moves 611136, the algorithm spends all the rest of its time at the spin foam with all spin-zero faces.

| iteration | $`F`$ | $`Z\left(F\right)`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`0`$ | $`00110000010111110011`$ | $`\mathrm{1.421\cdot 10}^{14}`$ |
| $`1`$ | $`00100000010101020011`$ | $`\mathrm{2.874\cdot 10}^{12}`$ |
| $`256`$ | $`00000000010000010011`$ | $`\mathrm{9.537\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`458`$ | $`00000000000000000000`$ | $`\mathrm{1.000\cdot 10}^0`$ |
| $`611050`$ | $`00100101010000000000`$ | $`\mathrm{9.537\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`611136`$ | $`00000000000000000000`$ | $`\mathrm{1.000\cdot 10}^0`$ |

Table 4: sample Metropolis labellings — Perez-Rovelli model with spin cutoff $`\frac{5}{2}`$

Generalizing from this example, we can easily guess the behavior of the Perez–Rovelli model on an arbitrary triangulated 4-manifold. The partition function will be dominated by spin foams having mostly spin-zero faces, and a low density of small islands of faces with higher spin. In fact, we can use the ‘dilute gas’ approximation  to estimate the density of a particular sort of island in the spin foams that would most often be sampled by the Metropolis algorithm. For example, if we consider tetrahedra in the dual 2-skeleton, most of them will have all faces labelled by spin $`0`$. About one in $`2^{20}`$ will have all four faces labelled by spin $`\frac{1}{2}`$, and an even smaller fraction will have faces labelled by higher spins. We discuss the implications of this ‘spin-zero dominance’ in Section 6.

## 5. A New Model

Since the partition function of the DFKR model diverges rapidly, while that of the Perez–Rovelli model converges so rapidly that the sum is dominated by spin foams with almost all faces labelled with spin zero, it seems worthwhile to seek a model with intermediate behavior. It would be nice to derive this model from a group field theory. However, one can also take an exploratory attitude and simply seek face, edge and vertex amplitudes that give partition functions ‘near the brink of convergence’, but on the convergent side.

Comparing various candidates, we found this model to be the most promising:

(7)
$$\begin{array}{ccc}A(f)\hfill & =& 1\\ & & \\ A(e)\hfill & =& \frac{1}{\text{}}\\ & & \\ A(v)\hfill & =& \text{}.\end{array}$$

The first thing to note is this model’s simplicity. As in the DFKR model, the edge amplitudes arise naturally from normalizing the Barrett–Crane intertwiners in the $`10j`$ symbol. But unlike the DFKR model, this new model has trivial face amplitudes. Thus the only real ingredient of this model is the $`10j`$ symbol built from normalized Barrett–Crane intertwiners. The absence of loops

in the above formulas is the main reason the model lies near the brink of convergence. These loops grow rapidly as a function of $`j`$, so they tend to make the partition function diverge or converge very quickly, depending on whether more of them appear in the numerator or denominator in the partition function.

Table 5 shows the partition function of our new model for the triangulation of $`S^4`$ as the boundary of a 5-simplex, as a function of the spin cutoff $`J`$. Though the partition function appears to be converging, it is hard to be sure from this limited data. Unfortunately, the calculation of $`Z_{5/2}(M)`$ already involved a sum over approximately $`3.6`$ trillion spin foams. (There are a total of $`6^{20}`$ ways to label all twenty faces with spins from $`0`$ to $`\frac{5}{2}`$, but of these, only $`6^{20}/2^{10}3.610^{12}`$ satisfy the constraint that the spins labelling faces incident to any edge sum to an integer; only these can give a nonzero result, so we only summed over these.) This calculation occupied 28 CPUs for 23 hours. Going further with this brute-force approach would require much longer.

| $`J`$ | $`Z_J\left(M\right)`$ |
| --- | --- |
| 0 | 1.000000000000 |
| $`1/2`$ | 2.342658607645 |
| 1 | 3.378038633798 |
| $`3/2`$ | 3.966290480574 |
| 2 | 4.293589340364 |
| $`5/2`$ | 4.480621474940 |

Table 5: $`S^4`$ partition function — the new model with spin cutoff $`J`$

In Section 6 we describe an indirect method which gives stronger evidence that the partition converges for this triangulation of $`S^4`$. Of course, one would really like a mathematical proof that the partition function converges — and not just in this case, but more generally. Numerical calculations show that it diverges for the well-behaved pseudomanifold formed by taking two 4-simplices and gluing them together along all their tetrahedral faces. However, this leaves open the possibility that the partition function converges for the class of well-behaved pseudomanifolds considered by Perez — namely, those where each triangle lies in at least three 4-simplices. Proving this would require good bounds on the $`10j`$ symbol.

Numerical computations suggest that the following bound holds:

$$\left|\text{}\right|C_1\underset{i=1}{\overset{10}{}}(2j_i+1)^{\frac{1}{5}}.$$

This is consistent with our previous observation that the $`10j`$ symbols decay as $`O(j^2)`$ as all spins are rescaled by the same factor, but it gives more information when some spins are much larger than others. We can use this bound to sketch a rough argument that the partition function converges for well-behaved pseudomanifolds in which each triangle lies in at least three 4-simplices.

Far from the border of admissibility, it is easy to prove that the $`4j`$ symbols satisfy

$$\left|\text{}\right|C_2\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}(2j_i+1)^{\frac{1}{4}}.$$

If we could ignore the border of admissibility, this estimate and the above bound on the $`10j`$ symbols would imply a bound on the cutoff partition function:

$$\begin{array}{ccc}Z_J(M)& & C_3\underset{|F|J}{}\underset{f\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{}(2j(f)+1)^{\frac{9}{20}n(f)}\hfill \\ & & \\ & & C_3\underset{f\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{}\underset{j(f)\{0,\frac{1}{2},\mathrm{},J\}}{}(2j(f)+1)^{\frac{9}{20}n(f)}.\hfill \end{array}$$

Here $`n(f)`$ is the number of vertices (or equivalently, edges) of the face $`f`$, which is the same as the number of 4-simplices containing the triangle dual to $`f`$. The curious number $`\frac{9}{20}`$ comes from the fact that each vertex of the face $`f`$ gives a factor of $`(2j(f)+1)^{\frac{1}{5}}`$, while each edge gives a factor of $`(2j(f)+1)^{\frac{1}{4}}`$, and $`\frac{1}{5}+\frac{1}{4}=\frac{9}{20}`$. Since

$$\underset{j\{0,\frac{1}{2},\mathrm{}\}}{}(2j+1)^{\frac{9}{20}n}$$

converges when $`n3`$, this bound would imply convergence of $`Z_J(M)`$ as $`J\mathrm{}`$ whenever each triangle is contained in at least three 4-simplices. Unfortunately, this argument neglects the border of admissibility, where the $`4j`$ symbols grow more slowly. Luckily, the $`10j`$ symbols decay more rapidly near the border of admissibility! We are therefore optimistic that this hole in the argument can be fixed.

