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# UU Aqr from high to low state

## 1 Introduction

Cataclysmic variables (CVs) are close interacting binaries in which the white dwarf, the primary component, accretes matter from a red dwarf companion (for extensive reviews on CVs see Warner 1995 or Hellier 2001). Depending on the strength of the magnetic field of the white dwarf and the mass accretion rate from the secondary the system geometry and physics of accretion varies. We deal in this paper with a white dwarf primary that has a negligible magnetic field. In this case the matter drawn from the secondary is accreted through an accretion disc. A relatively high accretion rate as in the nova-like UU Aqr leads presumably to a steady state disc that does not show outbursts like low accretion rate dwarf novae.

UU Aqr is a relatively bright CV with a magnitude of 13.5 and an orbital period of $`3^h56^m`$ that was first reckognized as an eclipsing CV by Volkov, Shugarov & Seregina (1986). This makes it a relatively easy target to observe and indeed it has been observed in the IR (Dhillon et al. 2000, Huber & Howell 1999), in the UV (White et al. 1995) as well in the optical wavelength range. Optical photometry was reported by Honeycutt, Robertson & Turner (1998) and Baptista, Steiner & Cieslinski (1994, hereafter BSC) while optical spectroscopic data were analysed by Baptista et al. (2000), Kaitchuck et al. (1998), Hoard et al. (1998), Diaz & Steiner (1991), and Haefner (1989). It has not been detected in the ROSAT PSPC All Sky Survey (Verbunt et al. 1997) like two thirds of the nova-like systems in Verbunt et al.’s list. These observations have led to relatively well-defines system parameters, like the inclination angle $`i=78^{}`$, mass ratio $`q=0.30`$ and white dwarf mass $`_{wd}=0.67_{}`$.

Since it shows single peaked emission line profiles, Baptista, Steiner & Horne (1996, hereafter BSH) first proposed that UU Aqr is a member of the SW Sex type CVs. Other features of these objects are phase-dependent absorption components, hardly eclipsed emission lines, and large phase shifts between photometric and spectroscopic ephemerides. Doppler maps are bright in the lower left quadrant and the eclipses are V shaped, indicating a flat temperature profile (e.g. Warner 1995). Furthermore, these systems do not usually show the rotational disturbance of an eclipsed accretion disc.

UU Aqr shows all these features (for a summary see Baptista et al. 2000). Haefner (1989) already found the emission line profiles to be variable and states that it “indicates several sources of emission within the system: symmetrical profiles as well as strong asymmetries or even double peaks are present”. The variability could be caused by a variable disc wind which sometimes is substantially reduced allowing the double peaked emission from the disc to be seen. Kaichuck et al. (1998) and Baptista et al. (2000) suggest that the emission lines originate in a chromosphere and a disc wind and/or that the disc has a disc anchored magnetic propeller in which the gas is ejected in all directions. Hoard et al. (1998) propose a detailed model for the emission and absorption sites in the disc.

BSH discovered that UU Aqr changes between high and low states on a timescale of a couple of years and that the main difference is the presence of a bright spot in the high state and lack of it in the low state. In addition, Honeycutt et al. (1998) observed so-called “stunted” outbursts which have the duration of a dwarf nova outburst, but only small amplitudes of less than a magnitude (compared to 2-3 mag in dwarf novae outbursts).

The aim of this paper is to investigate quantitatively the difference between high and low states and the variation within those states. We analysed BSH’s eclipse light curves individually and combined them in six sub-states to minimize the influence of flickering and flaring.

A second objective was to determine the distance to UU Aqr using the PPEM method and compare it to previous estimates. BSC determined a distance of 270$`\pm `$ 50 pc by fitting the white dwarf flux. In BSH they used a method similar to cluster main sequence fitting and arrived at a distance of 200$`\pm `$30 pc.

## 2 The data and system parameters

The data set was previously presented by BSC and BSH. The 37 eclipses of UU Aqr observations were taken with the 0.6m and the 1.6m telescopes of the Laboratorio Nacional da Astrofisica (LNA/CNPq) in Brasil. Further details about the data aquisition and reduction can be found in BSC.

Apart from analysing only the high and low state data, we also analysed the individual light curves with the PPEM method. The aim was to retrieve more detail using the PPEM algorithm, since this method allows us to obtain the distributions of temperature and surface density over the disc using the information of the five colours simultaneously.

## 3 The PPEM analysis

The Physical Parameter Eclipse Mapping method was presented by Vrielmann, Horne & Hessman (1999, hereafter VHH). An overview of applications of this method to various systems is given in Vrielmann (2001). Vrielmann, Stiening & Offutt (2002a) and Vrielmann, Hessman & Horne (2002b) show applications to V2051 Oph and HT Cas, respectively. We will give here only a very short description of the method, the interested reader is referred to the above articles for more details.

The idea is based on the Eclipse Mapping developed by Horne (1985) which uses the eclipse profile in order to reconstruct the light distribution in the eclipsed source, i.e. the white dwarf and the accretion disc. Hereby, a Maximum-Entropy-Method (MEM) helps to choose the distribution (or map) with the least structure still compatible with the observed data.

PPEM goes a step further in that it uses multi-band light curves in order to reconstruct distributions of physical parameters, e.g. the temperature and surface density of the eclipsed object. This means a spectral model for the emissivity of these objects has to be adopted.

In this study, we use white dwarf spectra and a simple, pure hydrogen spectrum for the accretion disc as described in the next Section. Future studies (see Vrielmann, Still & Horne 2002c) will include more sophisticated disc model, like those computed by Hubeny (1991).

### 3.1 The spectral model used for PPEM

For the reconstruction of the physical parameters we used a uniform, pure hydrogen LTE slab including only free-free and bound-free emission (as described in more detail in VHH):

$$I_\nu (T,\mathrm{\Sigma })=B_\nu (T)\left[1e^{\frac{\tau _\nu }{\mathrm{cos}i}}\right]$$
(1)
where $`B_\nu (T)`$ is the blackbody spectrum, $`i`$ the inclination angle and $`\tau _\nu `$ the optical depth, calculated as:

$$\tau _\nu =\kappa _\nu \mathrm{\Sigma }$$
(2)
where $`\kappa _\nu (\rho ,T)`$ is the mass absorption coefficient for hydrogen, including atomic and H- bound-free and free-free contributions. The mass-density $`\rho `$ is calculated from $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ and $`T`$ using the vertical half-thickness ($`c_s`$: sound speed, $`V_{\text{Kepler}}`$: keplerian velocity):

$$H(R,T)=\frac{c_s(T)R}{V_{\text{Kepler}}}$$
(3)
For $`\frac{\tau }{\mathrm{cos}i}1`$, Eqn. 1 transforms into the optically thick case $`I_\nu B_\nu (T)`$. For the optically thin case $`\frac{\tau }{\mathrm{cos}i}1`$, Eqn. 1 reduces to $`I_\nu (T)\frac{\tau }{\mathrm{cos}i}B_\nu (T)`$.

We choose the parameters temperature $`T`$ and surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ to be reconstructed. From the reconstructed maps in $`T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ we can e.g. calculate the effective temperatures, the optical depth, or the Balmer Jump strength, i.e. the ratio $`I_\nu (T,\mathrm{\Sigma })/B_\nu (T)`$ (see Section 4.1).

Although this model is simple, it is very useful, because it allows us to diffentiate between optically thick and optically thin parts, or more generally, disc regions with emissivity resembling or deviating from the black body spectrum. Furthermore, for typical temperatures and surface densities in real discs, LTE and the pure hydrogen assumption are good approximations. On the other hand, the opacity in the cooler regions of real disc will be typically much higher, leading to overestimated temperatures for disc regions cooler than about 6300 K. For a more detailed discussion on the applicability of the model see Vrielmann et al. (2002b).

Thus, deviations from BB emission (Balmer jump in emission or absorption) are attributed to optical depth effects. If such deviations are instead due to temperature gradients in the disc atmosphere, our simple model will produce systematic errors. In realistic discs, it is possible that the inner part of the disc shows a stellar-type decreasing temperature with disc height while the outer regions show a chromospheric-type temperature inversion. If this is the case our simple model will fail.

### 3.2 PPEM distance estimates

Using the PPEM method we determined a new distance estimate for UU Aqr. The distance-entropy relation for the fits to the high and low state data is plotted in Fig. 1 and shows clear peaks at 206 pc and 208 pc. Due to lack of any true constraint to weigh the two values we take the simple average of the distance (207 pc). In Vrielmann et al. (2002b) we show a test case using an artifical non-axisymmetric disc and derive a distance 2.5 % larger than the assumed true distance. We have not included reddening in these calculation, however, as BSH point out, the reddening is nearly negligible and would change the distance by at most 5 pc. We estimate therefore the total error of the distance to 10 pc with the assumption that our spectral model describes the true emissivity reasonable well. For the following calculations we used the trial distance (and BSH’s distance) of 200 pc which should give basically identical results.

Our distance estimate is in very good agreement with BSH’s value of $`200\pm 30`$ pc using a method similar to cluster main sequence fitting for the accretion disc, however, it is only marginally compatible with their distance derived from a fit to the white dwarf flux by BSC. As BSC remark, they may have over-estimated the radius of the white dwarf and included (part of) the boundary layer in its estimate.

This again shows that the PPEM method is in principle a very good method to estimate distances of real objects. However, as described in Vrielmann et al. (2002b) in the case that the disc has patches that lead to a covering factor less than unity the PPEM distance would be overestimated. The fact that our estimate agrees with BSH’s and is smaller (rather than larger) than the white dwarf estimate by BSC leads to the conclusion that the disc is probably not patchy.

