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# Impact of UV radiation from giant spirals on the evolution of dwarf galaxies

## 1 INTRODUCTION

The diverse group of low luminosity (M$`{}_{\mathrm{V}}{}^{}>12\stackrel{m}{.}5`$) Local Group dwarf galaxies is loosely divided (based on their recent star formation history, SFH, and neutral gas content) into three categories: dwarf irregulars (dIrr), intermediate type dwarfs (dIrr/dSph), and dwarf spheroidals (dSph). Despite some obvious differences, these galaxies do share a few important properties: (a) they are pressure supported (rotation is dynamically unimportant); (b) for a given luminosity, they have comparable spatial extent (especially when considering the distribution of the old stars); (c) they have comparable low metallicity $`[\mathrm{Fe}/\mathrm{H}]2`$; (d) in most cases, they have very aspheric shapes with ellipticity $`e0.20.4`$; (e) the available kinematic data suggest that they are dark matter (DM) dominated.

Local Group dSph galaxies are known to have a wide range of SFHs — from being consistent with a single burst scenario (e.g. Ursa Minor) to the very complex multiple bursts case of Carina (Grebel, 1997). Low luminosity dSphs have not formed stars for at least a Gyr. Intermediate type (dIrr/dSph) Local Group dwarfs (LGS 3, Antlia, and Phoenix) had their most recent star bursts $`100`$ Myr ago (Miller et al., 2001; Piersimoni et al., 1999; Martínez-Delgado, Gallart & Aparicio, 1999). Intrinsically faint dIrr galaxies are all forming stars at the present time but with low efficiency ($`\mathrm{d}m/\mathrm{d}t<0.001`$ M yr-1, Mateo 1998).

A few scenarios have been proposed to explain the complex SFH of dSph galaxies, including episodic accretion of intergalactic gas (Silk, Wyse & Shields, 1987), ISM heating by SN Ia leading to prolonged periods of time with no star formation (Burkert & Ruiz-Lapuente, 1997), and bar induced star bursts in the tidally stirred dwarfs scenario of Mayer et al. (2001).

Aside from the differences in the present day star formation rate (SFR), low luminosity galaxies from the sequence dIrr – dIrr/dSph – dSph differ in their neutral gas content. Local Group dIrrs are gas rich: the ratio of the H i mass to the V-band luminosity $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}/L_V`$ ranges from $`1.4`$ for GR 8 to $`2.8`$ for DDO 210 (Mateo, 1998). Intermediate type dwarfs have smaller H i content: from $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}/L_V0.14`$ for Phoenix (St-Germain et al., 1999; Gallart et al., 2001) to $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}/\mathrm{L}_\mathrm{V}0.4`$ for LGS 3 (Mateo, 1998) and Antlia (Barnes & de Blok, 2001). Dwarf spheroidals have no or little H i. The only possible detection with the H i emission located within the optical extent of the dSph and the radial velocity of the gas being within $`15`$ km s-1 from the optical velocity of the dwarf is that of Sculptor ($`M_{\mathrm{HI}}/L_V0.09`$, Carignan et al. 1998; Bouchard, Carignan & Mashchenko 2003).

The location of the intrinsically faint Local Group dwarfs on the dSph – dIrr/dSph – dIrr sequence appears to correlate with their proximity to large spirals (e.g. van den Bergh, 1999): dSphs are concentrated in the vicinity of the Milky Way and M31, low mass dIrrs are isolated systems, and the intermediate type dwarfs are somewhere in between. Environment appears to bear a significant impact on the dwarfs evolution.

We propose a novel mechanism which can explain the differences in SFHs and neutral gas content between dSphs and dIrrs. Our hypothesis is that the electromagnetic radiation (especially Lyman continuum, LyC, and far ultraviolet, FUV) escaping from the host spiral galaxy can play a decisive role in the evolution of dSphs. Significant amounts of gas can be ionized and heated by the host galaxy LyC when dSphs are on the relatively high galactic latitude parts of their orbits. FUV can also play a role by preventing the formation of the cold neutral medium (CNM) phase of the ISM, which presence is believed to be required for star formation. Moving along their orbits around the host galaxy, dSphs spend relatively short periods of time near the plane of the host, where the fluxes of the LyC and FUV radiation drop to lower metagalactic levels. For some of the dwarfs, the time spent in the shadow produced by the H i disk of the host spiral is enough for their ISM to recombine, cool down and form stars in a short burst. The timescale for the repeated star bursts in this scenario is equal to half of the orbital period, or $`15`$ Gyr, which is in agreement with the observed SFHs. dSph galaxies with total masses $`<2\times 10^8`$ M gradually lose their ISM when the gas is ionized and heated to $`10^4`$ K by the LyC radiation from the host galaxy, leading to the globally declining SFR. This should affect more the dwarfs on almost polar orbits, because their ISM is being kept ionized for the largest fraction of their lifetimes.

This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents our analytical model of the photoionization of the ISM of dSphs by the LyC radiation from the host spiral galaxy, and evaluates the importance of the external FUV radiation for Galactic dSphs. Section 3 gives the observational evidence for the impact of the electromagnetic radiation from giant spirals on the evolution of dwarf satellite galaxies. Section 4 discusses the implications of our results and gives our conclusions.