As with other versions of the Barrett–Crane model, we can get a qualitative feel for the new model using the Metropolis algorithm. Table 6 shows a small portion of a typical run of this algorithm, again using the triangulation of $`S^4`$ as the boundary of a 5-simplex and imposing a spin cutoff of $`\frac{5}{2}`$. This table is organized just like Tables 2 and 4. Note that in the new model, both low spins and spins near the cutoff show up frequently, but with a predominance of low spins.

| iteration | $`F`$ | $`Z\left(F\right)`$ |
| --- | --- | --- |
| $`4995398`$ | $`03103000002104313300`$ | $`\mathrm{4.768\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`4995458`$ | $`03104000001104314400`$ | $`\mathrm{1.953\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`4995513`$ | $`04104000000103414400`$ | $`\mathrm{1.600\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`4995517`$ | $`04104001000102413401`$ | $`\mathrm{6.250\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`4995520`$ | $`04114001000112303401`$ | $`\mathrm{2.441\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`4995529`$ | $`04104001000102413401`$ | $`\mathrm{6.250\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`4995534`$ | $`04104001100102313300`$ | $`\mathrm{1.526\cdot 10}^7`$ |
| $`4995542`$ | $`04104001200102213201`$ | $`\mathrm{6.028\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`4995547`$ | $`04104002200101212202`$ | $`\mathrm{1.191\cdot 10}^8`$ |
| $`4995554`$ | $`14105112200101212202`$ | $`\mathrm{4.961\cdot 10}^{10}`$ |
| $`4995565`$ | $`05215112200101212202`$ | $`\mathrm{2.297\cdot 10}^{10}`$ |
| $`4995576`$ | $`05215113200100211201`$ | $`\mathrm{9.303\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`4995577`$ | $`05215113100100311302`$ | $`\mathrm{2.943\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`4995582`$ | $`05215013100200312312`$ | $`\mathrm{3.489\cdot 10}^{10}`$ |
| $`4995587`$ | $`05215013110200322301`$ | $`\mathrm{4.361\cdot 10}^{10}`$ |
| $`4995596`$ | $`04215013111201222301`$ | $`\mathrm{2.224\cdot 10}^{10}`$ |
| $`4995601`$ | $`04215013211201122202`$ | $`\mathrm{8.954\cdot 10}^{11}`$ |
| $`4995610`$ | $`04215013311201022101`$ | $`\mathrm{1.608\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`4995620`$ | $`04115013311102012101`$ | $`\mathrm{6.441\cdot 10}^9`$ |
| $`4995626`$ | $`04114013310102011001`$ | $`\mathrm{1.031\cdot 10}^7`$ |

Table 6: sample Metropolis labellings — the new model with spin cutoff $`\frac{5}{2}`$

It is interesting to see the frequencies with which faces are labelled by various spins. We show this in Table 7, based on a Metropolis run with spin cutoff $`J=50`$ and half a billion iterations. The results obtained are very similar to results obtained with a spin cutoff of $`J=\frac{25}{2}`$, indicating that they are not just an artifact of the cutoff. We only show results up to $`j=5`$, but higher spins were seen as well, with smoothly declining frequencies. The most important thing to note is that while spin zero is the most likely spin to occur, there is still a substantial fraction of faces labelled by other spins.

| spin | frequency |
| --- | --- |
| $`0`$ | $`69.548\%`$ |
| $`1/2`$ | $`18.733\%`$ |
| $`1`$ | $`6.2878\%`$ |
| $`3/2`$ | $`2.5510\%`$ |
| $`2`$ | $`1.1958\%`$ |
| $`5/2`$ | $`.61995\%`$ |
| $`3`$ | $`.34893\%`$ |
| $`7/2`$ | $`.21243\%`$ |
| $`4`$ | $`.13535\%`$ |
| $`9/2`$ | $`.08989\%`$ |
| $`5`$ | $`.06252\%`$ |

Table 7: spin frequencies in $`S^4`$ — the new model

## 6. Implications

Our computation of partition functions is only relevant to the ‘physics’ of the models being studied to the extent that it sheds light on the behavior of observables. The issue of observables in quantum gravity is a thorny one, but we really need to confront it here. One approach would be to follow the ideas of canonical quantum gravity and use a sum over open spin foams to compute the projection onto the space of physical states . Observables would then be described as operators on this Hilbert space. While conceptually well-motivated, this approach will take a great deal of work to implement. One of the goals of the spin foam program is to develop a ‘sum over histories’ approach to quantum gravity that has a chance of making more rapid progress . Ideally this approach would be compatible with the canonical approach, but not require an explicit computation of the projection onto physical states. In this section we attempt to interpret our computations using this ‘sum over histories’ approach.

To begin with, let us tentatively call any function $`O`$ from spin foams to real numbers an ‘observable’. Fixing a spin foam model, we can try to compute the expectation value of $`O`$ as follows:

(8)
$$O=\frac{_FO(F)Z(F)}{_FZ(F)},$$

where $`Z(F)`$ is the amplitude our model assigns to the spin foam $`F`$, and the sum is taken over all spin foams. The denominator of this fraction is the partition function.

Formulas like equation (8) are familiar in quantum field theory on a fixed background spacetime, but we must reevaluate their meaning in the current context. Exactly what sort of ‘expectation value’ is this quantity $`O`$? In quantum field theory a formula of this sort is used to compute vacuum expectation values. However, in the context of quantum gravity, the notion of energy and thus the whole concept of ‘vacuum’ becomes problematic. We thus propose to interpret $`O`$ as the average of $`O`$ over all histories. This is consistent with the interpretation of a spin foam as a ‘quantum history’ .

Now, for many functions $`O`$ we do not expect $`O`$ to be well-defined. For example, if $`O(F)`$ is some measure of the total 4-volume of the spacetime corresponding to $`F`$, there is no obvious reason why $`O`$ should converge. This is not bad; it just means that the question “what is the expected 4-volume of spacetime?” is ill-posed when one is given no further information about the history in question. There is no reason a theory should be able to answer this sort of question.

However, one can often make ill-posed expectation values well-posed by ‘conditioning’ them. In other words, instead of asking “what is the expected value of $`O`$?” one asks “what is the expected value of $`O`$, given that…?” In physics this conditioning is usually done by specifying either a state or the value or expectation value of some observables. For example, in the path integral approach to quantum mechanics, one can compute the expected value of the position of a particle at $`t=1`$, given its position at $`t=0`$, by restricting the path integral to paths that start at this given position at $`t=0`$. We can even condition further by specifying information about its position at some other times; this has been extensively studied in the theory of consistent histories .

A path represents a classical history, but we can also do conditioning when we compute expectation values by summing over quantum histories. The most familiar example of a quantum history is a Feynman diagram. Using Feynman diagrams we can compute the expectation value of some observable measured in the future, given information about the incoming particles in the past, by restricting the sum over Feynman diagrams to those with certain specified incoming edges. We can even condition on properties of the internal edges of a Feynman diagram, e.g. computing the probability that two electrons scatter given that they have exchanged a specific number of virtual photons. One must be careful when working with probabilities of this sort, since they can fail to satisfy the classical rules, thanks to interference effects. However, the theory of consistent histories provides a framework for correctly dealing with them.

Spin foams are close analogs of Feynman diagrams, and indeed they are Feynman diagrams in the group field theory approach . This means that, as with Feynman diagram theories, in spin foam models we can condition any expectation value by limiting the class of spin foams to be summed over, or weighting them with a suitable factor. This amounts to replacing the formula for $`Z(F)`$ by a modified formula which takes this conditioning into account.

The simplest example consists of setting $`Z(F)`$ to zero when $`F`$ fails to lie in the dual 2-skeleton of a fixed triangulated 4-manifold. While doing this simplifies many calculations, and we have implicitly done so throughout this paper, it would only be physically well-motivated if we knew spacetime were equipped with a specific triangulation. A more realistic example would arise if we were trying to use a Lorentzian spin foam model to make predictions about the collision of gravitational waves. Here we would need to restrict the integral over spin foams to those having a spacelike slice in which incoming gravitational waves of a specified sort were present. If we were studying these waves in a bounded region of spacetime, we might also restrict to open spin foams of a certain ‘size’. Of course, we are far from being able to do this at present.

Having modified $`Z(F)`$ to take the conditioning into account, there are still some further subtleties about the convergence of formula (8). If the sums in both numerator and denominator converge, $`O`$ is well-defined. However, we can make do with less: if both sums diverge, we can impose a cutoff on both, take the ratio of the two, and then try to take a limit as the cutoff is removed. It follows that the convergence of the conditioned partition function is neither necessary nor sufficient for computing $`O`$.