### 3.3 The light curves

While BHS have binned the light curves by year of observation and then separated into high and low states, we rearranged the light curves according to decreasing out-of-eclipse flux in V. Since this did not yield a clear separation into two different states, i.e. the high and low state, instead, we recognized six categories and binned them accordingly into 6 sub-states (see Tab 1).

However, checking which light curves contributed to which sub-state, we can rediscover the high and low states recognized by BHS: the high state consisting of the sub-states 1 to 4 and the low state of sub-states 5 and 6. The eclipses in sub-state 5 and 6 were taken in different years or seasons, i.e. in 1988 and 1992, than the eclipses in the other sub states (taken in 1989 and 1990, with the exception of eclipse #15200). A comparison with Honeycutt et al.’s (1998) data shows that in July 1992 UU Aqr was in a low state (however, not in the lowest possible) with a V magnitude of about 13.8, while at other times it varies around a V magnitude of 13.5. Some ten days later (perhaps 30, definitely 50) UU Aqr experienced a so-called “stunted” outburst111These “stunted” outburst have a small amplitude, but usual length and were observed in nova-likes and old novae by Honeycutt et al. (1998). Unfortunately, there is no more overlap between the two data sets. Apparently, the systems either rests in a low state or varies within the brighter 4 sub-states.

We cannot exclude that the odd eclipse (e.g. #8512 (sub-state 2?), #8531 (sub-state 3?), #10823 (sub-state 3?)) might be missclassified (to a sub-state too high), because the light curves usually only cover the immediate eclipse and not enough signal before and after the ingress and egress, respectively, to decide whether the flux just preceding or following the eclipse was contaminated by a flicker or a broad hump.

During the high state the system often changes in flux. The average time scales for dropping from one sub-state to another is about five orbital cycles or more. However, on two occasions the system dropped from sub-state 1 to 4 within 6 cycles. The rise from one sub-state to another, even jumping an intermediate sub-state, however, can occur much quicker, sometimes within one cycle.

In the case of the eclipses #8530 and #8531, during which the system jumped two (or at least one) sub-states upwards, an inspection of the original light curves clearly shows an increase in the redder passbands (i.e. in BVRI). Furthermore, the eclipse #8531 is much shallower (also especially in the redder filters) and shows indications of a bright spot. We must therefore conclude that the system indeed changed significantly within this particular orbit, possibly due to an increase in the uneclipsed component (disc wind).

The binned light curves in UBVRI are shown in Fig. 2, together with the fits, the residuals and the uneclipsed component. All light curves show a shallower egress than ingress, indicative of a bright spot, however, the asymmetry is strongest in the light curves of the higher sub-states.

The amount of flickering and noise in the binned light curves is inversely proportional to the number of individual light curves in the respective bin number.

## 4 Results

### 4.1 The reconstructed accretion disc

We reconstructed two-dimensional temperature $`T`$ and surface density $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ distributions of the accretion disc. As explained in VHH, the parameters can only be reconstructed with a certain accuracy, depending on the value of each parameter (i.e. the location in the parameter space). Usually, the temperature can be reconstructed with a better accuracy than the surface density. (We strongly recommend the reader to study the article VHH). As explained in Vrielmann et al. (2002a) and (2002b) the effective temperature, which also depends on the total emission (the quantity that is fitted), is usually relatively acurately reproduced. Furthermore, this parameter is also usually dealt with in theoretical studies.

Another useful tool to investigate the accretion disc physics is the parameter $`I_{T,\mathrm{\Sigma }}/I_{BB}`$, where $`I_{T,\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ is the intensity derived from the $`T,\mathrm{\Sigma }`$ maps and $`I_{BB}`$ the black body temperature derived from the $`T`$ map alone. This parameter measures the deviations of the observed spectrum from a blackbody spectrum of same temperature and, differently from $`T`$ and $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$, is a model-independent quantity. It may also be understood as a measurement of the Balmer Jump strength. According to the adopted spectral model, where this value reaches unity the disc is optically thick and in regions where the emissivity deviates from the black body it assumes values $`0<I_{T,\mathrm{\Sigma }}/I_{BB}<1`$. In extremely dim regions (which can de facto mean outside the true disc radius) this ratio can also reach nearly unity, because of the small values for $`I_{T,\mathrm{\Sigma }}`$ and $`I_{BB}`$ involved.

Fig. 3 and 4 show the effective temperature and Balmer Jump strength ($`I_{T,\mathrm{\Sigma }}/I_{BB}`$) distribution derived from the reconstructed temperature and surface density distributions. The pattern for $`I_{T,\mathrm{\Sigma }}/I_{BB}`$ and the effective temperature (not shown) are similar, indicating that hot regions are emitting optically thick and cooler regions deviate from a black body source of same temperature. Most prominent is the clear transition between the optically thick inner part of the disc with a radius of between 0.3$`R_{L1}`$ and 0.25$`R_{L1}`$ in the highest and lowest sub-states, respectively, and the outer, optically thin regions (see also Section 4.2.3).

We remark that the observed deviations from blackbody emission in the outer disc regions, interpreted in the framework of our simple spectral model as the signature of optically thin emission, can have a different interpretation, namely, that the outer parts of the disc show a vertical structure with a temperature inversion possibly caused by irradiation from the hot, inner disc regions.

The maps show that the bright spot, expected to appear where the accretion stream hits the disc, is strongest in the hottest states and curiously in the intermediate state (bin 4). The bin 4 light curve in Fig. 2 shows a dip during egress at phase 0.08 and a kink at phase $`0.04`$ that must be responsible for the spot in the reconstructed map. It is unlikely that this spot is due to an unfortunate contamination of flickering, because 10 light curves contributed to this bin and any such arbitrary effect should have been averaged out.

The radial distribution of the effective temperature $`T_{\text{eff}}(R)`$ follows the steady state distribution only in the outer parts of the disc. In the inner, optically thick, part of the disc $`T_{\text{eff}}(R)`$ flattens out, irrespective of the sub-state. This flattening in the innermost part with radii $`R<0.1R_{L1}`$ can only partly be attributed to the MEM smearing (see VHH). BSH also found a flattening in their maps of UU Aqr and Rutten, van Paradijs & Tinbergen (1992) in SW Sex and V1315 Aql. It appears to be a feature of SW Sex stars. However, another interpretation is that the Balmer Jump in the inner part could be in absorption. Since our simple model cannot handle this, the effective temperatures in the inner disc and subsequently also the mass accretion rates might be underestimated.

The mass accretion rate in the outer regions of the disc varies between $`5\times 10^{16}`$gs-1 in the highest sub-state (1 and 2) via $`3.5\times 10^{16}`$gs-1 in the intermediate sub-states (3 to 5) and $`2.5\times 10^{16}`$gs-1 in the lowest (6). However, in the bright spot it can reach values of up to $`3\times 10^{17}`$gs-1. Since the effective temperature distribution is rather flat in the inner disc, it drops to about $`4\times 10^{15}`$gs-1 in the innermost part of the disc in all sub-states.

Fig. 3 and 4 also show the critical effective temperature $`T_{\text{eff},\mathrm{A}}(R)`$ derived from the critical mass accretion rate $`\dot{}_\mathrm{A}(R)`$ as given by Ludwig et al. (1994). In nova-likes the effective disc temperatures should lie above this critical value as to prevent any dwarf nova-type outbursts. The plots show that the inner optically thick part of the disc is at all times well above this critical limit. However, the outer parts fall partly below, especially in regions away from the bright spot. This might be the reason for the mini-outbursts observed by Honeycutt et al. (1998).

The size of the optically thick region (see also Section 4.2.3), the presence of the bright spot and the mass accretion rate suggest that in sub-states 1 and 4 the disc is most active. It is possible that the activity starts at the bright spot and only slowly works itself through to the inner parts of the disc (#8518 to #8524 and #8030 to #8042) or that the disc emission drops suddenly (#8512 to #8518 and #9025 to #9031) without immediately affecting the presence of the bright spot.

We performed PPEM on all individual light curves for comparison and statistical uses. Images of the intensity ratio maps and radial effective temperature profiles can be viewed at http://pinguin.ast.uct.ac.za/$``$sonja/uuaqrmaps.html. A postscript file of the maps can also be downloaded.

In the following Sections we focus on the white dwarf temperature, the uneclipsed component and the disc radius as reconstructed for various sub-states.

### 4.2 Various aspects of the reconstructions

#### 4.2.1 The white dwarf

The white dwarf temperature $`T_{wd}`$ as reconstructed for the light curves in the various sub-states is given in Tab. 2. We also list an average of the white dwarf temperatures reconstructed after applying the PPEM method to the individual light curves. In principle these temperatures should be roughly identical, however, flickering and noise in the individual light curves affect the resulting individual $`T_{wd}`$’s. This is most likely the case for the two light curves in bin 6. Furthermore, we could not always fit the light curves to the same $`\chi ^2`$ without introducing severe artifacts. This might also influence the exact value of the reconstructed $`T_{wd}`$’s, as probably happened in bin 2. We therefore rely more on the values of $`T_{wd}`$ for the various substates rather than the individual $`T_{wd}`$’s. The error of the $`T_{wd,sub}`$ is about 1000 K. This is determined by the change in $`\chi ^2`$ due to an artificial change of the white dwarf temperature in the otherwise original reconstructed maps.