## 2 MODEL

### 2.1 LyC radiation: a toy model

We adopt the following very simple description of the Galactic ionizing radiation field. Total LyC luminosity of the Galaxy is $`L_0=3\times 10^{53}`$ s-1. The escape fraction of LyC photons is $`f_{\mathrm{esc}}=0.1`$ in all directions except for a narrow zone of $`\pm 15\mathrm{°}`$ near the Galactic plane where it is equal to zero. The background LyC flux is $`F_{bg}=10^4`$ cm-2 s-1. In this model the angle-averaged value of the escape fraction is $`f_{\mathrm{esc}}0.07`$, which is consistent with the observational upper limits on the metagalactic ionizing background (Shull et al., 1999; Bianchi, Cristiani & Kim, 2001). The derived radius of the sphere centred on the Milky Way where the Galactic ionizing flux dominates the metagalactic flux is 224 kpc.

First we consider the following toy model for the ISM of a dSph: a homogeneous isothermal H i sphere with the initial radius $`R_0=500`$ pc, temperature $`T_0=(510)\times 10^3`$ K, and number density $`n_0=0.01`$ cm-3. The gas pressure is $`P_0/k=50100`$ K cm-3. The temperatures of $`(510)\times 10^3`$ K are typical for a warm neutral medium (WNM) phase of the ISM (Wolfire et al., 1995). The mass of the gas is $`M_{\mathrm{HI}}=1.3\times 10^5`$ M. The H i column density through the centre of the cloud is $`N_0=3.1\times 10^{19}`$ cm-2.

For Galactic satellites with measured proper motions (LMC, Sculptor, Ursa Minor, and Fornax), the radial component of the space velocity in the Galactic frame of reference is much smaller than the tangential component (Schweitzer, Cudworth & Majewski, 1997; Piatek et al., 2002), suggesting low eccentricity orbits. Integration of orbits of the satellites in the Galactic isothermal halo potential gives a small ratio of apocentric to pericentric distances $`R_a/R_p22.4`$ (Johnston, 1998). For simplicity, for the rest of the paper we will assume that the orbits of the Galactic satellites have zero eccentricity.

We place our toy dSph on a circular orbit around the Milky Way at a distance of $`R=100`$ kpc, which is the distance of Carina — the dwarf spheroidal with probably the most puzzling star formation history consisting of three star bursts separated by 4-8 Gyr (Hurley-Keller, Mateo & Nemec, 1998). In our model, the Galactic ionizing flux at such a distance is $`2.5\times 10^4`$ cm-2 s-1. When we include the background radiation, the total LyC flux rises to $`F_{tot}=3.5\times 10^4`$ cm-2 s-1.

Can such a low LyC flux photoionize H i in our toy model? The answer appears to be “no” as the flux of LyC photons $`F_{tot}`$ is less than the recombination rate $`F_0`$ along a line crossing the centre of the cloud: $`F_0=2R_0n_0^2\alpha _0^{(2)}=8\times 10^4`$ cm-2 s-1. (Here $`\alpha _0^{(2)}2.6\times 10^{13}`$ cm3 s-1 at $`10^4`$ K is the coefficient of recombination to all but the ground level of the hydrogen atom.)

An important caveat is that in an H i cloud exposed to anisotropic ionizing radiation field the gas which is being photoionized does not stay at its original location. The increased pressure pushes the photoionized gas away, exposing new H i to the incident LyC radiation. This process termed photoevaporation has been studied both analytically (Bertoldi, 1989; Bertoldi & McKee, 1990) and numerically (Lefloch & Lazareff, 1994) in application to an interstellar cloud exposed to the ionizing flux from a nearby hot star. This theory is not directly applicable to the case of the ISM of a dSph galaxy because of the invalidity of the following assumptions adopted by the authors: 1) the temperature of the neutral gas is much lower than the temperature of the ionized gas $`T_{\mathrm{HII}}10^4`$ K; 2) initially the cloud is in pressure equilibrium with the intercloud medium; 3) the ionized gas is not gravitationally bound to the cloud, and can freely flow away.

Nevertheless, we argue that the process of photoevaporation can also take place in the ISM of a dwarf galaxy. Even in the case of the highest possible WNM temperature $`T_{\mathrm{HI}}10^4`$ K, the pressure of the photoionized gas is $`2`$ times higher than the original pressure of H i (because during the photoionization of hydrogen the number of particles doubles, and the temperature is maintained at the $`T_{\mathrm{HII}}10^4`$ K level when the heating by the LyC photons is balanced by radiative cooling). Unlike the interstellar cloud case, in photoevaporating ISM of a reasonably massive dwarf galaxy the ionized gas can stay gravitationally bound to the galaxy. Higher pressure causes the H ii gas to expand, filling the outer regions of the galaxy, allowing a fresh layer of H i to be ionized (Fig. 1). The speed with which the ionization front propagates inside the cloud is determined by how fast the photoionized gas can flow away and be redistributed in the outer parts of the dwarf galaxy, and is expected to be less than or comparable to the isothermal sound speed in the H ii region $`c_g=11.7`$ km s-1.