What does it mean if we need to impose a cutoff and then take a limit as the cutoff is removed to compute expectation values of observables? The answer depends on the nature of the cutoff, so it is good to focus on a concrete example. We have seen one example in Section 3, where we considered the DFKR model on a fixed triangulation of the 4-sphere. Since the partition function diverged, we found it useful to insert a cutoff on the spins labelling spin foam faces, or equivalently, triangles in the triangulation. In this model we can define the area of a triangle labelled by the spin $`j`$ to be

(9)
$$\mathrm{area}=8\pi \gamma \mathrm{}_P^2\sqrt{j(j+1)},$$

where $`\mathrm{}_P`$ is the Planck length and $`\gamma `$ is an ad hoc constant roughly analogous to the Barbero–Immirzi parameter . A spin cutoff then amounts to a kind of ‘infrared cutoff’, since it rules out spacetime geometries containing triangles of large area.

Without any further conditioning, the expectation value of an observable in this theory would be given by

(10)
$$O=\underset{J\mathrm{}}{lim}\frac{_{|F|J}O(F)Z(F)}{_{|F|J}Z(F)}.$$

What does it mean when this limit exists but both numerator and denominator diverge as $`J\mathrm{}`$? It means that the dominant contribution to the expectation value of the observable $`O`$ comes from spacetime geometries containing triangles of arbitrarily large area! This seems physically unrealistic, since in our world spacetime discreteness exists, if at all, only on short length scales.

One possible objection is that this does not take into account the conditioning needed to phrase a sensible physical question. Perhaps conditioning automatically damps the contribution of spin foams with large triangles. This seems most plausible if we are asking questions about a bounded region of spacetime and restrict the sum over spin foams to those of a certain ‘size’.

Another way out might be to take a limit where we let the Barbero–Immirzi parameter go to zero as we let $`J\mathrm{}`$: in other words, a kind of ‘continuum limit’, where spacetime discreteness gets pushed to ever smaller distance scales. A limit of this sort has already been discussed by Bojowald  in the context of Lorentzian quantum gravity, working with the real Ashtekar variables. He shows that in this limit, loop quantum cosmology reduces to ordinary quantum cosmology. One can imagine taking a similar limit in Riemannian quantum gravity. However, a great deal more work would be required to see if this is a viable strategy.

In short, the divergence of the partition function as we remove the spin cutoff is not necessarily a disaster for the DFKR model. However, it seems one would need some sophisticated maneuvers to extract interesting results from this model. Anyone interested in this might be wise to start by reexamining the Ponzano–Regge model of 3-dimensional Riemannian quantum gravity, which exhibits a similar divergence.

We can avoid or at least postpone facing these subtleties by working with the Perez–Rovelli model, where the partition function converges for a fixed triangulation. Of course, a divergence may still arise in the sum over triangulations. But still more pressing, in our opinion, is the task of understanding spin-zero dominance. While this phenomenon has no obvious analogue in the Lorentzian Barrett–Crane model, it is still worth pondering. What does it mean when the partition function is dominated by spin foams whose faces are mostly labelled by spin zero? If we believe equation (9), these correspond to triangles of area zero! Perhaps this model is a theory of highly degenerate quantum geometries where most of the 4-simplices are shrunk to nothing, vaguely reminiscent of the ‘crumpled phase’ in Euclidean quantum gravity . Perhaps suitable conditioning will remove this effect. Perhaps spin-zero faces should be ignored for some reason. Or perhaps Alekseev, Polychronakos, and Smedbäck  are right, and the correct area formula is given not by equation (9) but by

$$\mathrm{area}=8\pi \gamma \mathrm{}_P^2(j+\frac{1}{2}).$$

This would drastically affect our interpretation of spin-zero faces.

At present, all we can say for sure is that a theory with drastic spin-zero dominance raises as many difficult issues for our approach to computing expectation values as one where the partition function diverges as the spin cutoff is removed. The new model described in this paper seems to avoid these issues; here we can compute expectation values of observables and get some interesting results, at least if we fix a triangulation.

The simplest observable in the Riemannian Barrett–Crane model is the average area of a triangle. Ignoring a factor of $`8\pi \gamma \mathrm{}_P^2`$, this is given by

$$O(F)=\frac{1}{|\mathrm{\Delta }_2|}\underset{f\mathrm{\Delta }_2}{}\sqrt{j(f)(j(f)+1)}$$

where $`|\mathrm{\Delta }_2|`$ is the number of triangles in the triangulation. We use $`O_J`$ to stand for the expectation value of this observable with a spin cutoff of $`J`$:

$$O_J=\frac{_{|F|J}O(F)Z(F)}{_{|F|J}Z(F)}$$

where for a simple calculation we sum over spin foams in the dual 2-skeleton of the triangulation of $`S^4`$ as the boundary of a 5-simplex. Some results for this quantity are shown in Table 7. The results for $`J\frac{5}{2}`$ are exact, while the results for higher cutoffs are approximate, obtained using the Metropolis algorithm. The last data point was run using no cutoff; spins larger than 54 never occurred in our runs, even after more than 11 billion iterations. It appears that the limit

$$O=\underset{J\mathrm{}}{lim}O_J$$

exists.

| $`J`$ | $`O_J`$ |
| --- | --- |
| 0 | 0.000000 |
| $`1/2`$ | 0.121987 |
| 1 | 0.210441 |
| $`3/2`$ | 0.265911 |
| 2 | 0.302153 |
| $`5/2`$ | 0.326524 |
| $`15/2`$ | 0.381160 |
| $`25/2`$ | 0.396701 |
| $`50`$ | 0.399991 |
| $`\mathrm{}`$ | 0.400005 |

Table 7: Expected average area of a triangle in $`S^4`$ — the new model with spin cutoff $`J`$

Now, an interesting thing about the average triangle area is that for this observable, the limit

$$\underset{J\mathrm{}}{lim}O_J$$

can only exist if the partition function converges. This means our numerical evidence that $`O_J`$ converges is also numerical evidence that the partition function converges! To see why this is true, suppose the partition function diverges. Since in this model the spin foam amplitudes $`Z(F)`$ are always nonnegative , the cutoff partition functions $`Z_J(M)`$ must approach $`+\mathrm{}`$ as we remove the spin cutoff. This implies that for any spin $`J`$ we have

$$2\underset{|F|J}{}Z(F)\underset{|F|J^{}}{}Z(F)$$

for all sufficiently large spins $`J^{}`$. This implies

$$\underset{|F|J^{}}{}Z(F)2\underset{J<|F|J^{}}{}Z(F).$$

Using this, we see that for all sufficiently large $`J^{}`$,

$$\begin{array}{ccc}O_J^{}& =& \frac{_{|F|J^{}}O(F)Z(F)}{_{|F|J^{}}Z(F)}\hfill \\ & & \\ & & \frac{_{J<|F|J^{}}O(F)Z(F)}{_{|F|J^{}}Z(F)}\hfill \\ & & \\ & & \frac{_{J<|F|J^{}}O(F)Z(F)}{2_{J<|F|J^{}}Z(F)}\hfill \\ & & \\ & & \frac{\sqrt{J(J+1)}}{2|\mathrm{\Delta }_2|}\hfill \end{array}$$

since in any spin foam with $`J<|F|`$, there is at least one triangle with area at least $`\sqrt{J(J+1)}`$, so the average triangle area is at least this quantity divided by the number of triangles. Since $`J`$ can be chosen as large as we like, we see that

$$\underset{J^{}\mathrm{}}{lim}O_J^{}=+\mathrm{}.$$

This is a nice example of how the convergence of the partition function is intimately linked to the behavior of observables.