The $`T_{wd}`$’s derived for the four highest sub-states show a minimum for the lowest and highest ones. If one would assume the four sub-states to represent a time sequence, this could be understood as a reaction of the white dwarf temperature due to delayed accretion onto the white dwarf: In the hottest state the white dwarf temperature is practically identical to the low state temperature (sub-state 6). The accretion disc, however, experiences enhanced accretion into the bright spot, as evident from the prominent bright spot and reacts rather quickly. The white dwarf can only slowly react to this change in the accretion disc. Only in the second sub-state can the enhanced accretion onto the white dwarf be seen, the white dwarf temperature is at its maximum. For the next two bins the white dwarf cools down, however, the enhanced accretion during bin 4 leads to another white dwarf temperature maximum in bin 5. Bin 6 represent low states in which the disc and the white dwarf are at their lowest activity.

As beautiful as this scenario looks, there are, however, a few problems. First of all, the timescale for a change in the temperature of the white dwarf is too short. The white dwarf cannot cool down by a few 1000 K within a few orbits (less than a day) as would be required for both jumps from sub-state 1 to 4 for eclipses #8512 to #8518 and for #9025 to #9031 within 6 orbits.

Secondly, checking the light curves, the system does not always seem to cycle through all sub-states (e.g. cycling from 4 to 3 and back: #8518 $``$ #8524 $``$ #8525 $``$ #8530), or seems to spend some time in one intermediate sub-state before it suddenly jumps into a higher one (e.g. it rests in substate 2 during eclipses #8586 and #8591 before it jumps within one orbit to sub-state 1 (#8592)).

Since the sequences are unfortunately not taken continuously or with a constant time intervall it is difficult to determine how exactly the system behaved. Explicitly, we cannot always determine whether the system was on its way into a high state or low state. In this regard, it would be of great interest to gather light curves for several consecutive nights.

It seems more likely that the actual location for the variable source is the boundary layer around the white dwarf, since it is unlikely that the white dwarf can cool so quickly. The fastest cooling rate quoted by Sion (1999) is about 400-500 K per day (for RX And) instead of a few thousand Kelvin per orbit (4$`h`$) as would be necessary for UU Aqr. Although PPEM has a better constraint to determine the spatial distribution of physical parameters, we am still left with some ambiguity. The maximum entropy also prefers a solution with one bright image pixel (e.g. the white dwarf) to more structure distributed over a range of pixels, e.g. the inner part of the disc. Furthermore, the white dwarf pixel value is not smeared out with the surrounding disc pixels (VHH) which which will enhance this effect. The idea of a variable boundary layer also supports the consequences we find for the uneclipsed component as described in the following section.

The white dwarf temperatures are in general compatible with Sion’s (1999) results who finds an average white dwarf $`T_{\text{eff}}`$ of 24,100 K for non-magnetic systems.

#### 4.2.2 The uneclipsed component

The uneclipsed component for the various filters and bins is given in Tab. 3 and Fig. 5. The uneclipsed flux consists of the flux from the secondary and other sources in the system that are never eclipsed, like a disc wind or a chromosphere as suggested by Baptista et al. (2000).

The secondary has a mass of $`0.20\pm 0.07_{}`$ (BSC) which fits to a M(4$`\pm `$1)V dwarf star according to Kirkpatrick & McCarthy (1994). Table 3 gives the flux of an M4V dwarf star at a distance of 205 pc. If the secondary is a M4V dwarf, then the reconstructed I-band flux in sub-state 5 is too small. However, the test in Appendix A shows that the uneclipsed flux in all filters might be underestimated. Furthermore, the CVs analysed by Beuermann et al. (1998) with an orbital period similar to that of UU Aqr have a spectral type of M$`4\pm 1`$.

Another constraint for the spectral type of the secondary comes from the K light curve (Huber 2001, private communication). The out-of-eclipse light curve ($`m_K12`$ mag) shows orbital variation that can be attributed to the ellipsoidal change in surface area of the secondary and an eclipse of the secondary by the outer edges of the disc. The full amplitude is 0.14 mag or 13% of the minimum flux. An M4V dwarf has a K magnitude of 7.80 (Kirkpatrick & McCarthy 1994) and would therefore contribute 13% to the minimum K flux. If the secondary has a spectral type of M4V this means that it were fully eclipsed in order to cause the observed orbital variation. This cannot be the case. Only if it is brighter than a typical M4V dwarf can the ellipsoidal shape cause such strong orbital variation. The secondary should therefore have an earlier spectral type than M4V.

Our estimated limit for the secondary of 13% of the K flux is compatible with Dhillon et al.’s (2000) upper limit of 55% derived from the lack of absorption features in the IR spectra.

The remaining part of the uneclipsed component must arise in other parts of the system. As we show in Appendix A the excess in the uneclipsed B flux is an artifact due to the spectral model we used with PPEM. The cause is most likely that the size and optical depth of the bright spot is influenced by maximum entropy smearing. Disregarding the strong B-band flux the uneclipsed spectrum could be compatible with optically thin emission or more likely of an extended source with varying temperature and density. This could be from a disc chromosphere or a disc wind or a combination of both as suggested by Baptista et al. (2000).

A look at the changes of the uneclipsed contribution through the various sub-states show that the uneclipsed component seems to react even slower than the white dwarf temperature or boundary layer (if the substates do represent a time sequence). Only in sub-state 3 there is a significant increase in the uneclipsed component.

With the assumption that although the absolut flux units are errorneous, the shape of the uneclipsed spectrum in the UVRI passbands are represented correctly (see Appendix A), we can make a cautious statement about the variation of the uneclipsed spectrum with substate. The difference in flux in the various high sub-states appears to be constant with respect to wavelength except for a slight increase in the I-band. This is also true for the two low states and means that the varying part of the uneclipsed component either consists of a nearly wavelength independent plus a cool source or a moderately hot plus a cool source. The cool source could be the outer regions of a disc wind driven vertically out of the disc, as suggested already by BSC and calculated by Pereyra & Kallman (2000). Any fluctuations in the disc wind will be most noticeable in the outer, cooler regions of the disc wind.

IR spectra taken by Dhillon et al. (2000) show that the emission lines profiles of B$`\gamma `$ (Brackett series of H I), B$`\delta `$ and He I $`\lambda 2.0587\mu `$m are single-peaked. This is understandable if the emission lines originating in the cool disc wind dominate over the line emission from the disc. This disc wind is possibly triggered by the changes in the mass accretion rate.

#### 4.2.3 The disc radius

From the maps in Fig. 3 and 4 we measure the radius of the optically thick part of the disc and the bright spot, where applicable, i.e. for all but the last bin. The values are listed in Table 4.

A test with artificial data shows (Appendix A) that the spot location is reconstructed at a slightly larger azimuth (judging from the brightness maximum in the spot) and a slightly smaller radius, by about 0.07$`R_{L1}`$ (this value decreases with decreasing $`\chi ^2`$ and increasing signal-to-noise factor). The true spot locations will thus be at a slightly larger radius than given in Table 4.

The spot radius increases from sub-state 1 to 4. However, since the error bars are rather large, a constant spot radius of about $`R_{spot}(high)=0.51R_{L1}\pm 0.04R_{L1}(=(2.6\pm 0.2)\times 10^{10}`$ cm) is also compatible with the data. Only in the sub-state 5 does the spot radius decrease slightly to $`R_{spot}(low)=0.40R_{L1}(=2.1\times 10^{10}`$ cm).

The spot radius should be a good measure of the disc radius. However, due to the lack of any traces of the bright spot in the lowest sub-state we unfortunately cannot determine a comparable measure for the disc size. Analysing the intensity maps we can only estimate an upper limit of the disc radius, as given in Table 4.

Fig. 6 also gives the radius of the transition zone between the inner optically thick accretion disc and the optically thin outer parts (or the radius at which the temperature inversion in the outer disc becomes dominant). It decreases from $`0.28R_{L1}`$ in the highest sub-states to $`0.22R_{L1}`$ in the lowest. Baptista et al. (2000) find a transition zone at between $`0.2R_{L1}`$ and $`0.3R_{L1}`$ in which the emission lines show P Cygni profiles for which either the absorption (H$`\delta `$, He I $`\lambda `$5876) or emission (H$`\gamma `$, H$`\beta `$, H$`\alpha `$) component is stronger. Their result is therefore compatible with ours.

### 4.3 Discussion

#### 4.3.1 The accretion disc

Our disc radii ($`R_{spot}(high)=0.51R_{L1}(+0.11R_{L1}0.04R_{L1})`$ and $`R_{spot}(low)=0.40R_{L1}(+0.1R_{L1}0.03R_{L1})`$) are somewhat smaller, but compatible with previously derived values. Harrop-Allin & Warner (1996) find disc radii of UU Aqr of $`0.61<R_d/R_{L1}<0.88`$ in the high state and $`0.48<R_d/R_{L1}<0.72`$ in the low state while BSC find $`0.72R_{L1}`$ and $`0.38R_{L1}`$, respectively. The eclipse map in BSH’s Fig. 9b, however, shows the spot in the high state at $`0.56\pm 0.12R_{L1}`$, compatible with our estimate. Harrop-Allin & Warner as well as BSC determined the disc size by the bright spot contact phases and appear to give slightly too large results, while Eclipse Mapping seems to derive too small ones. However, the radii derived from eclipse mapping techniques can be improved with better signal-to-noise ratio data and better fits (using more appropriate spectral models) as tests show. Furthermore, Eclipse mapping methods use the information of the whole eclipse profile and are therefore minimally interfered by flickering. On the other hand, accretion stream overflow could in principle cause the bright spot to appear closer to the white dwarf than the actual disc edge. For example, Horne’s (1999) model for SW Sex stars includes mass overflow.

Since the disc radius does not seem to change with the variations during high state, the inner optically thick disc must be directly responsible for the changes in the out-of-eclipse flux. The variation in the size of the optically thick part of the disc is presumably directly correlated to a redistribution of the mass.