Under the assumption that during photoionization the H ii gas reaches a state of pressure equilibrium with the H i gas (so the final pressure $`P_1`$ is equal to the initial pressure $`P_0`$), the parameters for the fully photoionized cloud are $`R_1=\chi ^{1/3}R_0`$, $`n_1=\chi ^1n_0`$, $`N_1=\chi ^{2/3}N_0`$, and $`F_1=\chi ^{5/3}F_0`$. (Here $`\chi 2T_1/T_0`$.) Assuming the H ii temperature of $`T_1=10^4`$ K, we obtain $`\chi =24`$, so the final radius $`R_1`$, number density $`n_1`$, column density $`N_1`$ and minimum LyC flux $`F_1`$ required to keep the cloud fully ionized are $`R_1=630790`$ pc, $`n_1=(2.55)\times 10^3`$ cm-3, $`N_1=(1.21.9)\times 10^{19}`$ cm-2, and $`F_1=(0.82.5)\times 10^4`$ cm-2 s-1. The photoevaporation time scale is of the order of $`2R_0/c_g=84`$ Myr. Once the dwarf moves in the shadow produced by the Galactic H i layer, the gas will recombine with a time scale of $`\tau _{\mathrm{rec}}=1/(\alpha _0^{(2)}n_1)=2449`$ Myr. Both photoevaporation and recombination time scales are a small fraction of the dSph’s orbital periods of a few Gyr.

Assuming that the process of photoevaporation is 100% efficient, in our toy model the ISM of a dwarf located $`100`$ kpc away from the Milky Way can be fully photoionized by the Galactic LyC photons: $`F_1<F_{tot}`$. Once the dwarf moves into the shadow produced by the Galactic disk, the gas can recombine on a relatively short time scale, potentially leading to an episode of star formation.

### 2.2 LyC radiation: more realistic approach

A homogeneous gas sphere is admittedly not a very realistic model for the ISM of dSphs. In our next step we consider the distribution of isothermal ionized hydrogen gas being in hydrostatic equilibrium inside properly normalized DM halos with different masses and density profiles (either NFW, or Burkert 1995). The temperature of the gas is $`T_1=10^4`$ K, so the sound speed is $`c_g=11.7`$ km s-1. Similarly to the toy model, we wish to find the lowest ionizing flux $`F_1`$ sufficient to keep the ISM fully photoionized by estimating the recombination rate along a line crossing the centre of the cloud.

The analytical formulae describing the hydrostatic equilibrium distribution of isothermal gas inside NFW and Burkert’s DM halos were derived by Sternberg, McKee & Wolfire (2002, Appendix A). For NFW halos, these authors give the following expressions for the dimensionless DM density $`f_\rho `$, enclosed DM mass $`f_M`$, and gas density $`f_{\mathrm{gas}}`$:

$`f_\rho `$ $`=`$ $`1/[x(1+x)^2],`$ (1)
$`f_M`$ $`=`$ $`3[\mathrm{ln}(1+x)x/(1+x)],`$ (2)
$`f_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ $`=`$ $`e^{3(v_s/c_g)^2}(1+x)^{(v_s/c_g)^2/x}.`$ (3)
Here $`xr/r_s`$ is the dimensionless radius. The corresponding equations for Burkert’s halos are

$`f_\rho `$ $`=`$ $`1/[(1+x)(1+x^2)],`$ (4)
$`f_M`$ $`=`$ $`(3/2)\{[\mathrm{ln}(1+x^2)]/2+\mathrm{ln}(1+x)\mathrm{tan}^1x\},`$ (5)
$`f_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ $`=`$ $`[e^{(1+1/x)\mathrm{tan}^1x}\times `$ (6)
$`(1+x)^{(1+1/x)}(1+x^2)^{(1/x1)/2}]^{(3/2)(v_s/c_g)^2}.`$
From equations (16), (17) and (19) of Sternberg et al. (2002) we obtained the following approximate expressions for the scaling radius $`r_s`$, the scaling velocity $`v_s`$, and the concentration parameter $`x_{\mathrm{vir}}r_{\mathrm{vir}}/r_s`$ for DM halos in $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology (assuming $`\mathrm{\Omega }_m=0.3`$, $`\mathrm{\Omega }_\mathrm{\Lambda }=0.7`$, $`H_0=70`$ km s-1 Mpc-1, and $`\sigma _8=1`$):

$`r_s`$ $`=`$ $`0.96\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{vir}}}{10^9\mathrm{M}_{}}}\right)^{0.41}\mathrm{kpc},`$ (7)
$`v_s`$ $`=`$ $`24.7\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{vir}}}{10^9\mathrm{M}_{}}}\right)^{0.31}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1,`$ (8)
$`x_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ $`=`$ $`26.2\left({\displaystyle \frac{m_{\mathrm{vir}}}{10^9\mathrm{M}_{}}}\right)^{0.07}.`$ (9)
Here $`r_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ are the virial radius and the virial mass of a dwarf, respectively. Equations (7-9) are valid for $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}=10^810^{11}`$ M.