In conclusion, we wish to emphasize that while the interpretation of spin foam models raises many difficult issues, this is only to be expected given the novelty of the whole setup. We expect rapid progress, especially if the more traditional tools of theoretical physics are supplemented by computer calculations. Hard numbers have a marvelous way of making problems more concrete.

## Acknowledgements

We thank Greg Egan and Alejandro Perez for extremely valuable discussions. We also thank SHARCNet for providing the supercomputer at the University of Western Ontario on which we computed $`Z_{5/2}(M)`$ in our new model. The second author was supported by a grant from NSERC, and the third and fourth authors were supported by NSERC and SHARCNet.


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# Ultraviolet properties of primeval galaxies: theoretical models from stellar population synthesis

## 1 Introduction

The recent major improvement in the observation of the deep Universe, both with HST and ground-based telescopes of the new generation, has greatly increased our chance to probe the cosmological model by venturing to search for primeval galaxies. When observing in the optical or infrared range, however, we are probing restframe ultraviolet (UV) emission of high-redshift objects, and we should therefore rely on confident recognition criteria in this wavelength range in order to pick up distant galaxies and track their evolution back in time.

Because of atmosphere opacity, nearby galaxies are still poorly explored in the extreme UV range, and their data cannot fully match high-$`z`$ observations (Lanzetta et al. 1996; Massarotti et al. 2001a). In any case, such an empirical approach would neglect evolution, while sample selection and Malmquist bias could give rise to a misleading interpretation of the high-redshift data (Buzzoni 1998, 2001; Adelberger and Steidel 2000). For all these reasons, galaxy models may prove to be a more effective tool to match primeval galaxy evolution, although within the limits of the established theoretical scenario.

The observation of UV emission of star-forming galaxies at cosmological distances, in the Hubble Deep Field (Williams et al. 1996) or in other deep surveys (Lilly et al. 1996; Connolly et al. 1997), has recently led to important advances in the study of the cosmic star formation (Madau et al. 1998; Steidel et al. 1999; Massarotti et al. 2001b) fueling the current debate on the epoch of galaxy formation. In the light of these results, in this work my aim is to assess in more detail the expected UV properties of primeval galaxies. In particular, I focus on the theory of UV energetics in stellar populations, in order to explore its dependence on the star formation rate (SFR) and other main evolutionary parameters. This will rely on a previous theoretical framework for evolutionary population synthesis (Buzzoni 1989, 1995, 1998). To some extent, my analysis is complementary to the work of Leitherer et al. (1999), as I track here late evolution of star-forming galaxies, when morphology begins to differentiate late- and early-type systems along the Hubble sequence.

My discussion will first consider, in Sec. 2, the UV evolution of a simple stellar population (SSP). This will provide the basic theoretical tools to derive an absolute calibration of galaxy UV luminosity and actual SFR, and to study its possible dependence on metallicity. A possible scheme for the spectral evolution of star-forming galaxies of different morphological type is outlined in Sec. 3, where I compute a new set of synthesis models and compare, in Sec. 4, the theoretical output with IUE observations and other UV data available for local galaxies. The problem of dust absorption is also reviewed in the latter section discussing its possible impact on the evolutionary scenario of high-redshift galaxies. Our relevant conclusions are finally summarized in Sec. 5.

## 2 Fundamentals of UV luminosity in stellar populations

Contrary to the case of optical and infrared evolution, the ultraviolet luminosity of star-forming galaxies is largely dominated by short-lived stars of high mass (Kennicutt 1998). This makes population synthesis models much simpler, because hot main sequence (MS) stars are the prevailing contributors to the galaxy energetic budget at short wavelengths. In a more refined analysis, however, the input from low-mass stars (M $`1`$ M) should also be conveniently sized up, since these stars smoothly cumulate over the entire galaxy life and could reach hot temperatures at some stage of the post-MS evolution. The SSP theory (Renzini and Buzzoni 1986; Buzzoni 1989) provides an effective tool to consistently assess the general UV properties of stellar populations. As we will see, the relevant results for the SSP case can also easily apply to the study of star-forming galaxies.

An illustrative summary of the integrated luminosity emitted shortward of 3000 Å by MS stars of different spectral type is reported in Fig. 1. The plot is based on the Kurucz (1992) model atmospheres, adopting a standard temperature-luminosity-mass calibration for class V stars of solar metallicity as from Allen (1973).111Allen’s (1973) classical compilation for MS stellar parameters is also a suitable match to more sophysticated theoretical calibrations, such as, e.g. those deriving from the Padova (Bressan et al. 1993) and Geneva (Schaller et al. 1992) stellar tracks. One sees from the figure that at least half the bolometric luminosity of stars more massive than $`5`$ M is spent in the ultraviolet. For stars earlier than $`F0`$ (M $`2`$ M), a simple $`L`$-$`M`$ calibration can be derived such as $`L_{UV}=KM^\alpha `$, with $`(K,\alpha )=(0.21,4.0)`$ for $`\lambda <3000`$ Å (expressing both $`L`$ and $`M`$ in solar units). At lower mass, the slope of the relation quickly steepens, and the UV contribution drops to nominal values for $`K`$ stars.

As far as a SSP is considered, with stars distributed in mass according to a power-law IMF such as $`dN=AM^sdM`$ ($`s=2.35`$ for the Salpeter standard case), the integrated MS luminosity results:

$$L_{MS}=AK_{M_l}^{M_{TO}}m^{\alpha s}𝑑m.$$
(1)
where $`A`$ is a normalization factor that scales with the SSP total mass, while Ml is the lower limit for the IMF. The integral is constrained by the mass of the turn-off (TO) stars (MTO), that leave the MS. This actually marks the “clock” of the SSP, giving the time dependence of $`L_{MS}`$. Recalling that $`L_{TO}=KM_{TO}^\alpha `$, and provided that $`s<(1+\alpha )`$ and $`M_{TO}M_l`$, after some appropriate substitutions we have:

$$L_{MS}=\frac{A}{1+\alpha s}M_{TO}^{1s}L_{TO}.$$
(2)
Equation (2) simply relates total MS luminosity to the TO luminosity of the evolving stars in the SSP.

Detailed SSP evolution for $`\lambda <3000`$ Å is computed in Fig. 2, where I extend to younger ages the original model sequence of Buzzoni (1989) for a Salpeter IMF and solar metallicity. In this figure, I also single out the contribution from post-AGB stars experiencing the planetary nebula event for $`t1`$ Gyr. As is well known, post-AGB stars are important contributors to short-wavelength luminosity in old SSPs, and may actually constrain the ultraviolet properties of present-day elliptical galaxies (Renzini and Buzzoni 1986; Burstein et al. 1988; Greggio and Renzini 1990; Yi et al. 1999). The SSP model of Fig. 2 assumes a red horizontal branch (HB) morphology; my choice relies on the fact that HB evolution quickly turns to redder colors with increasing star mass and/or metallicity. Although stars with temperatures in excess of 10 000 K are recognized in some old metal-poor Galactic globular clusters (Cacciari et al. 1995), a red HB is always to be expected at younger ages (i.e. for $`t12`$ Gyr; cf. Fig. 4 of Buzzoni 1989).

The resulting SSP luminosity evolution at three reference wavelength values, namely, 1600, 2000, and 2800 Å, is reported in Table 1 for a Salpeter IMF with an upper cutoff mass of 120 M.

### 2.1 UV luminosity and SFR

Insofar as MS contribution is the prevailing one in the UV energetic budget, the SSP luminosity evolution can be approximated by a simple analitical relation linking eq. (2) with the theoretical stellar clock. The MS lifetime for stars in the different range of mass and solar metallicity can be evaluated from a number of sets of theoretical models. I considered the work of Becker (1981), Vandenberg (1985), Castellani et al. (1990), Lattanzio (1991), Schaller et al. (1992), and Bressan et al. (1993). A useful fit to these data, which spans the whole range of mass, is

$$\mathrm{log}t=0.825\mathrm{log}^2(M_{TO}/120)+6.43$$
(3)
(cf. Fig. 3).