UU Aqr’s disc is so close to the critical mass accretion rate that it is not surprising that the system appears so variable as already pointed out by BSH. It is not only switching between low to high states, but also varying in the high state. Furthermore, it shows stunted outbursts during low state as observed by Honeycutt et al. (1998). Our analysis suggests that these stunted outbursts might be caused in the outer disc in which the temperatures fall below the critical value. If this is correct they are due to a disc instability like normal outbursts in dwarf novae, however, shorter and with lower amplitude, because the temperatures in the outer disc easily reach the critical values and the temperatures in the inner disc are already above the critical limit. The cause of the variation between high and low state, however, is more likely a varying mass accretion rate as suggested by BSH. It would be very valuable to know if the normal outbursts as indicated by Volkov et al.’s (1986) observations start during high or low state and how frequently they occur.

#### 4.3.2 The disc wind

Baptista et al. (2000) give a detailed discussion on the presence of a disc wind and chromosphere in UU Aqr (we do not want to repeat their argumentation). Our observational results are compatible with this most likely scenario. Our results also favour a geometrically extended (maybe spherical or equatorial) source that could be an outflowing gas and/or chromosphere covering areas of different temperatures rather than a collimated jet.

In Doppler tomographs a disc wind with a velocity of $`v_w`$ would appear as a ring with a diameter of the projected velocity ($`v_w\mathrm{cos}i`$). (In high resolution Doppler maps one could possibly detect a small hole in this ring at $`(v_x=v_w\mathrm{cos}i,v_y=0)`$ due to the exclusion of the eclipse phases.) Since the inclination angle $`i`$ is large, this ring would be small and occupy the central regions of the Doppler maps. The Doppler maps of Kaitchuck et al. (1998) show emission from the central regions apart from the accretion disc and bright spot contributions. While a clear ring-like structure cannot be seen, the half-orbit maps support such emission feature. Improved signal-to-noise spectra are highly desireable in order to decide about this type of feature in the Doppler maps.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank Brian Warner, Stephen Potter, David Buckley and Encarni Romero Colmenero (the Binary Accretion Natter Group) for fruitful discussions. Thanks go also to the unknown referee for helpful comments leading to a clearer presentation of the paper.

## Appendix A Tests with artificial discs

In order to explain the excess in the B-band flux we performed a test of the PPEM method with artificial data. We constructed an axisymmetric disc with a gaussian bright spot at a radius of $`0.3R_{L1}`$, a sigma of 0.02$`R_{L1}`$ and an azimuth of 20, calculated the light curve in UBVR with 112 data points between $`0.1`$ and 0.1. To this light curve we added a signal-to-noise of 50 and a constant factor of 0.01 mJy to the error bars in order to keep a minimum error for small fluxes, e.g. during eclipse. The uneclipsed component was set artificially to an optically thin spectrum.

This light curve was the input for the PPEM programme and could be fitted to a $`\chi ^2`$ of 1.1. Fig. 7 shows the ratios of the reconstructed map to the originals, highlighting the locations of the spot. The reconstructed spot is located roughly at the right position, but at a slightly smaller radius of $`0.23R_{L1}`$ and slightly larger azimuth of 30 than the original one. Furthermore, the spot is smeared out due to the maximum entropy (MEM) constraint. Such a spreading of the spot could also be realistic, so in reconstructions of real data one cannot give a precise size for the azimuthal extension of the spot.

The uneclipsed component was reconstructed as shown in Table 5 and Fig. 8. Most striking is the fact that the reconstructed flux is lower than the original one. This is due to the MEM smearing leading to larger maps and/or smoother gradients in the outer parts of the disc. This leads to more flux in the outer, uneclipsed regions of the disc.

Except for the B-band flux, the general shape of the uneclipsed spectrum is recovered relatively well. The reason for the excess in the reconstructed B-band flux in due to the smearing of the spot, leading to larger parts of the disc being (nearly) optically thick. Our model spectrum therefore underestimates the B-band flux in the disc, leading to an increase in the uneclipsed component in order to fit the out-of-eclipse flux.


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Noncommutative fuzzy sphere is known to correspond sphere D2-branes in string theory with background linear B-field . In the presence of constant RR three-form potential the D0-branes are found to expand into a noncommutative fuzzy sphere configurations . It also knows that the field theories on fuzzy sphere appear naturally from D-brane theory and matrix model with some backgrounds \[1,3-6\]

In the ordinary matrix model one could not find the fuzzy sphere solutions. However, adding a Chern-Simons term to the matrix model will enable us to describe the noncommutative fuzzy sphere as a classical solution. Comparing the energy in the various classical solutions one can find that the separated D0-branes will expand into a largest noncommutative fuzzy sphere to achieve minimum energy .

The problems of the one loop renormalization of the scalar field on the fuzzy sphere have been studied in some recent papers \[7-10\]. The phenomena of the UL/IR mixing  on the fuzzy sphere are different from those in the noncommutative plane. Especially, it has found by Chu. et. al.  that , in the limit of the commutative sphere, the two point function is regular without UV/IR mixing; however quantization does not commute with the commutative limit, and a finite “noncommutative anomaly” survives in the commutative limit. Chu. et. al.  use this to provides an explanation of the UV/IR mixing as an infinite variant of the “noncommutative anomaly”.

In this paper we will investigate the effective potential of quantized scalar field  on the fuzzy sphere to the two-loop level. In the section 2, we first review the appearance of the fuzzy sphere in the matrix model with a Chern-Simons term. (Note that the Chern-Simons term may be coming from the constant RR three-form potential in the D0-branes system .) We then quantize the scalar field on the fuzzy sphere and set up the general formula and Feynman rule to evaluate the effective potential. In the section 3, we see that there is only a single (planar)Feynman diagram in the one-loop potential. The potential behaves like that in the commutative system.

As there appears the Winger $`3j`$-symbol  in Feynman rule we shall adopt some approximations to perform the calculations. In the section 4, we consider the case in which the mass of scalar field is sufficiently large. In the section 5, we consider the case in the high temperature environment , which would be that in the early universe. In both cases the two-loop diagrams are evaluated analytically. We see that both of the planar Feynman diagrams and nonplanar Feynman diagrams have an inclination to restore the symmetry breaking in the tree level. Also, the contributions from planar diagrams will dominate over those from nonplanar diagrams by a factor $`N^2`$. We also find that the nonplanar diagram will behave as that in the zero space system. This means that there is a drastic reduction of the degrees of freedom in the nonplanar diagrams when the wavelength of the scalar particle is smaller than the noncommutativity scale \[16-18\]. As a consequence, the quantum fields on a high-temperature noncommutative fuzzy sphere or a heavy quantized field on a noncommutative fuzzy sphere will behave as that on a commutative sphere. The last section is devoted to a short conclusion.

Note that, historically, Fischler el. al.  had first showed that, at high temperature for which the thermal wavelength is smaller than the noncommutativity scale, there is no way to distinguish and count the contributions of modes to the free energy. Thus, there is a drastic reduction of the degrees of freedom in the non-planar contribution to the thermodynamical potential at high temperature. In  we have also confirmed this property by evaluating the two-loop effective potential on a noncommutative plane. We in there investigate the same problem while on a noncommutative fuzzy sphere. This paper is one of our study concerning the quantum field on the noncommutative geometry \[18-20\].

## 2 Quantized Scalar Field and Effective Potential on Fuzzy Sphere

### 2.1 Fuzzy Sphere

The matrix model with Chern-Simons term  is described by the action:

$$S=T_0Tr\left(\frac{1}{2}\dot{X_i}^2+\frac{1}{4}[X_i,X_j][X_i,X_j]\frac{i}{3}\lambda _Nϵ_{ijk}X_i[X_j,X_k]\right).$$
$`(2.1)`$
where $`X_i,i=1,2,3`$ are $`N\times N`$ matrices and $`T_0=\sqrt{2\pi }/g_s`$ is the zero-brane tension. The static equations of motion are

$$[X_j,\left([X_i,X_j]i\lambda _Nϵ_{ijk}X_k\right)]=0,$$
$`(2.2)`$
and the associated energy is

$$E=T_0Tr\left(\frac{1}{4}[X_i,X_j][X_i,X_j]\frac{i}{3}\lambda _Nϵ_{ijk}X_i[X_j,X_k]\right).$$
$`(2.3)`$
This model admits commutating solutions and static fuzzy sphere solutions . The commutating solutions represent $`N`$ D0 branes and satisfy the relations

$$[X_i,X_j]=0,$$
$`(2.4)`$
which have the energy

$$E=0.$$
$`(2.5)`$
The static fuzzy sphere solutions satisfy the relations

$$[X_i,X_j]=i\lambda _Nϵ_{ijk}X_k,$$
$`(2.6)`$
and are described by the relations

$$X_i=\lambda _NJ_i,$$
$`(2.7)`$
$$X_1^2+X_2^2+X_3^2=R^2.$$
$`(2.8)`$
where $`J_1,J_2,J_3`$ define, say, the $`N`$ dimensional irreducible representation of SU(2) and are labeled by the spin $`\alpha =N/2`$. The noncommutativity parameter $`\lambda _N`$ is of dimension length, and can be taken positive. The radius $`R`$ define in (2.8) is quantized in units of $`\lambda _N`$ by

$$\frac{R}{\lambda _N}=\sqrt{\frac{N}{2}\left(\frac{N}{2}+1\right)};N=1,2,\mathrm{}$$
$`(2.9)`$
Besides the above solution $`X_i`$ may be a direct sum of several irreducible representation of SU(2). Such a configuration could also solve the equation of motion, i.e.

$$X_i=\lambda _N_{r=1}^sJ_i^{(r)},\underset{r=1}{\overset{s}{}}(2j_r+1)=N.$$
$`(2.10)`$
The energy E of these static fuzzy sphere solutions are given by

$$E=T_0\lambda ^4\frac{1}{6}\underset{r=1}{\overset{s}{}}J_r(J_r+1)(2J_r+1).$$
$`(2.11)`$
From the above relation it is clear that the ground state is the N-dimensional fuzzy sphere .