The total masses of the Galactic dwarf spheroidals are not known. Even under the simplest “mass follows light” assumption, most dSphs appear to be DM dominated (Mateo, 1998). The absence of tidal features caused by the gravitational field of the Milky Way in stellar isophots of Draco down to a very low level (0.001 of the central surface brightness) suggests that at least in this dSph the DM halo is more extended than the stellar body (Odenkirchen et al., 2001). Comparison of the structure and kinematics of Milky Way satellites with cosmological N-body $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM simulations suggests that the dSphs may represent the most massive substructures in the Galactic DM halo, with masses up to a few $`10^9`$ M (Stoehr et al., 2002; Hayashi et al., 2003). By allowing stars and DM to have different velocity distributions, Łokas’ (2002) analysis of the observed radial profiles of stellar velocity dispersion for Fornax and Draco yielded a range of possible total masses of $`(14)\times 10^9`$ M for each of these dwarfs. (The analysis included both NFW-type and flat-core-type DM profiles.)

In this paper we explore the range of virial masses of dwarf spheroidals between $`2.5\times 10^8`$ and $`4\times 10^9`$ M, with a fiducial value of $`10^9`$ M. Galaxies less massive than $`2\times 10^8`$ M will not be able to keep the photoionized gas gravitationally bound for a long period of time (unless they are confined by non-negligible pressure of the hot Galactic corona), and more massive than a few $`10^9`$ M will be inconsistent with the predictions of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM models.

The halos of the dSphs are truncated by the Galactic tidal field. We estimate the tidal radius $`r_t`$ of satellites by solving numerically the following non-linear equation applicable to dwarfs on circular orbits around the host (Hayashi et al., 2003):

$$\frac{m(r_t)}{r_t^3}=\frac{M(R)}{R^3}\left[2\frac{R}{M(R)}\frac{M}{R}\right].$$
(10)
Here $`m(r)=f_M(r/r_s)v_s^2r_s/G`$ and $`M(R)`$ are the enclosed DM mass for the satellite and host, and $`R`$ is the distance of the satellite from the centre of the host. We assume that the Milky Way DM halo is an isothermal sphere, with $`M(R)=2\sigma ^2R/G`$. We set $`\sigma =113.6`$ km s-1 so that $`M(250\mathrm{kpc})=1.5\times 10^{12}`$ M. For the range of galactocentric distances of dSphs ($`R=70250`$ kpc), the mass of a tidally truncated satellite $`m_t`$ is found to be more than half of the original virial mass $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}`$.

Our algorithm is as follows. For a given satellite’s halo model (Burkert or NFW), virial mass $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}`$, and galactocentric distance $`R`$, we first find the tidal radius $`r_t`$ by solving the non-linear equation (10). The recombination rate $`F_1`$ along a line crossing the centre of the halo is given by

$$F_1=2\alpha _0^{(2)}n_0^2r_s\underset{0}{\overset{x_t}{}}f_{\mathrm{gas}}^2(x)dx.$$
(11)
Here $`x_tr_t/r_s`$ is the dimensionless tidal radius and $`n_0`$ is the central proton number density of the gas.

Substituting $`F_1`$ in equation (11) with the total LyC flux at the distance $`R`$ from the Galactic centre $`F_{\mathrm{tot}}=F_{\mathrm{bg}}+f_{\mathrm{esc}}L_0/(4\pi R^2)`$ and solving the resulting equation for $`n_0`$ gives us an estimate of the largest possible central number density $`n_{0,\mathrm{tot}}`$ for the ISM being in a fully photoionized state when the satellite is located high above the Galactic plane:

$$n_{0,\mathrm{tot}}=\left[\frac{F_{\mathrm{bg}}+f_{\mathrm{esc}}L_0/(4\pi R^2)}{2\alpha _0^{(2)}r_s\underset{0}{\overset{x_t}{}}f_{\mathrm{gas}}^2(x)dx}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(12)
Similarly, substituting $`F_1`$ with $`F_{\mathrm{bg}}`$ will result in the estimate of the largest possible central number density $`n_{0,\mathrm{bg}}`$ for the ISM being in a fully photoionized state when the dwarf is located near the Galactic plane (in the shadow produced by the H i disk of the Milky Way):

$$n_{0,\mathrm{bg}}=\left[\frac{F_{\mathrm{bg}}}{2\alpha _0^{(2)}r_s\underset{0}{\overset{x_t}{}}f_{\mathrm{gas}}^2(x)dx}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(13)
The corresponding maximum total masses $`m_{\mathrm{gas},\mathrm{tot}}`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{gas},\mathrm{bg}}`$ of the fully photoionized ISM are

$$m_{\mathrm{gas},\mathrm{tot}/\mathrm{bg}}=4\pi n_{0,\mathrm{tot}/\mathrm{bg}}m_{\mathrm{HI}}r_s^3\underset{0}{\overset{x_t}{}}f_{\mathrm{gas}}(x)x^2dx.$$
(14)
Here $`m_{\mathrm{HI}}`$ is the mass of a hydrogen atom. From equations (12-14) one can see that the following inequalities hold for any finite $`R`$: $`n_{0,\mathrm{tot}}>n_{0,\mathrm{bg}}`$ and $`m_{\mathrm{gas},\mathrm{tot}}>m_{\mathrm{gas},\mathrm{bg}}`$.