By differentiating eq. (2) and eq. (3) we obtain $`d\mathrm{log}L_{MS}=(1+\alpha s)d\mathrm{log}M_{TO}`$ and $`d\mathrm{log}t=1.65\mathrm{log}(M_{TO}/120)d\mathrm{log}M_{TO}`$, respectively. Assuming that $`L_{MS}L_{SSP}`$, this leads to

$$L_{SSP}t^{0.6(1+\alpha s)/\mathrm{log}(M_{TO}/120)}t^\gamma .$$
(4)
The power index $`\gamma `$ depends on $`M_{TO}`$ and $`\alpha `$, so that it slightly changes with time and wavelength (SSP luminosity fades more rapidly at shorter wavelength) but, as a general case, we could verify from Table 1 that $`\gamma 1`$ for $`\lambda <3000`$ Å. This feature has important consequences when linking UV luminosity and galaxy SFR. In the case of a star-forming galaxy with constant SFR, for example, actual luminosity simply follows as

$$L_{gal}\mathrm{SFR}_{t_{min}}^{t_{gal}}\tau ^\gamma 𝑑\tau [\mathrm{SFR}t_{min}]L_{tmin}^{SSP}$$
(5)
where $`t_{gal}`$ is the age of the system, and $`t_{min}`$ is the lifetime of the most massive stars in the IMF. The previous equation confirms that galaxy UV luminosity eventually does not depend on age, but only on its actual SFR (Kennicutt 1998, cf. his Fig. 2).

As a consequence, a minimum UV luminosity is reached by a star-forming galaxy that is the luminosity of a SSP of total mass $`M_{tot}=\mathrm{SFR}\times t_{min}`$, where $`t_{min}`$ comes from eq. (3) once entering the upper stellar mass of the IMF ($`M_{up}`$). A straightforward relation exists between $`M_{tot}`$ and the SSP scale factor $`A`$ in eq. (2) (cf. e.g. eq.  in Buzzoni 1989); making the relevant substitutions, we can write

$$\mathrm{log}L_{min}=\mathrm{log}\varphi +\mathrm{log}\mathrm{SFR},$$
(6)
with

$$\varphi =t_{min}\frac{|2s|}{(1+\alpha s)}\left(\frac{M_{up}}{M_{cut}}\right)^{2s}\left(\frac{L_{up}}{M_{up}}\right).$$
(7)
In the previous equation, $`M_{cut}=M_l`$ if $`s>2`$ and $`M_{cut}=M_{up}`$ if $`s<2`$, while $`L_{up}`$ is the TO luminosity of stars of mass $`M_{up}`$.

The expected LUV vs. SFR calibration at 2800 Å is shown in Fig. 4; a fairly good agreement is found with the Madau et al. (1998) results. As LUV tracks the SFR via the relative number of high-mass stars, any non-standard IMF could easily be accounted for. For example, a Scalo (1986) mass distribution would closely resemble in Fig. 4 the case of a power-law IMF with $`s2.5`$. Table 2 reports the values of $`\mathrm{log}\varphi `$ at 1600, 2000, and 2800 Å for different IMF slopes around the Salpeter value.

### 2.2 Metallicity effects

As metal enrichment is a direct by-product of star formation, one would expect primordial galaxies to be essentially metal-poor aggregates. For this reason, it is also relevant to assess the validity of our LUV vs. SFR calibration in case of a non-solar evolutionary scenario with $`ZZ_{}`$. A change in metallicity would basically affect the MS fuel consumption, modulating the $`\varphi `$ scaling factor in eq. (6) via the term $`L_{up}t_{min}`$.

This point is explored in Fig. 5, in which I compute the equivalent quantity fuel = L$`{}_{ZAMS}{}^{}\times `$ tMS from the Padova (Bressan et al. 1993; Fagotto et al. 1994) and Geneva (Schaller et al. 1992) stellar tracks, and study its absolute and relative variation with changing $`Z`$. In the top panel of the figure, the fraction of initial stellar mass burnt during MS evolution is reported for the model sequences at solar metallicity and the corresponding metal-poor ones (namely, $`Z=0.001`$ for the Geneva tracks and $`Z=0.004`$ for the Padova tracks). Compared with the $`Z_{}`$ case, metal-poor stars increase their MS lifetime but decrease bolometric (and UV) luminosity (cf. bottom panel). The two effects tend to nearly compensate, so that the factor $`L_{up}t_{min}`$ remains almost constant over a wide range of stellar mass. This secures our LUV vs. SFR calibration within just a $`\pm 10`$ % uncertainty even for quite extreme deviations from the solar metallicity.

### 2.3 Actual and integrated star formation

Relying on eq. (6), a convenient way to parameterize the luminosity evolution of a star-forming galaxy is

$$\mathrm{log}L_{gal}(t)=\mathrm{log}\varphi +\mathrm{log}\mathrm{SFR}(t)+\mathrm{log}Q(t).$$
(8)
In addition to the contribution of fresh star formation, the correcting factor $`Q(t)`$ in the equation takes into account the “extra” luminosity contributed by the bulk of unevolved low-mass stars that have been accumulating along the galaxy’s life. It is interesting to theoretically evaluate this term in order to assess its real impact on galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) for different star formation histories.

In its general case, the total luminosity of a star-forming galaxy can be computed as a suitable convolution of SSP “building blocks” with the SFR at the different epochs:

$$L_{gal}(t)=_{t_{min}}^tL_{SSP}(\tau )SFR(t\tau )𝑑\tau .$$
(9)
Once $`L_{gal}`$ is obtained from eq. (9), and $`L_{min}`$ from eq. (6), the $`Q`$ residual luminosity simply derives from eq. (8). For the present experiment, it is useful to consider the case of a power-law time decay such as SFR $`t^\eta `$. The major advantage of this simple parameterization is that it can easily account for a wide range of star formation histories in terms of an age-independent222At age $`t`$, SFR $`=Ct^\eta `$ and its time average is $`<\mathrm{SFR}>=Ct^1_0^t\tau ^\eta 𝑑\tau `$. Providing that $`\eta <1`$, we always have $`<\mathrm{SFR}>=\mathrm{SFR}/(1\eta )`$, from which the value of $`b`$ directly follows, by definition. distinctive birthrate

$$b=\mathrm{SFR}/<\mathrm{SFR}>=(1\eta ).$$
(10)
The value of $`\eta `$ can be tuned up in order to reproduce galaxy colors at present time. For a Salpeter IMF with stars between 0.1 and 120 M, its allowed range is between $`\pm 0.8`$ (cf. Sec. 3). With these assumptions, the resulting $`Q`$ correction is summarized in Fig. 6.

After a sharp increase on a few $`t_{min}`$ timescale, $`\mathrm{log}Q`$ tends to flatten and proceed steadily over the whole galaxy life. As expected, the luminosity correction becomes more important at longer wavelengths, and for a dwarf-dominated IMF (i.e. $`s2.35`$). However, for a Salpeter IMF, and even at 2800 Å, its value is less than $`0.2`$ dex, confirming that UV luminosity of star-forming galaxies is only marginally modulated by the past star formation history. When moving to shorter wavelengths, eq. (6) always tends to a fair estimate of galaxy total luminosity, and SED will closely resemble that of the hottest composing stars (as $`L_{min}L_{up}`$ in the equation).

## 3 Ultraviolet vs. optical luminosity

As I showed in previous section, past star formation history is better traced by the galaxy SED at longer wavelengths. Combining ultraviolet and optical observations, such as, for example, in the $`B`$ and $`V`$ bands, could therefore set valuable constraints on the stellar birthrate for galaxies along the whole Hubble morphological sequence (Larson and Tinsley 1978).