### 2.2 Quantized Scalar Field on Fuzzy Sphere: Feynman Rule

A field on the fuzzy sphere is defined as an algebra $`S_N^2`$ generated by Hermitian operators $`\stackrel{}{X}=(X_1,X_2,X_3)`$ which are described in the section 2.1. The integral of a function $`FS_N^2`$ over the fuzzy sphere is given by \[7-10\]

$$R^2F=\frac{4\pi R^2}{N+1}Tr[F(X)],$$
$`(2.12)`$
and the inner product can be defined by

$$(F_1,F_2)=F_1^{}F_2.$$
$`(2.13)`$
A scalar $`\mathrm{\Phi }^4`$ theory on the fuzzy sphere is described by the action

$$S=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }(\mathrm{\Delta }+m^2)\mathrm{\Phi }+\frac{g}{4!}\mathrm{\Phi }^4.$$
$`(2.14)`$
Here $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a Hermitian field, $`m^2`$ is the dimensionless mass square, $`g`$ is a dimensionless coupling and $`\mathrm{\Delta }=J_i^2`$ is the Laplace operator. To evaluate the effective potential of the above model we can use the path-integration formulation of Jackiw .

First, we assume that there exists a stationary point at which $`\mathrm{\Phi }`$ is a constant field $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$. Thus

$$\frac{\delta S}{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }}|_{\varphi _0}=0.$$
$`(2.15)`$
Next, we expand the Lagrangian about the stationary point and the action becomes

$$S[\mathrm{\Phi }]=S[\mathrm{\Phi }_0]+\frac{1}{2}\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(X)\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}(Y)\frac{\delta ^2S}{\delta \mathrm{\Phi }(X)\delta \mathrm{\Phi }(Y)}|_{\mathrm{\Phi }_0}+\stackrel{~}{_{}}(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }},\mathrm{\Phi }_0),$$
$`(2.16)`$
in which $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}\mathrm{\Phi }\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$ and $`\stackrel{~}{_{}}(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }},\mathrm{\Phi }_0)`$ can be found from the Lagrangian Eq.(2.14).

Then, after expanding $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ in terms of the modes,

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}=\underset{L,l}{}a_l^LY_l^L,L=0,1,\mathrm{},N;LlL,$$
$`(2.17)`$
in which the Fourier coefficient $`a_l^L`$ are treated as the dynamical variables, the path integral quantization procedure  is defined by integrating over all possible configuration of $`a_l^L`$. Therefore the $`k`$-points Green’s functions are computed by the relation

$$a_{l_1}^{L_1}\mathrm{}a_{l_k}^{L_k}=\frac{[D\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}]e^Sa_{l_1}^{L_1}\mathrm{}a_{l_k}^{L_k}}{[D\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}]e^S},$$
$`(2.18)`$
Note that the complete basis of functions on $`S_N^2`$ is given by the $`(N+1)^2`$ spherical harmonics, $`Y_l^L,(L=0,1,\mathrm{},N;LlL)`$ . They correspond to the usual spherical harmonics, however the angular momentum has an upper bound $`N`$ here. This is a characteristic feature of fuzzy sphere.

The propagator so obtained is

$$D^1(\mathrm{\Phi }_0)=a_l^La_l^{}^L^{}{}_{}{}^{}=(1)^la_l^La_l^{}^L^{}=\delta _{LL^{}}\delta _{ll^{}}\frac{1}{L(L+1)+\mu ^2},$$
$`(2.19)`$
in which $`a_l^L{}_{}{}^{}=(1)^la_l^L`$ and

$$\mu ^2=m^2+\frac{1}{2}g\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2.$$
$`(2.20)`$
The four-legs vertices are given by

$`(2.21)`$
where

$$V_4(L_1,l_1;\mathrm{};L_4,l_4)=\frac{g}{4!}\frac{N+1}{4\pi }(1)^{L_1+L_2+L_3+L_4}\underset{i=1}{\overset{4}{}}(2L_i+1)^{1/2}\underset{L,l}{}(1)^l(2L+1)$$

$$\times \left(\begin{array}{ccc}L_1& L_2& L\\ l_1& l_2& l\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}L_3& L_4& L\\ l_3& l_4& l\end{array}\right)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}L_1& L_2& L\\ \alpha & \alpha & \alpha \end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}L_3& L_4& L\\ \alpha & \alpha & \alpha \end{array}\right\}.$$
$`(2.22)`$
The above Feynman rule of propagator and four-legs vertices can be found in . Here we need also the Feynman rule of three-legs vertices, it is described as

$`(2.23)`$
where

$$V_3(L_1,l_1;L_2,l_2;L_3,l_3)=\frac{g}{6}\mathrm{\Phi }_0\sqrt{\frac{N+1}{4\pi }}(1)^{2\alpha +L_1+L_2+L_3}\sqrt{(2L_1+1)(2L_2+1)(2L_3+1)}$$

$$\times \left(\begin{array}{ccc}L_1& L_2& L_3\\ l_1& l_2& l_3\end{array}\right)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}L_1& L_2& L_3\\ \alpha & \alpha & \alpha \end{array}\right\}.$$
$`(2.24)`$
Here the first bracket is the Wigner $`3j`$-symbol and the curly bracket is the $`6j`$–symbol of $`SU(2)`$, in the standard mathematical normalization . Note that to derive the above Feynman rule we have used the following “fusion” algebra

$$Y_i^IY_j^J=\sqrt{\frac{N+1}{4\pi }}\underset{K,k}{}(1)^{2\alpha +I+J+K+k}\sqrt{(2I+1)(2J+1)(2K+1)}$$

$$\times \left(\begin{array}{ccc}I& J& K\\ i& j& k\end{array}\right)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}I& J& K\\ \alpha & \alpha & \alpha \end{array}\right\}Y_k^K,.$$
$`(2.25)`$
where the sum is over $`0KN,KkK`$, and $`\alpha =N/2`$ .

Then the effective potential $`V(\varphi _0)`$ is found to be

$$V(\mathrm{\Phi }_0)=V_0(\mathrm{\Phi }_0)+\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}det\left[D^1(\mathrm{\Phi }_0)\right]<exp\left(\stackrel{~}{_{}}(\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }},\mathrm{\Phi }_0)\right)>.$$
$`(2.26)`$
The first term in Eq.(2.20) is the classical potential. The second term is the one-loop contribution from the second term in Eq.(2.16). The third term is the higher-loop contribution of the effective potential. To obtain it we shall evaluate the expectation value of the third term in Eq.(2.16) by the conventional Feynman rule, with $`D^1(\mathrm{\Phi }_0)`$ as the propagator and keep only the connected single-particle irreducible graphs .

In next section, we use the above formula to analyze the one-loop potential, and in the section 4 and 5, we detailed evaluate the two-loop potential on the fuzzy sphere.

## 3 One-Loop Effective Potential

Now, using the formula in (2.26) the one-loop effective potential on a fuzzy sphere becomes

$$\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}det\left[D^1(\mathrm{\Phi }_0,\stackrel{}{k})\right]=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{N+1}\underset{L,l}{}\mathrm{ln}\left[L(L+1)+\mu ^2\right]$$

$$=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{N+1}\underset{L=0}{\overset{N}{}}(2L+1)\mathrm{ln}\left[L(L+1)+\mu ^2\right]$$

$$=\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{N+1}\mathrm{ln}\left(m^2+\frac{1}{2}g\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2\right)\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{N+1}\underset{L=1}{\overset{N}{}}\mathrm{ln}\left[L(L+1)+m^2+\frac{1}{2}g\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2\right].$$
$`(3.1)`$
From the above result we can see the following properties. In the massless case, we expand the second term around the point $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2=0`$ and it is easily to see that, they will renormalize the mass and coupling constant and give the high-power terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2`$. However, the first term will become negative for sufficiently large $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0`$. Thus it could break the symmetry and the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism is shown. In the massive case, we can expand eq.(3.2) around the point $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2=0`$ and it is easily to see that, the one-loop result could only renormalize the mass and coupling constant, and give the high-power terms of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2`$, but they could not change the symmetry property in the tree level.

The above property is independent of $`N`$ and thus will behave like that in the commutative sphere system. Note that as $`N\mathrm{}`$ the fuzzy sphere will become a commutative sphere.