In Fig. 2 we show the critical gas density profiles for different halos located at a distance of $`100`$ kpc from the Milky Way (left panel). By “critical” we mean the ISM for which the recombination rate along a line crossing the centre of the dwarf is equal to the incident LyC flux. The central number density and mass for such an ISM are described by equations (12-14). Subcritical (with lower $`n_0`$) and critical ISM are fully photoionized, whereas a supercritical (with higher $`n_0`$) ISM has a neutral core where star formation can take place. (The Hα surface brightness profiles for our model halos shown in the right panel of Fig. 2 will be discussed at the end of this section.)

As can be seen in Fig. 2, in the lowest mass cases ($`m_{\mathrm{vir}}=2.5\times 10^8`$ M) the photoionized gas is not well confined by the gravity of the satellite, with the gas density at the tidal radius being only $`2080`$ times lower than the central density. On the other hand, the gas pressure at the tidal radius is low — around 4 K cm-3, so even very tenuous Galactic corona with temperature of $`10^6`$ K and proton number density of $`2\times 10^6`$ cm-3 would suffice to confine the gas.

In Fig. 2 one can also see that the isothermal gas density distribution for Burkert halos has a large core with an almost constant radius of $`800`$ pc for the whole range of virial masses considered. On the other hand, the ISM in NFW halos is more centrally peaked, which is the result of their cuspy DM density profile.

Fig. 3 shows critical central gas density for either Burkert or NFW halos with different virial masses, located at different distances from the Milky Way, and exposed either to the total (Galactic $`+`$ metagalactic) ionizing flux, or only to the background LyC radiation (when the halo is in the shadow produced by the Galactic disk). The shaded areas correspond to halos which are subcritical when they are exposed to the Milky Way ionizing radiation, and supercritical when they are in the “LyC shadow” and can potentially form stars. These half-critical systems are of utmost interest to us as they can explain both the multiple star bursts history of some of the Galactic dSphs and the apparent absence of ISM in all of them (with the possible exception of Sculptor, Bouchard et al. 2003) including such dwarfs as Carina and Fornax which have had some star formation in the last Gyr.

By analyzing Fig. 3 we can make a few interesting observations. First, the range of central densities for half-critical dwarfs is almost independent on the virial mass of the halo, especially for Burkert halos. Second, this range is relatively large (a factor of 2 or more) for dwarfs located $`100`$ kpc from the Galaxy, but quickly becomes much smaller for larger distances. At the distance of Leo I (250 kpc), the interval is so narrow, that it would be very unlikely if the ISM of this galaxy was in the half-critical state. If the dwarf has any ISM, the gas is probably thin enough to be photoionized by the metagalactic LyC background alone. In the past it could have possessed a denser ISM with a neutral core where star formation could have taken place.

Critical total gas masses for different halos are shown in Fig. 4. Burkert halos can contain much more massive ISM in half-critical (shaded areas) or permanently photoionized (areas below the dashed lines) states than NFW halos because they are less centrally concentrated. The total mass of gas in half-critical halos is of order of $`10^6`$ M (Burkert) or $`10^5`$ M (NFW). As the right panel of Fig. 4 suggests, isolated Burkert halos can contain millions M of gas within their virial radii kept fully photoionized by the metagalactic ionizing radiation alone.

Only a fraction of the total mass of gas in a half-critical halo can recombine, cool down and collapse toward the centre of the dwarf to be available for star formation during a relatively short passage of the satellite through the “LyC shadow” cast by the Galactic disk. In our isothermal sphere model for the Milky Way halo, a dwarf on a circular polar orbit with $`R=100`$ kpc will spend 320 Myr in the shadow with the opening angle of $`30^{}`$ twice per orbital period (which is equal to 3.8 Gyr).

The shortest recombination, cooling and free-fall time scales are at the centre of the halo. As time goes on, gas can recombine and collapse at increasingly larger distances from the centre of the halo. Fig. 5 quantifies this effect for a specific case of either a Burkert or a NFW halo with a virial mass of $`10^9`$ M located 100 kpc away from the Galaxy. In this figure we show the recombination time $`\tau _{\mathrm{rec}}=1/(\alpha _0^{(2)}n)`$ and the free-fall time $`\tau _{\mathrm{ff}}=\sqrt{3\pi /(32G\rho )}`$ (Binney & Tremaine, 1994, p. 184). (Here $`\rho `$ is the average total density of the system.) In our notation, the free-fall time can be written as a function of the dimensionless radius $`x`$ in the following way:

$$\tau _{\mathrm{ff}}=\frac{\pi r_s}{v_s}\left[\frac{x^3}{8f_M(x)}\right]^{\frac{1}{2}}.$$
(15)
As can be seen in Fig. 5, the recombination time scale is more important than the free-fall time in controlling how much gas can become available for star formation at the centre of the dwarf. It is also probably more important than the cooling time $`\tau _{\mathrm{cool}}`$ (not shown in Fig. 5). Indeed, both recombination and cooling time scales have the same dependence on density — $`\tau _{\mathrm{rec}}=0.122/n`$ Myr, and $`\tau _{\mathrm{cool}}=1.31\times 10^{25}/(\mathrm{\Lambda }n)`$ Myr, so only for $`\mathrm{\Lambda }<1.1\times 10^{24}`$ erg cm3 s-1 can cooling become more important than recombination. (Sutherland & Dopita (1993) give the following value for the cooling function of $`10^4`$ K gas: $`\mathrm{\Lambda }=4\times 10^{24}`$ erg cm3 s-1.) In reality, processes of recombination, cooling and collapse of the gas are not independent from each other, and for accurate estimates of how much of cold gas can accumulate at the centre of the halo one has to integrate a system of appropriate differential equations, which is beyond the scope of this paper.