### 3.1 The galaxy synthesis models

To further investigate this important issue, this section introduces a simple family of galaxy models consisting of a spheroid and disk stellar component. Apart from minor details, this is basically the set of templates adopted by Massarotti et al. (2001a,b,c) for their study of the photometric redshift distribution in the Hubble Deep Field. The reader could also be referred to these works of Massarotti et al. for a full comparison of the present theoretical framework with the codes of Bruzual and Charlot (1993) and Fioc and Rocca-Volmerange (1997), extensively used in recent extragalactic studies (see also Buzzoni 1998 for an in-depth discussion in the context of high-redshift observations). Here I particularly address the relevant UV features of the present theoretical output in the specific context of this discussion; the complete data set is also available in electronic form at the author’s Web site.333http://www.merate.mi.astro.it/$``$eps/home.html

A major advantage of our theoretical approach over the previous synthesis codes (with perhaps the only relevant exception of the Arimoto and Jablonka 1991 models) resides in the fact that galaxy photometric evolution here comes as a result of the individual evolution of the disk and bulge sub-systems. As a general trend, disk luminosity is expected to slowly increase with time (because low-mass stars are “secularly” cumulating in a galaxy), as opposed to those in the bulge, which will fade due to an increasing fraction of dead stars (Renzini and Buzzoni 1986). Galaxy evolution back in time therefore results from the actual balance of these two different photometric trends; as a consequence, one single SFR characteristic timescale, as usually assumed in other synthesis codes, may not be an adequate description of the system as a whole.

Luminosity partition between the two basic building blocks of our synthesis models (i.e., disk and spheroid components) has been set empirically, relying on the Kent (1985) galaxy decomposition profiles. These observations have been carried out in the Gunn $`r`$ band and also provide a confident estimate of the bolometric partition (Buzzoni 1989). From these data, for each Hubble type I calibrated a bolometric morphological parameter defined as $`S/T=L(\mathrm{𝑠𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑖𝑑})/L(\mathrm{𝑡𝑜𝑡})`$. According to the observations, the luminous mass of the disk remains roughly constant along the S0 $``$ Im sequence, while the bulge luminosity decreases in later type spirals (Arimoto and Jablonka 1991; Gavazzi 1993).

For the spheroid subsystem, a SSP evolution with solar metallicity has been adopted, according to Buzzoni (1989, 1995). Disk SFR is in the form of a power law, as discussed in the previous section, with stars between 0.1 and 120 M according to a Salpeter IMF. Luminosity of the disk sub-system can be computed via eq. (9), in which I tune up the SFR index $`\eta `$ so as to reproduce the $`BV`$ color of present-day galaxies along the whole Hubble sequence. The extensive data samples of Roberts and Haynes (1994) and Buta et al. (1994) have been used as a reference in this regard (cf. Fig. 7).

A slightly subsolar mean metallicity (i.e. $`<`$\[Fe/H\]$`>`$ $`=0.5`$ dex) is assumed for the disk stellar population. This is meant to be a representative average of the whole stellar population at the different epochs. Our choice agrees with Arimoto and Jablonka (1991), who suggest a luminosity-weighted value of $`<`$\[Fe/H\]$`>0.3`$ dex for their later-type galaxy models at 15 Gyr. The empirical age-metallicity calibration for the Milky Way by Edvardsson et al. (1993) also provides a value of $`<`$\[Fe/H\]$`>=0.47`$ dex when averaging on current stellar age. The conclusions of Sec. 2.2 assure us, however, that metallicity is not a critical parameter for model predictions as far as UV evolution is concerned.

Table 3 gives a global summary of the adopted distinctive parameters for the different Hubble types at 15 Gyr (cf. also Table 1 in Massarotti et al. 2001a for a synopsis with the output of other synthesis codes). Figure 8 displays the calibration of $`b`$ vs. de Vaucouleurs’ “T” morphological type, and the current disk SFR expected for template galaxies of total mass M$`{}_{tot}{}^{}=10^{11}`$ M. These results consistently compare with the empirical estimate of Kennicutt et al. (1994).

### 3.2 Model output

Theoretical evolution of galaxy color and luminosity, pertinent to the different Hubble morphological types, is summarized in the series of Tables 4 to 9. All the color entries in the tables are given in AB magnitude scale444For example, $`(U_{20}B)=2.5(\mathrm{log}L_{2000}\mathrm{log}L_B)`$, in the frequency domain, according e.g. to Oke and Schild (1970) including the Johnson $`(UB)`$, while $`L_B`$ is given in erg s-1Hz-1 and $`L_{Bol}`$ in erg s-1. Total luminosity of late-type galaxy models is normalized so as to provide a disk SFR $`=1`$ M yr-1 at 15 Gyr; the template elliptical (taken from Buzzoni 1995) is scaled to a total mass of $`\mathrm{5.0\; 10}^{11}`$ M. The corresponding value of Mtot for the other galaxy templates is reported in each table. This value only refers to the amount of mass converted in stars (that is M$`{}_{tot}{}^{}=\mathrm{SFR}dt`$) and therefore does not include residual gas. By definition, its value increases with time. Absolute bolometric magnitude can be derived from the data as $`\mathrm{𝐵𝑜𝑙}=2.5(\mathrm{log}L_{Bol}33.59)+4.72`$.

A preliminary “sanity check” of our theoretical output is performed in Fig. 9, which compare with the Buta et al. (1994) empirical $`UB`$ locus for over 2500 local galaxies in the RC3 catalog (de Vaucouleurs et al. 1991). It should be pointed out, in this regard, that this check is not completely independent, since I already used the Buta et al. $`BV`$ distribution to constrain the SFR; this would actually “recover” any further internal mechanism modulating the galaxy SED. In any case, it is comforting to see from Fig. 9 that the previous $`BV`$ vs. S/T calibration correctly accounts, within the internal scatter of the observations, also for the $`UB`$ color trend vs. “T” morphological parameter.

The models given in Tables 49 better focus on “late” galaxy evolution, after the first Gyr of life, when low-mass stars with M $`2.0`$ M dominate galaxy bolometric luminosity, and bulge and disk subsystems begin to differentiate morphology along the Hubble sequence (Larson 1975, 1976; Firmani and Tutukov 1992). Evolution is less univocally constrained at earlier epochs, where convection and mass loss via stellar winds (both depending on metallicity) play an important role in high-mass stars and affect, among other things, the luminosity partition between blue and red giant stars or the relative contribution of Wolf-Rayet stars (see Mass-Hesse and Kunth 1991, Cerviño and Mass-Hesse 1994, and especially Cerviño et al. 2002 for a quantitative assessment of these problems on the framework of stellar population synthesis).

A complementary in-depth analysis of the first $`10^9`$ yrs in star-forming galaxies has been carried out by Leitherer and Heckman (1995) and Leitherer et al. (1999). Their models take into account in some detail spectrophotometric evolution of high-mass stars in different theoretical environments including continuous star formation and SSP evolution. A match of our synthesis models and the Leitherer et al. output for $`Z_{}`$ and a Salpeter IMF is shown in Fig. 10. We see that SSP evolution consistently describes early-type systems at primeval epochs, while continuous SFR accounts for late-type and irregular galaxies. It is interesting to note, in addition, that colors of both ellipticals and late-type galaxies “degenerate” in the first few Myr, that is, on a timescale comparable to $`t_{min}`$, as expected from eq. (6).

Restframe evolution of the $`(U_{20}B)`$ AB color for the different galaxy morphological types is displayed in Fig. 11. Only ellipticals show a drastic color change becoming sensibly bluer at earlier epochs; late-type systems remain on the contrary more or less the same, since they are dominated throughout by fresh star formation.