## 4 Two-Loop Effective Potential: Heave Mass Approximation

In the two-loop level we have to evaluate the following two planar and two nonplanar diagrams. The contributions of the effective potential from the planar diagram are

$$=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L}{}\frac{2L+1}{L(L+1)+\mu ^2}\underset{J}{}\frac{2J+1}{J(J+1)+\mu ^2}.$$
$`(4.1)`$
$$=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L,J}{}\frac{2L+1}{L(L+1)+\mu ^2}\frac{2J+1}{J(J+1)+\mu ^2}\frac{2L+2J+1}{(L+J)(L+J+1)+\mu ^2}.$$
$`(4.2)`$
The contributions of th effective potential from the nonplanar diagram are like those in the planar diagram, while with an extra factor. They are

$$I_1^N=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L,J=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{2L+1}{L(L+1)+\mu ^2}\frac{2J+1}{J(J+1)+\mu ^2}$$

$$\times (1)^{L+J+2\alpha }(2\alpha +1)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha & \alpha & L\\ \alpha & \alpha & J\end{array}\right\}.$$
$`(4.3)`$
$$I_2^N=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L,J}{}\frac{2L+1}{L(L+1)+\mu ^2}\frac{2J+1}{J(J+1)+\mu ^2}$$

$$\times \frac{2L+2J+1}{(L+J)(L+J+1)+\mu ^2}(1)^{L+J+2\alpha }(2\alpha +1)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha & \alpha & L\\ \alpha & \alpha & J\end{array}\right\}.$$
$`(4.4)`$
To derive the above relations we have use the following identities of the $`3j`$ and $`6j`$ symbols, which can be found in : The $`3j`$ symbols satisfy the orthogonality relation

$$\underset{j,l}{}\left(\begin{array}{ccc}J& L& K\\ j& l& k\end{array}\right)\left(\begin{array}{ccc}J& L& K^{}\\ j& l& k^{}\end{array}\right)=\frac{(1)^{KLJ}}{2K+1}\delta _{K,K^{}}\delta _{k,k^{}},$$
$`(4.5)`$
assuming that $`(J,L,K)`$ form a triangle. The $`6j`$ symbols satisfy the orthogonality relation

$$\underset{N}{}(2N+1)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}A& B& N\\ C& D& P\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}A& B& N\\ C& D& Q\end{array}\right\}=\frac{1}{2P+1}\delta _{P,Q},$$
$`(4.6)`$
and the following sum rule

$$\underset{N}{}(1)^{N+P+Q}(2N+1)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}A& B& N\\ C& D& P\end{array}\right\}\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}A& B& N\\ D& C& Q\end{array}\right\}=\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}A& C& Q\\ B& D& P\end{array}\right\},$$
$`(4.7)`$
assuming that $`(A,D,P)`$ and $`(B,C,P)`$ form a triangle.

To proceed the calculation we shall adopt some approximations because it is difficult to perform summation over the index in the $`6j`$ symbols.

Note that to evaluate the scalar field propagator, Chu et.al.  have considered the case that the external moment $`L\alpha `$. In this case they used the relation

$$\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha & \alpha & L\\ \alpha & \alpha & J\end{array}\right\}(1)^{\frac{L+J+2\alpha }{2\alpha }}P_L\left(1\frac{J^2}{2\alpha ^2}\right),L\alpha ,$$
$`(4.8)`$
to evaluate the one-loop correction to the mass square. They have found that the noncommutative anomaly, which will survive in the commutative sphere limit, is $`\frac{g}{12\pi }_{k=1}^L\frac{1}{k}`$.

As we will perform the two-loop calculation in which the summations in (4.3) and (4.4) are over all the values of L, $`0LN`$, the approximation of (4.8) can not be used now. To proceed, we will perform the evaluations of the two-loop diagrams under the approximation that $`m^2N`$.

It is easy to perform the approximation in the planar diagrams. The results are

$$I_1^P=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L,J=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{2L+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{L(L+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)\frac{2J+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{J(J+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)$$

$$=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{3}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left[\frac{(N+1)^4}{\mu ^4}\frac{N(N+2)(N+1)^4}{\mu ^6}+O\left(\frac{N^8}{\mu ^8}\right)\right].$$
$`(4.9)`$
$$I_2^P=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left[\frac{1}{\mu ^6}\left(\frac{2}{3}N(N+1)^2(N+5)+4N\right)+O\left(\frac{N^8}{\mu ^8}\right)\right].$$
$`(4.10)`$
The contributions of non-planar diagrams are calculated as follows.

$$I_1^N=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L,J=0}{\overset{N}{}}\frac{2L+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{L(L+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)\frac{2J+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{J(J+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)$$

$$\times (1)^{L+J+2\alpha }(2\alpha +1)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha & \alpha & L\\ \alpha & \alpha & J\end{array}\right\}$$

$$=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left[\frac{(N+1)^2}{\mu ^4}+O\left(\frac{N^6}{\mu ^6}\right)\right].$$
$`(4.11)`$
To obtain the above results we have used the formula

$$\underset{L}{}(2L+1)(1)^{L+2\alpha }\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha & \alpha & L\\ \alpha & \alpha & J\end{array}\right\}=\delta _{J,0}(2\alpha +1).$$
$`(4.12)`$
Now using the above formula and a simple relation $`(2L+1)(2J+1)(2L+2J+1)=4(2L+1)J(J+1)+(2L+1)+2L(2L+1)(2J+1)`$ we have another result

$$I_2^N=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2\left(\frac{g}{4\pi }\right)^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\underset{L,J}{}\frac{2L+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{L(L+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)\frac{2J+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{J(J+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)$$

$$\times \frac{2L+2J+1}{\mu ^2}\left(1\frac{(L+J)(L+J+1)}{\mu ^2}+\mathrm{}\right)(1)^{L+J+2\alpha }(2\alpha +1)\left\{\begin{array}{ccc}\alpha & \alpha & L\\ \alpha & \alpha & J\end{array}\right\}$$

$$=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left[\frac{(N+1)^2}{\mu ^6}+O(\frac{N^8}{\mu ^8})\right].$$
$`(4.13)`$
From the above results we find that

$$I_1^N+I_2^N+I_1^P+I_2^P=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{6}\left[\frac{1+2(N+1)^2}{\mu ^4}+O\left(\frac{N^6}{\mu ^6}\right)\right]$$

$$=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{6m^4}\left[2(N+1)^2+1\right]\left(1+g\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2+\mathrm{}\right)+O\left(\frac{N^6}{m^6}\right).$$
$`(4.14)`$
Thus, the two-loop effect potential is to give a positive correction to the mass square term and has an inclination to restore the symmetry breaking in the tree level. (Notice that we set the scale to be $`4\pi R^2=1`$.)

Although the heavy mass approximation adopted in this section enables us to evaluate the two-loop effective potential analytically, the approximation is very constricted. In the next section we will investigate the system in the high temperature environment, which would be that in the early universe and thus is a realistic problem. Under this approximation we could evaluate the two-loop effective potential analytically and, besides, we find an interesting property of the drastic reduction of the degrees of freedom in the nonplanar diagram.

## 5 Two-Loop Effective Potential: High Temperature Approximation

To consider the finite temperature system the action in (2.14) shall be replaced by

$$S=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{\Phi }(_t^2+\mathrm{\Delta }+m^2)\mathrm{\Phi }+\frac{g}{4!}\mathrm{\Phi }^4.$$
$`(5.1)`$
The quantized field $`\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}`$ in (2.7) shall be expand in terms of the modes in the following relation

$$\stackrel{~}{\mathrm{\Phi }}=_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{}}\frac{dp_0}{(2\pi )}\underset{L,l}{}e^{ip_0t}a_l^L(p_0)Y_l^L,L=0,1,\mathrm{},N;LlL,$$
$`(5.2)`$
in which the Fourier coefficient $`a_l^L(p_0)`$ are treated as the dynamical variables and $`Y_l^L`$ are the usual spherical harmonics. The propagator so obtained is

$$D^1(\mathrm{\Phi }_0)=a(p_0)_l^La(p_0)_l^{}^L^{}{}_{}{}^{}=\delta _{LL^{}}\delta _{ll^{}}\frac{1}{p_0^2+L(L+1)+\mu ^2},$$
$`(5.3)`$
in which we have let the spacetime to be the Euclidean type. Then for the theory at finite temperature $`T=1/\beta `$ we can take the following substitutions :

$$p_0\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta },$$
$`(5.4)`$
$$𝑑p_0\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\underset{p_0}{}.$$
$`(5.5)`$
in which $`p_0`$ is an integral.

Now, we can use the previous prescriptions to evaluate the finite temperature two-loop effective potential. The contributions of planar diagrams are

$$I_1^P=\frac{g}{12\pi }\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2\underset{p_0}{}\left[\frac{(N+1)^4}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^2}\frac{N(N+2)(N+1)^4}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^3}+O\left(\frac{N^8}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^4}\right)\right]$$

$$=\frac{g}{12\pi }\frac{(N+1)^2}{\mu ^4}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2+O\left((\beta N)^2\right).$$
$`(5.6)`$
$$I_2^P=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2\underset{p_0}{}\left[\frac{\frac{2}{3}N(N+1)^3(N+5)+4N}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^3}+O\left(\frac{N^8}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^4}\right)\right]$$

$$=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{9}\frac{N(N+1)^2(N+5)+6N}{(N+1)^2\mu ^6}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2+O\left((\beta N)^2\right).$$
$`(5.7)`$
The contributions of non-planar diagrams are

$$I_1^N=\frac{g}{4\pi }\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2\underset{p_0}{}\left[\frac{(N+1)^2}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^2}+O\left(\frac{N^6}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^4}\right)\right]$$

$$=\frac{g}{24\pi }\frac{1}{\mu ^4}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2+O\left((\beta N)^2\right).$$
$`(5.8)`$
$$I_2^N=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{(N+1)^2}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2\underset{p_0}{}\left[\frac{(N+1)^2}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^3}+O(\frac{N^6}{[(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2]^4})\right]$$

$$=\mathrm{\Phi }_0^2(\frac{g}{4\pi })^2\frac{1}{6}\frac{1}{\mu ^6}\left(\frac{2\pi }{\beta }\right)^2+O\left((\beta N)^2\right).$$
$`(5.9)`$
The above calculations are just those in (4.9), (4.10), (4.11) and (4.13) while added the summation factor (5.5) and replaced $`\mu ^2`$ by $`(\frac{2\pi p_0}{\beta })^2+\mu ^2`$. The terms in $`O\left((\beta N)^2\right)`$, which may be evaluated by the zeta-function regularization method, become negligible at a sufficiently high temperature such that $`\beta N`$. The results are similar to those in the section 4 and thus both of the planar and nonplanar Feynman diagrams have inclinations to restore the symmetry breaking in the tree level.