From Fig. 5 one can estimate that in a half-critical halo with $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}=10^9`$ M and $`R=100`$ kpc approximately $`5\times 10^5`$ M (Burkert profile) or $`5\times 10^4`$ M (NFW profile) of gas can collapse to form a denser neutral core during the time spent in the shadow ($`300`$ Myr). It remains to be seen if this time interval is long enough for the formation of molecular hydrogen clouds and eventually stars. The above mass estimates should be considered as upper limits, as the low density gas in the outer parts of the dwarf will remain photoionized by the metagalactic LyC radiation.

The last issue we consider in this section is related to the observability of the photoionized ISM in our model halos in the Hα spectral line. The Hα brightness $`F_\alpha `$ along a line crossing the halo is related to the corresponding recombination rate of hydrogen $`F_1`$ through $`F_\alpha =F_1\alpha _{32}/\alpha _0^{(2)}0.45F_1`$. Here $`\alpha _{32}=1.17\times 10^{13}`$ cm3 s-1 (for $`T=10^4`$ K) is the corresponding photon production coefficient (Spitzer, 1978, p. 89).

The first observational deep upper limits on the intensity of the Hα emission from dwarf spheroidals set by Gallagher et al. (2003) for Draco and Ursa Minor are 24 mR and 21 mR, respectively (1 $`\mathrm{mR}10^3`$ cm-2 s-1). These results were obtained with WHAM (Wisconsin H-Alpha Mapper) which has an effective beam size of 1$`\mathrm{°}`$. Do these upper limits exclude the possibility of the presence of half-critical ISM in Draco and Ursa Minor?

Fig. 6 shows the range of central Hα brightness $`F_{\alpha ,0}`$ for half-critical halos as a function of the galactocentric distance $`R`$ (the shaded area). As one can see, the expected central Hα flux from Galactic dSphs is very low, with values in the range of $`530`$ mR and $`521`$ mR for the distances of Ursa Minor ($`R=66`$ kpc) and Draco ($`R=82`$ kpc), respectively.

These values of $`F_{\alpha ,0}`$ should not be directly compared with the observations, as the large beam size of WHAM leads to the averaging of Hα flux over a significant area, effectively reducing the observed surface brightness. This is evident from the right panel of Fig. 2 which shows the radial profile of $`F_\alpha `$ for different halos. The effect should be strongest for NFW halos, as their Hα flux drops significantly on scales of $`200300`$ pc ($`10^{}`$ at a distance of 100 kpc).

To allow a direct comparison of the WHAM observations with our model, in Fig. 7 we plot the expected Hα flux $`F_\alpha `$ from half-critical ISM of dSphs averaged over a circular beam with a diameter of $`1\mathrm{°}`$ centred on the dwarf. Fig. 7 shows that the flux is very low, with NFW halos being $`10`$ times fainter than Burkert’s halos. For both NFW and Burkert halos with masses $`2.5\times 10^84\times 10^9`$ M, the range of $`F_\alpha `$ for half-critical ISM is $`1.320.7`$ mR for Ursa Minor and $`0.612.7`$ mR for Draco. As one can see, the whole range of Hα brightness expected from half-critical ISM in Galactic dSphs is below the best available observational upper limits.

Finally, in Fig. 8 we show the apparent extent of the Hα emission for our model halos. Here we plot the angular distance $`r_{\mathrm{gas}}`$ from the centre of the dwarf where the Hα surface brightness drops by a factor of $`e`$. For our range of $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}`$ and $`R`$, the angular scalelength of Hα emission ranges between $`1\stackrel{}{.}5`$ (NFW halo with $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}=4\times 10^9`$ M and $`R=250`$ kpc) and $`37^{}`$ (Burkert halo with $`m_{\mathrm{vir}}=2.5\times 10^8`$ M and $`R=70`$ kpc).

The conclusion we draw here is that to rule out the presence of fully photoionized ISM in half-critical state in Galactic dwarf spheroidals, either much higher sensitivity (down to $`0.10.2`$ mR) low angular resolution ($`1\mathrm{°}`$), or lower sensitivity ($`5`$ mR) but much higher angular resolution ($`1^{}`$) Hα observations are required.

### 2.3 FUV radiation

FUV radiation between 912 and 2000 Å, absorbed by interstellar dust, is the most important source of heating for the Galactic neutral ISM (Wolfire et al., 1995). The UV heating is proportional to the density of the gas. The denser CNM phase of the ISM is thus more sensitive to changes in the level of the FUV radiation than the WNM phase, and for sufficiently large FUV fluxes can be completely evaporated (CNM$``$WNM phase transition). The presence of CNM is believed to be essential for molecular hydrogen cloud formation, and hence for star formation.