The theoretical M/L ratio at 2000 Å for model ellipticals and irregulars is explored in Fig. 12. I have considered the actual total mass of the galaxies, Mtot, in solar unit according to the previous definition, while the 2000 Å luminosity derives from Table 4 and 9 as $`\mathrm{log}L_{2000}=\mathrm{log}L_B0.4(U_{20}B)`$. The value has been converted to solar units assuming $`L_{}=\mathrm{2.39\hspace{0.17em}10}^{15}`$ erg s-1 Hz-1 for the Sun at 2000 Å as from a Kurucz (1992) $`(T_{\mathrm{𝑒𝑓𝑓}},\mathrm{log}g)=(5780\mathrm{K},4.5\mathrm{dex})`$ model atmosphere. As a striking feature, note that at 2000 Å enhanced star formation makes Im galaxies nearly four orders of magnitude brighter than ellipticals, at comparable total mass. The role of late-type systems as powerful (and possibly dominant) contributors to the cosmic UV background has recently been emphasized by Steidel et al. (2001) and Bianchi et al. (2001) through their study of Lyman-break galaxies.

## 4 Comparison with UV observations

Because of the intrinsic physical limits of atmosphere absorption, a study of local galaxies below 3500 Å perforce relies on a quite scanty set of data, mainly from IUE observations and balloon-borne missions. The work of Donas et al. (1987), collecting 2000 Å photometry for 149 mainly late-type galaxies from the SCAP 2000 balloon-borne mission, provides an important reference in this regard. Despite the large uncertainties in the original flux calibration, and the somewhat heterogeneous match between $`U_{20}`$ and (external) $`B`$ photometry, a comparison with our model predictions can be attempted in Fig. 13. The original data have been corrected for Milky Way extinction, relying on the Burstein and Heiles (1984) reddening map to estimate the color excess for each galaxy in the sample. According to Seaton (1979), the reddening vector is $`E(U_{20}B)/E(BV)=4.63`$, as displayed in the figure.

Three main features are worth of attention in the plot. i) The data distribution spans a wider range in $`BV`$, with “blue” and “red” outliers with respect to the 15 Gyr late-type model sequence. ii) The “thickness” of the $`U_{20}B`$ data distribution exceeds the internal photometric error \[reportedly $`\sigma (U_{20}B)=\pm 0.5`$ mag\], reaching a dispersion of $`\pm 0.93`$ mag for Sa-Sb types and $`\pm 0.65`$ mag for later types spirals and irregulars, as indicated by Donas et al. (1987). iii) The observations tend to be $`0.5`$ mag “redder” in $`U_{20}B`$ than the late-type model sequence with M$`{}_{up}{}^{}=120`$ M.

A careful analysis of the data shows that the three blue outliers \[i.e. those galaxies with $`(BV)0`$ in Fig. 13\] are all Im systems ($`T=910`$) with active star formation. Their integrated colors are consistent with a bulk of early-type stars (i.e. of spectral type $`A5`$ V or earlier) and therefore indicate a younger age. This is confirmed by a better fit with our 1 Gyr Im model, as reported in the figure. On the other side, the five “red” outliers \[i.e. those with $`(BV)0.7`$ in the plot\] are all early-type or bulge-dominated systems, and are in fact “bluer” outliers when compared with the $`U_{20}B`$ color of the early-type template models. These data could easily be accounted for by the $`E/S0`$ templates considering a weak ($`0.2`$ Myr-1) residual star formation instead of a plain SSP evolution (as assumed in our calculations, cf. Table 3). Although also marginally detectable in the $`UB`$ plot (cf. Fig. 9), this feature more sensibly affects the 2000 Å luminosity by changing the UV vs. optical relative emission of the galaxies. In this sense, it is important to stress that UV colors of our $`E/S0`$ models should be taken as redder (upper) limits, as indicated in Fig. 13.

Concerning point ii), Donas et al. (1987) ascribe most of the observed $`U_{20}B`$ scatter to intrinsic galaxy-to-galaxy SFR variations. As expected, the effect should magnify at UV wavelengths, compared for example to the $`BV`$ scatter. According to eq. (6), the intrinsic $`U_{20}B`$ distribution implies a SFR dispersion of over a factor of two among galaxies of the same morphological type. Table 3 helps translating this effect in term of $`BV`$ variation. By doubling the disk birthrate, for example between the Sc and the Im template, we have a change of $`\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)=0.1`$ mag in the galaxy integrated color; this leads to a slope of roughly $`\mathrm{\Delta }(U_{20}B)/\mathrm{\Delta }(BV)7`$ for the star-formation “color vector” of late-type systems.

As a final point in our discussion, the “redder” offset of the $`U_{20}B`$ color distribution with respect to the model sequence is open to different explanations (apart from the comparable internal uncertainty in the $`U_{20}`$ photometric zero-point of the observations). According to Table 2, a lower UV emission can be achieved either by decreasing the IMF upper cutoff or with a steeper IMF slope (that is assuming a dwarf-dominated stellar population); alternatively, we should call for a systematically lower stellar birthrate in the galaxies. In any case, the required change both in the IMF slope and in the current SFR would also lead to an exceedingly redder $`BV`$ (Buzzoni 1989), while a lower value for Mup could better match the data by selectively reducing the 2000 Å emission alone, as shown in Fig. 13.

A further and possibly crucial issue in this regard, however, is the galaxy internal extinction; the presence of dust would in fact act in the sense of a systematic bias toward redder UV colors. According to the Calzetti (1999) attenuation law, we obtain a color vector $`E(U_{20}B)/E(BV)=3.70`$, so that a typical (internal) color excess $`E(BV)0.1`$ mag could fairly account for the observations.

### 4.1 Dust and UV absorption

Our models for galaxy spectral evolution do not explicitly include dust absorption. Its effect on galaxy SED is in the sense of suppressing UV emission and enhancing infrared luminosity, as a consequence of the thermalization process. In addition to stellar extinction, when considering external galaxies we should also account for the contribution of grain scattering, as well as the geometry of dust distribution and its partition between diffuse and “clumpy” phases. While scattering could sensibly alleviate the UV extinction (Bruzual et al. 1988; Witt et al. 1992), a prevailing presence of dust segregated in interstellar clouds would act in the opposite sense (Calzetti et al. 1994; Kuchinski et al. 1998).

A direct way to probe dust attenuation in the galaxy SED is to evaluate the flattening of the spectral slope at short wavelength, assuming $`L(\lambda )\lambda ^\beta `$ (Kinney et al. 1993). In agreement with Leitherer’s et al. (1999) calculations, our dust-free models predict for late-type galaxies a value of $`\beta 2.4`$ in the wavelength range 1600–2800 Å (cf. Tables 5-9). This should be regarded as a lower limit to the observations, since $`\beta `$ will in general increase (up to positive values) in presence of dust absorption. Note, by the way, that the spectral slope $`\beta `$ is basically equivalent to a measure of the AB color in the relevant wavelength range. From the $`U_{16}`$ and $`U_{28}`$ AB magnitudes we have, for instance, $`\beta =1.65(U_{16}U_{28})2`$.555By definition, $`\beta =\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}F(\lambda )/\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}\lambda `$ and $`\mathrm{log}F(\lambda )=\mathrm{log}F(\nu )2\mathrm{log}(\lambda /c)`$. Replacing the AB color definition, $`C=2.5\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}F(\nu )`$, we finally obtain $`\beta =(0.4/\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}\lambda )C2`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{log}\lambda `$ is the logarithm of the wavelength baseline on which I compute $`C`$.