Comparing the equations (5.6)-(5.9) we see that when $`N1`$ the contributions from planar diagrams will dominate over those from nonplanar diagrams by a factor $`N^2`$. Thus our results indicate that, at high temperature ($`\beta N1)`$ the quantum field on the fuzzy sphere will behave like those on the commutative sphere. (Note that we set the scale to be $`4\pi R^2=1`$.)

It is also worthy to notice that the leading contribution from nonplanar diagrams, i.e. (5.8) and (5.9), does not depend on $`N`$. This property can be interpreted is as a drastic reduction of the degrees of freedom in the nonplanar diagrams when the thermal wavelength is smaller than the noncommutativity scale. In fact, the evaluations about the high-temperature two-loop potential at zero space would enable us to see that the potentials are similar to (5.8) and (5.9). (The calculation is a easy work as there is only a planar diagram.)

We now explain the property of reduction of degrees of freedom more clear as following \[16-18\]. It is known that as $`N\mathrm{}`$ the fuzzy sphere will become a commutative sphere. Also, when

$$N\mathrm{},R^2=N\theta /2\mathrm{},keeping\theta fixed.$$
$`(5.10)`$
we will have a noncommutative plane theory . Then, using the definition of the thermal wavelength $`\lambda =\mathrm{}\sqrt{\frac{2\pi \beta }{m}}`$, the high temperature approximation is useful under the condition

$$1>\beta N=\frac{\lambda ^2m}{2\pi \mathrm{}^2}N.$$
$`(5.11)`$
Now, put back the scale $`4\pi R^2(=1)`$ and reset the scale to be $`\frac{m}{2\pi \mathrm{}^2}=1`$, the above relation becomes $`4\pi R^2>\lambda ^2N`$. Finally, using the definition of $`\theta `$ in (5.10) we see that the high temperature condition becomes.

$$2\pi \theta >\lambda ^2.$$
$`(5.12)`$
This means that there is a drastic reduction of the degrees of freedom in the nonplanar diagrams when the thermal wavelength is smaller than the noncommutativity scale.

## 6 Conclusion

We have studied the effective potential of quantized scalar field on fuzzy sphere to the two-loop level. We see that one-loop potential will behave like that in the commutative sphere and the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism of the radiatively symmetry breaking could be also shown in the fuzzy sphere system.

In the two-loop potential, both of the planar and nonplanar Feynman diagrams can appear. We use the heavy-mass approximation and high-temperature approximation to perform the calculations analytically. We see that both of the planar Feynman diagrams and nonplanar Feynman diagrams have an inclination to restore the symmetry breaking in the tree level. We also see that the contributions from planar diagrams will dominate over those from nonplanar diagrams by a factor $`N^2`$.

We also find that the nonplanar diagram will behave as that in the zero space system. This means that there is a drastic reduction of the degrees of freedom in the nonplanar diagrams when the thermal wavelength is smaller than the noncommutativity scale. Thus our results indicate that, at high temperature ($`\beta N1)`$ the quantum field on the fuzzy sphere will behave like those on the commutative sphere.

In this paper we have only considered the noncommutative scalar field theory. The more realistic model including the gauge fields on a fuzzy sphere is deserved studied. However, we believe that the property of the reduction of the degrees of freedom in the nonplanar diagram at high temperature will also be shown in other models. It remains to be investigated.

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text:
# A Neural Network Model for Apparent Deterministic Chaos in Spontaneously Bursting Hippocampal Slices

## Abstract

A neural network model that exhibits stochastic population bursting is studied by simulation. First return maps of inter-burst intervals exhibit recurrent unstable periodic orbit (UPO)-like trajectories similar to those found in experiments on hippocampal slices. Applications of various control methods and surrogate analysis for UPO-detection also yield results similar to those of experiments. Our results question the interpretation of the experimental data as evidence for deterministic chaos and suggest caution in the use of UPO-based methods for detecting determinism in time-series data.

With recent advances in the theory of dynamical systems  and nonlinear time-series analysis , many recent studies have looked for signatures of deterministic chaos in brain dynamics . This is expected to help in understanding brain functions in terms of the collective dynamics of neurons and in achieving short-term prediction and control with potential medical applications.

An experiment  on spontaneously bursting rat hippocampal slices bathed in a high-potassium medium has elicited much interest  in this context. In this experiment, the occurrence of recurrent trajectories resembling unstable periodic orbits (UPOs) in the first return map of inter-burst intervals was interpreted as evidence for chaotic dynamics. Application of chaos control  was found to be more effective than periodic pacing in making the bursts regular. An anticontrol method designed to make the bursts more irregular was also tested with positive results. The apparent success of these control methods was interpreted as further evidence for the occurrence of deterministic chaos. However, in subsequent work , similar recurrent UPO-like trajectories were also observed in simulations of a stochastic single-neuron model and comparable success in chaos control and anticontrol was reported. Recent studies  in which surrogate methods are used to assess the statistical significance of UPOs claim to have re-established the original conclusion of deterministic chaos in hippocampal burst dynamics.

We have developed and studied by simulations a simple but biologically plausible neural network model for hippocampal burst dynamics. While the variability of the inter-burst intervals in our model arises from stochastic transitions between two (quasi)attractors of the network dynamics, our simulations and surrogate analysis of the data yield results very similar to those reported  for the brain slice experiment. Our work, thus, suggests that our model is appropriate for describing the experimental system and casts doubt on the interpretation of the experimental data as evidence for deterministic chaos.

The neural network model we consider is based on one developed for the process of “kindling” of epilepsy. The network consists of $`N`$ excitatory neurons represented by the binary variables $`\{S_i\},i=1,2,\mathrm{}..,N`$, with $`S_i=0(1)`$ corresponding to quiescent (firing) states. The inhibitory neurons are collectively modeled by a background inhibition assumed to be proportional to the instantaneous number of firing excitatory neurons. The “local field” $`h_i(t)`$ at the $`i`$th neuron at discrete time $`t`$ is given by

$`h_i(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{j=1}{\overset{N}{}}}[\{J_{ij}S_j(t)wS_j(t)\}`$ (1)
$`+\lambda \{K_{ij}S_j(t\tau )wS_j(t\tau )\}],`$ (2)
where $`w`$ is the relative strength of inhibition, $`\lambda `$ is the relative strength of the delayed signal, and $`\tau `$ is the time delay associated with the delayed signal. Starting from left, the four terms in Eq.(2) respectively represent fast recurrent excitation, fast global inhibition, slow recurrent excitation and slow global inhibition. These four ingredients are known to be essential for modeling hippocampal dynamics. Time $`t`$ is measured in units of “passes”, each pass corresponding to random sequential updating (RSU) of $`N`$ neurons according to the rule: $`S_i(t+1)=1`$ if $`h_i(t)0`$ and $`S_i(t+1)=0`$ if $`h_i(t)<0`$.

Initially a fixed number $`(q)`$ of random low-activity patterns (“memories”) $`\{\xi _i^\mu \},i=1,2,\mathrm{}..,N;\mu =1,2,\mathrm{}..,q`$, are stored in the synaptic matrices $`J_{ij}`$ and $`K_{ij}`$ through

$$J_{ij}=\mathrm{\Theta }(\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{q}{}}\xi _i^\mu \xi _j^\mu ),K_{ij}=\mathrm{\Theta }(\underset{\mu =1}{\overset{q}{}}\xi _i^{\mu +1}\xi _j^\mu ),$$
(3)
with $`\xi _i^{q+1}=\xi _i^1`$, $`J_{ii}=K_{ii}=0`$, and $`\mathrm{\Theta }(m)=1(0)`$ for $`m>0(m0)`$. The net activity of each memory, $`_i\xi _i^\mu `$, is set at a value $`p<<N`$. Our simulations are carried out with the following parameter values: $`N=200,q=20,p=10,w=0.6,\lambda =2,\tau =2`$ passes.

The fast synapses $`J_{ij}`$ act to stabilize the system in a memory state, the global inhibition prevents simultaneous activation of multiple memories and the slow synapses $`K_{ij}`$ tend to move the network from one memory to the next one after $`\tau `$ passes. For $`\lambda >1`$, the network evolution follows a limit cycle in which all the $`q`$ memories are visited sequentially with the net activity $`S_{up}(t)=_{i=1}^NS_i(t)`$ showing a low-amplitude oscillation around the average value $`p`$ \[see Fig.1a\]. To simulate the effects of the high-potassium medium, the network is “chemically kindled” through a Hebbian learning mechanism switched on during $`50`$ initial passes under reduced inhibition ($`w`$ is reduced from $`0.6`$ to $`0.24`$). During this period, if $`S_i=1`$ and $`S_j=1`$ more often than $`6`$ times over $`10`$ consecutive passes, then the fast synaptic connection $`J_{ij}`$ is permanently set to 1. Generation of these new excitatory synapses creates a new high-activity (“epileptic”) attractor of the network dynamics.

The kindled network makes occasional, spontaneous, short-lived excursions to the high activity attractor \[see Fig.1b\], similar to the spontaneous population bursting observed in slice experiments. The net activity is smoothened (“low-pass filtered”) to $`S_{sm}(t)=\frac{1}{t_{sm}}_{t^{}=tt_{sm}+1}^tS_{up}(t^{})`$, with $`t_{sm}=40`$. The bursts appear as “spikes” in the smoothened data and the inter-burst intervals (IBIs) are measured from positive threshold crossings \[see Fig.1c\]. To prevent very rare occurrences of persistent high activity, the network is reset to a randomly chosen low-activity memory state whenever $`S_{sm}(t)`$ remains continuously above the threshold for more than $`20`$ passes.