Even the smallest isolated dIrr galaxies are known to possess two-phase ISM (Young & Lo, 1996, 1997b). Theoretical models predict that a very low level radiation field, 0.001–0.01 of the local Galactic value, produced by stars in a low mass dIrr can maintain its ISM in a two-phase state at pressures $`10200`$ K cm-3 (Young & Lo, 1997b, their fig. 16). If such a dwarf is exposed to external FUV radiation (e.g. from a nearby spiral galaxy) with the flux larger than the internal one, the balance between CNM/WNM phases of the ISM will be shifted toward the WNM phase, reducing the SFR. For large enough external FUV flux the star formation will be quenched. Thus it appears that the FUV radiation from giant spirals could be another important environmental factor for intrinsically faint satellite galaxies.

We consider the two following main components of the FUV radiation field inside early-type dwarfs: internal (from the Population II stars), and external (from the host spiral galaxy).

From table 4 of Welch, Mitchell & Yi (1996) we derive the following estimate of the intensity of the FUV interstellar radiation from the old population stars averaged over the wavelength interval $`9001100`$ Å at the centre of the dwarf elliptical galaxy NGC 185: $`2000`$ cm-2 s-1 Å-1. We assume that the FUV flux at the centre of a dwarf scales as in a homogeneous stellar sphere as $`I_0^{2/3}L_V^{1/3}`$, where $`I_0`$ is the central V-band luminosity density and $`L_V`$ is the V-band luminosity of the galaxy. For NGC 185, Mateo (1998) gives the following values: $`I_0=1.76`$ L pc-3 and $`L_V=1.25\times 10^8`$ L. We obtain the following estimate of the FUV flux at the centre of early-type dwarfs, expressed in units of the standard local FUV background with the flux $`F_{loc}=1.0\times 10^5`$ cm-2 s-1 Å-1 at $`\lambda =1000`$ Å (Draine 1978, their equation ):

$$f_{int}2.7\times 10^5I_0^{2/3}L_V^{1/3},$$
(16)
where $`I_0`$ is in L pc-3, and $`L_V`$ is in L.

The FUV luminosity of the Local Group giant spirals (Milky Way and M31) is not well known. We assume that, for face-on giant spiral galaxies, the FUV flux is proportional to the Hα flux (because most of both types of radiation can be traced back to the same source — young massive stars). Two nearby face-on spiral galaxies, similar to M31 and the Milky Way in their Hubble type and luminosity, have been observed with the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT, Stecher et al. 1997) aboard the space shuttles: NGC 628 (M74) and NGC 5457 (M101). Bell & Kennicutt (2001) presented for these galaxies both FUV flux at $`\lambda =1521`$ Å (UIT filter B1), and Hα flux. In accord with our expectations, the ratio of the Hα flux to the FUV flux is comparable for the two spirals: $`f_{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }/f_{1521}=14`$ Å for NGC 628, and 10 Å for NGC 5457 (the units for $`f_{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }`$ are ergs cm-2 s-1, and for $`f_{1521}`$ are ergs cm-2 s-1 Å-1 — hence the units of Å for the ratio of the fluxes). The average value of the ratio is

$$\frac{f_{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }}{f_{1521}}12\text{Å}.$$
(17)
The observed Hα flux from M31 is $`f_{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }5.1\times 10^{10}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 (Devereux et al., 1994). M31 is a highly inclined spiral with $`i=77\stackrel{}{.}5`$ (Ma, Peng & Gu, 1997). Adopting the average $`\mathrm{H}_\alpha `$ optical depth value $`\tau _{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }=1.23`$ of Walterbos & Braun (1994) and assuming that the absorbing layer is thin, the deprojected face-on Hα flux from M31 is $`\mathrm{exp}[\tau _{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }(1\mathrm{cos}i)]2.6`$ times larger than the observed one, or $`f_{\mathrm{H}_\alpha }^{}1.3\times 10^9`$ ergs cm-2 s-1. Using the empirical conversion factor (equation ), we estimate the M31 face-on flux in B1 filter as $`f_{1521}^{}1.1\times 10^{10}`$ ergs cm-2 s-1 Å$`{}_{}{}^{1}8.3`$ cm-2 s-1 Å-1. We adopt the distance to M31 of 780 kpc (see discussion in Section 3.1). The FUV flux from M31 along its polar axis at the distance $`R_{\mathrm{kpc}}`$ expressed in units of the standard local FUV background with the flux $`F_{loc}=2.0\times 10^5`$ cm-2 s-1 Å-1 at $`\lambda =1521`$ Å (Draine, 1978) is then:

$$f_{ext}25R_{\mathrm{kpc}}^2.$$
(18)
Finally, dividing equation (16) by equation (18), we obtain a rough estimate of the ratio of the internal FUV flux to the flux from the host galaxy at the centre of the early-type dwarf satellites of M31 and the Milky Way (assuming, that the Milky Way FUV luminosity is comparable to that of M31):

$$\frac{f_{int}}{f_{ext}}1.1\times 10^6I_0^{2/3}L_V^{1/3}R_{\mathrm{kpc}}^2.$$
(19)
This equation is applicable to dwarfs located far from the plane of the host galaxy, where the dust attenuation becomes significant.