The spectral slope for local galaxies along the whole Hubble morphological type can be probed relying on the catalog of Rifatto et al. (1995). These authors collected homogeneous data for a wide sample of 400 galaxies, mainly from the IUE database, reporting magnitudes in three photometric bands at 1650, 2500, and 3150 Å. Although not perfectly coincident with our wavelength range, a consistent estimate of $`\beta `$ can be obtained for a total of 161 galaxies from the 1650 and 2500 Å magnitudes. In this regard, we preferred not to extrapolate the data to our 1600–2800 Å interval, since only a few galaxies in the Rifatto et al. (1995) catalog have confident observations at 3150 Å, and this would have drastically reduced the useful sample for our analysis. Figure 14 summarizes the observed $`\beta `$ distribution for the late-type galaxy subsample (93 galaxies in total). To study a possible trend with galaxy morphology, data have been grouped in five bins according to the de Vaucouleurs’ $`T`$ parameter, as indicated in the plots. In addition to the Rifatto et al. (1995) sample, the figure also includes the relevant results for 19 starburst galaxies from Gordon et al. (1997) with complete 7-band photometry between 1250 and 2895 Å; this allowed a confident estimate of $`\beta `$ at the nominal wavelength range of the models.

As a general trend, note from Fig. 14 that galaxy distribution always peaks, on average, at flatter UV slopes (i.e. $`\beta >2.4`$) compared to our theoretical lower limit; this indicates that some intervening absorption is systematically affecting the observations, with starburst and later-type galaxies (type Sd/Im) marginally more obscured with respect to Sa/Sb systems. The effect of dust reddening seems to exceed the internal uncertainty of the data, that is, $`\sigma (\beta )\pm 0.7`$ for Rifatto et al. (1995) and $`\sigma (\beta )\pm 0.25`$ for Gordon et al. (1997). The Gordon et al. (1997) data were originally corrected for the average Galactic extinction, and they better track the net effect of internal dust absorption. This is not the case for the Rifatto et al. (1995) sample, where the UV flattening is a sum of both internal galaxy attenuation and Milky Way extinction.

According to the Seaton (1979) extinction law, the expected reddening vector for the 1600–2800 Å UV slope is $`\mathrm{\Delta }\beta /E(BV)=3.1`$, while the Calzetti (1999) attenuation law suggests $`\mathrm{\Delta }\beta /E(BV)=4.5`$. An average flattening of $`\mathrm{\Delta }\beta 1`$, as shown by the data, therefore implies an internal color excess of $`E(BV)0.2`$ mag, consistent with the Donas et al. (1987) data. This is about a 2 mag extinction at 1600 Å, according to Calzetti (1999).

### 4.2 Dust absorption and high-redshift galaxy evolution

The role of dust has raised to a central issue in the current cosmological debate, given its importance for a fair determination of the cosmic SFR through the UV observation of high-redshift galaxies (Hughes et al. 1998; Steidel et al. 1999; Massarotti et al. 2001b; Hopkins et al. 2001).

Generally speaking, a large fraction of residual gas, such as in primeval galaxies, should call for a low amount of dust. The latter is in fact a natural output of stellar evolution (mass loss and supernova events actually supply the basic ingredients for grain formation), and should therefore follow star formation not precede it. As a matter of fact, however, young starbursters certainly appear to be more dust-rich than old quiescent ellipticals (Calzetti et al. 1994). The association of greater quantities of dust with strongly star-forming galaxies may perhaps be due to a shorter timescale for dust than for star formation, or more likely to a feedback process, by which starbursts preferentially occur in dense gas/molecular clouds already heavily contaminated by dust.

Both these arguments point to a tight relationship between dust absorption (and its induced IR emission) and galaxy UV luminosity, as found by Meurer et al. (1999); apparently, this correlation is already in place at high redshift, as demonstrated by Adelberger and Steidel (2000). A dominant contribution of the UV-selected galaxy population to the IR cosmic background is also in line with the results of Massarotti et al. (2001b), who fully reconcile the SCUBA estimates for SFR density at high $`z`$ (Barger et al. 2001) with the Hubble Deep Field optical observations.

An important point that one should bear in mind, however, is that dust comes from cumulative processes inside galaxies, and its content should generally increase with time; contrary to the observations, this would predict more heavily obscured systems at present time. In order to break this apparent dichotomy we need to “split”, at some point of galaxy evolution, the distribution of the luminous matter (i.e. stars) and dust. The case of our own galaxy might be explanatory in this sense.

Because of a higher velocity dispersion and supernova shock waves, young O-B associations leave parent molecular clouds and spread their B stars across the disk on a timescale of some $`10^7`$ yrs, a value comparable to the lifetime of stars of 5-10 M (see, in this regard, the classical work of Becker and Fenkart 1963, or the recent contribution of Hoogerwerf et al. 2001). If this is the case also for external galaxies, then an increasing fraction of luminous matter would quickly escape the regions of harder and “clumpy” dust absorption (á la Calzetti 1999) moving towards a milder and “scattered” dust environment (á la Bruzual et al. 1988). This scenario would consistently explain, among other things, why dust attenuation seems to affect more severely gas clouds than stars even in starburst galaxies (Calzetti et al. 1994).

## 5 Summary and conclusions

In this paper I have explored some relevant features dealing with the UV luminosity evolution of primeval galaxies, in view of a direct application to high-redshift studies. This has been done via a new set of evolutionary population synthesis models that provided reference templates for different galaxy morphological types. Theoretical SEDs for late- and early-type systems have been derived, together with detailed luminosity evolution at 1600, 2000, and 2800 Å.

As expected, the galaxy UV luminosity below 3000 Å is largely dominated by the high-mass stellar component, and the distinctive properties of the integrated SED are nearly independent of both the total mass of the galaxy and its past star formation history. At every age, this leads to a direct relationship between galaxy UV luminosity and actual SFR (cf. eq. 6 and Fig. 4).

Due to a faster evolution of the bulge stellar population (basically a SSP with $`L_{UV}t^\gamma `$ and $`\gamma 1`$), the high-redshift ancestors of present-day spirals should appear as sharply nucleated objects displaying scarce or no morphological structure. In addition, early galaxy evolution ($`t1`$ Gyr) could also display some color “degeneracy” in the UV range (cf. Fig. 10) loosing any clear relationship between photometric properties and galaxy morphology along the Hubble sequence. This effect should not be neglected for its possible importance in a fair sampling of the galaxy population at high redshift (Buzzoni 1998).

The claimed role of late-type systems as prevailing contributors to the cosmic UV background is reinforced by our results; at 2000 Å Im irregulars are found in fact nearly four orders of magnitude brighter than ellipticals, per unit luminous mass (cf. Fig. 12).

The UV wavelength range is especially sensitive to dust absorption; this problem should be properly assessed in high-redshift studies. The SED of local starburst and late-type galaxies shows clear evidence of some intrinsic reddening systematically affecting galaxies in their active star-forming stage. The amount of luminosity extinction for these objects sensibly depends on the assumed dust environment and grain properties, but it may be as high as 2 mag at 1600 Å in the most typical cases.

Dust is expected to cumulate along the galaxy lifetime, so that the $`M_{dust}/L`$ ratio should increase more than linearly with time for both spirals and ellipticals. However, the apparent lack of strong reddening in old quiescent systems at present time indicates that even in the UV range most of the luminous contribution comes from relatively unabsorbed stars. This would call for some evolution in the dust environment, where a pristine “clumpy” extinction regime, such as in the Calzetti et al. (1994) scheme, would quickly turn into a diffuse “scattered” reddening, as in the Bruzual et al. (1988) models.

It is a pleasure to thank the anonymous referee for his/her important suggestions that greatly helped tuning the original discussion. Emanuele Bertone is acknowledged for his precious help with the calculations of the Kurucz model atmospheres, used in this work. This project received partial financial support from the Italian MURST under COFIN’98 02-013 and COFIN’00 02-016 grants.