The variability of the IBIs in our simulation arises entirely from the stochasticity of the sequence in which the neurons are updated. If a “deterministic” scheme in which the neurons are always updated in a (randomly chosen) fixed sequence is used, then the network remains in the low-activity state for most choices of the sequence, and exhibits periodic transitions to the high activity attractor for certain rare sequences. Similar behavior is found for parallel updating where all the neurons are updated simultaneously. We note that the RSU scheme is the most appropriate one for modeling systems that do not have any “clock-like” mechanism.

We have studied 10 networks with different realizations of the memory states. As shown in the autocorrelation plot of Fig.2a, the IBIs are uncorrelated in time in all the networks. Further, the probability distribution of the IBIs follows a Poisson form, $`P(T_n)\mathrm{exp}(aT_n)`$, for $`T_n>2t_{sm}`$ (this cutoff arises from our smoothening procedure) in all the networks \[see Fig.2b\]. These observations strongly suggest that the spontaneous transition of the network from the low-activity state to the high-activity one is a stochastic process that has a small probability $`p=1\mathrm{exp}(a)`$ of occuring at each time step. As shown in Fig.2b, the results of a Monte Carlo simulation of a Poisson process with probability $`p`$ of occurrence at each time step are identical to those of network simulation. Results of our studies of the divergence of two trajectories starting from neighboring points in one- and two-dimensional delay embeddings of the IBI time-series are consistent with the IBIs being independent random variables.

Values of $`p`$ for different networks exhibit a wide variation in the range $`8\times 10^4`$ to $`3\times 10^3`$. Similar “sample-to-sample” variations and absence of correlations in the IBI time-series were reported in Ref. for brain slices very similar to those of Ref.. The variability in the raw IBI data of Ref. is qualitatively similar to that in our simulation data \[see inset of Fig.2a\].

Although the bursting in our model is stochastic, first return maps of the IBIs show purely accidental occurrences of UPO-like trajectories that approach a fixed point ($`T_n=T_{n1}=T^{}`$) along a line, $`T_nT^{}=s_1(T_{n1}T^{})`$ (the stable manifold) and then diverge away along another line, $`T_nT^{}=s_2(T_{n1}T^{})`$ (the unstable manifold). In each of the 10 networks studied, many recurrent UPO-like trajectories that satisfy all the criteria adopted in  are found. Typical trajectories used to identify an apparent UPO and the associated manifolds are shown in Fig.3.

Following Ref., we have studied the effects of various control methods. In the Proportional Perturbative Feedback method of chaos control (CC) , the system point is repeatedly placed on the stable manifold of an UPO detected during a trial period withour control. This is done by generating bursts at appropriate times through external stimulation, modeled in our simulation by a reduction of the inhibition strength $`w`$ from $`0.6`$ to $`0.24`$ for $`5`$ passes. Given a burst with IBI $`T_{n1}`$, the external stimulation is applied $`T_n=s_1(T_{n1}T^{})+T^{}`$ passes after the burst if no spontaneous burst occurs before its application. In periodic pacing (PP), the external stimulation is applied at fixed intervals of $`T^{}`$ irrespective of the occurrence of spontaneous bursts, and in demand pacing (DP), the external stimulation is applied $`T^{}`$ passes after a burst only if no spontaneous burst occurs prior to its application.

Typical results of the application of control, shown in Fig.4, are qualitatively similar to those reported in Ref.. All three methods make the bursts more periodic by preventing the occurrence of large IBIs. While CC prevents the occurrence of natural IBIs above the stable manifold, PP and DP eliminate IBIs larger than $`T^{}`$. This is why CC is effective when $`T^{}`$ is small and the slope $`s_1`$ of the stable manifold is close to zero. In such cases, CC works better than PP because the occurrence of spontaneous bursts between two successive stimulations in PP increases the number of short IBIs. Since this does not happen in DP, this method yields the best results. For example, in network 1 for which the selected UPO, shown in Fig.3, has $`T^{}=225`$, $`s_1=0.162`$, $`s_2=4.8`$, the fraction of IBIs in the range $`T^{}\pm t_{sm}`$, measured in 5000 IBI runs, is 0.17, 0.68, 0.52 and 0.69 for no control, CC, PP and DP respectively (the statistical error bars for these fractions are less than 0.01). Thus, CC and DP work better than PP (see Fig.4) in this case. The corresponding values for network 6, in which $`T^{}=937`$, $`s_1=0.476`$, $`s_2=1.68`$, are 0.03, 0.09, 0.21 and 0.4, indicating better performance of PP and DP over CC (see Figs.2c, 2d).

Even when CC works well, 70-90% of the IBIs near $`T^{}`$ are actually generated by the stimulation (see Fig.4): the probability of occurrence of spontaneous IBIs near $`T^{}`$ is not significantly increased during control. A similar behavior in the experiment is suggested by the experimental observation that intermittent applications of the external stimulation does not produce effective control. Increasing the strength of stimulation improves control in our simulations by preventing rare failures of the stimulation to generate the required burst. This is qualitatively similar to the results of double-pulse control in the experiment. The anticontrol method proposed in Ref. fails if applied over long durations ($`1000`$ IBIs). In applications of smaller duration ($`100`$ IBIs), the variability of the IBIs increases in some cases due to statistical fluctuations. In the experiment, anticontrol was applied for short durations and failed in most cases.

Our control results are similar to those reported in Ref. for a stochastic single-neuron model. We have also simulated the effects of control on simple Poisson processes with $`p`$ determined from the network data. The close agreement (see Figs.2c, 2d) between the network simulation results and those of our Poisson simulations firmly establishes the stochasticity of the bursting in our model.

Recently, the statistical significance of UPOs in brain slice data has been examined using surrogate analysis of windowed IBI datasets. These studies use a dynamical transformation that maps the neighborhood of an UPO in the return map to the UPO itself. First, the IBI time-series $`\{T_n\}`$ is transformed by

$$\widehat{T_n}=\frac{T_{n+1}s_n(k)T_n}{1s_n(k)}$$
(4)
where $`s_n(k)=[(T_{n+2}T_{n+1})/(T_{n+1}T_n)]+k(T_{n+1}T_n)`$. The probability distribution $`\rho (\widehat{T})`$ of the transformed time-series $`\{\widehat{T_n}\}`$ is expected to show a sharp peak at an UPO, $`\widehat{T}=T^{}`$. Spurious peaks are eliminated by averaging over many random values of $`k`$. Using many realizations of Gaussian-scaled phase-shuffled surrogates of the original time-series, the probability that the observed peaks in $`\rho (\widehat{T})`$ could be modeled by the surrogates is estimated in the following way. From the collection of {$`\rho _{sur}(\widehat{T})`$}, the ensemble average $`\overline{\rho }_{sur}(\widehat{T})`$ is obtained. The deviation of $`\rho _{sur}(\widehat{T})`$ for a particular surrogate from the mean $`\overline{\rho }_{sur}(\widehat{T})`$ is measured by

$$w(\widehat{T})=\rho _{sur}(\widehat{T})\overline{\rho }_{sur}(\widehat{T}).$$
(5)
For each of the surrogates, $`W=max(w(\widehat{T}))`$ is measured and the fraction $`\mathrm{\Xi }(W^{})`$ of surrogates with maximum deviation $`W>W^{}`$ is found. The statistical significance of a candidate UPO at $`\widehat{T}^{}`$ is estimated from the value of $`\mathrm{\Xi }(W)`$ at $`W=\rho (\widehat{T}^{})\overline{\rho }_{sur}(\widehat{T}^{})`$. In our analysis, we used 100 surrogates, $`k=5R`$ where $`R`$ is a random number in $`[1,1]`$, and 500 values of $`R`$. We find that this method successfully rejects the UPO-like trajectories found in the network IBIs (properly rescaled to match the analysis of Ref.) only for long datasets ($`>1024`$ IBIs), but not for shorter datasets (windows). Results for a typical $`128`$-IBI window with a “statistically significant” UPO are shown in Fig.5. In this case, the probability of finding the peak of $`\rho (\widehat{T})`$ (near $`\widehat{T}=0.5`$, with $`W=3.437`$) in the surrogates is close to $`4\%`$, leading to the (false) identification of a statistically significant UPO at $`95\%`$ confidence level. In such analysis of many non-overlapping windows of small width from $`10`$ networks (544, 272 and 136 windows of 32, 64 and 128 IBIs respectively), statistically significant (at the $`95\%`$ confidence level) UPOs are found in $`910\%`$ of the windows. The number of networks for which such statistically significant UPOs are present in at least one of the windows is 8, 10 and 5 for window size $`32`$, $`64`$ and $`128`$, respectively. These numbers are very similar to those reported in Ref.. Very similar results were found (e.g. 75 out of 1024 non-overlapping 32-IBI windows showing statisically significant UPOs for network 1) in a surrogate analysis using a two-dimensional delay embedding  and both overlapping and non-overlapping windows. Ref. reports the detection of statistically significant UPOs of period higher than one in intracellular data which reflect a combination of collective and single-neuron dynamics. Our network with binary neurons is not appropriate for modeling such data. Nevertheless, a similar analysis of our IBI data is planned in future work.

In conclusion, our neural network model with stochastic bursting dynamics successfully reproduces most of the findings of the brain slice experiment. This result casts doubt on the interpretation of the experimental data as evidence for deterministic chaos. Our work also shows that determinism and stochasticity need not be mutually exclusive: the evolution of our network in the low- and high-activity states is mostly deterministic, while the transitions between these two states are stochastic.

We thank Dr. G. R. Ullal for useful discussions.