Using equation (19) and the data on dSphs from the review of Mateo (1998), we can estimate the relative importance of the external FUV radiation for the Milky Way satellites. For all but one dSphs (Sextans, Ursa Minor, Draco, Carina, Sculptor, Fornax, and Leo II) the internal FUV flux is found to be much smaller than the external one even at the centre of the dwarf, with the $`f_{int}/f_{ext}`$ values ranging from $`0.01`$ (Sextans and Ursa Minor) to $`0.4`$ (Fornax and Leo II). Leo I appears to be the only Galactic dSph for which the internal FUV flux at the centre of the dwarf dominates over the external one: $`f_{int}/f_{ext}2`$.

Equation (18) can also be used to determine whether the FUV flux from a large spiral galaxy is strong enough to affect the multi-phase structure of the ISM (and hence the star formation) in a nearby dwarf galaxy. Fig. 16 of Young & Lo (1997b) suggests that in low metallicity dwarf galaxies, FUV radiation, with the flux as low as 0.001 of the local Galactic value, can regulate the structure of the ISM. For M31 and the Milky Way, equation (18) indicates that the FUV flux will be larger than the above value out to a radius of 158 kpc, which encompasses most of the dwarf spheroidal satellites.

In an M31-like spiral, with low star formation activity and relatively small bulge, most of the FUV radiation comes from sources in the plane of the galaxy, closely associated with the spiral arms. The FUV flux from a normal spiral galaxy is then expected to be anisotropic, with most of the radiation near the plane of the galaxy being absorbed by the dust. In Fig. 9, we use two nearby spirals similar to M31 and the Milky Way, face-on NGC 5457 and edge-on NGC 891, to illustrate this anisotropy. A typical dSph galaxy on orbit around a giant spiral would spend most of its lifetime in the regime $`f_{int}/f_{ext}1`$, with relatively short periods of time of $`f_{int}/f_{ext}1`$ when the dwarf crosses the plane of the host spiral galaxy every $`15`$ Gyr (half of the orbital period).

The above arguments appear to make a reasonably strong case for the external FUV radiation as being an important evolutionary factor for low mass dwarfs on orbits around large spirals.

There are two important caveats to the above analysis. The first one is related to the poorly known contribution from the metagalactic background to the FUV radiation field inside dwarf galaxies. The observed FUV background radiation is known to be strongly dominated by the local (Galactic) sources, making it almost impossible to put an accurate upper limit on the metagalactic flux (see discussion in Sasseen et al., 1995). Upper limits for the extragalactic background derived by different authors differ by more than an order of magnitude, and are as low as 380 cm-2 s-1 Å-1 in $`4\pi `$ solid angle at $`\lambda =9121100`$ Å (Murthy et al., 1999), or $`0.004`$ in the local background units. Calculations of the propagation of FUV radiation from QSOs and AGNs through the intergalactic space (Haardt & Madau, 1996, their fig. 5a) give an estimate of the lower limit for the background flux, $`28`$ cm-2 s-1 Å-1 at $`\lambda =1000`$ Å ($`2.7\times 10^4`$ in the local units). From equation (18), this range of possible background values corresponds to a radius $`83<R<310`$ kpc for the sphere around M31 where its FUV radiation dominates over the background (except for the narrow zone near the plane of the galaxy).

The second caveat is that the heating by soft X-ray radiation, which is inferior to the FUV heating for the Galactic neutral ISM, could be the dominant heating mechanism under the low metallicity and low radiation field conditions in dwarf galaxies (Wolfire et al., 1995). We estimate the M31 deprojected face-on X-ray luminosity in the band $`0.12`$ keV to be $`(0.51)\times 10^{40}`$ ergs s-1. (For this we used the observed M31 soft X-ray luminosity value of $`0.43\times 10^{40}`$ ergs s-1 from Supper et al. 2001, recalculated for the distance to M31 of 780 kpc, and the X-ray luminosity of the face-on spiral NGC 5457 $`1.0\times 10^{40}`$ ergs s-1 from Read & Ponman 2001, recalculated for the distance of 7.0 Mpc from Stetson et al. 1998.) The extragalactic soft X-ray background flux is believed to be known relatively accurately. Chen, Fabian & Gendreau (1997) give the following estimate of the background spectral density within the $`0.17`$ keV band: $`10.5E^{1.46}`$ keV cm-2 s-1 sr-1 keV-1, where $`E`$ is the photon energy in keV units. Integrated over the $`0.12`$ keV interval of photon energies, this gives the following value for the metagalactic soft X-ray background flux (in $`2\pi `$ solid angle): $`5.0\times 10^7`$ ergs cm-2 s-1. Combined with the derived above face-on X-ray luminosity of M31, the radius of the soft X-ray “dominance sphere” for M31 is found to be very small: $`913`$ kpc. Thus the ISM heating by soft X-ray radiation from normal spiral galaxies cannot be an important environmental factor for dwarf galaxies.

This leads to the conclusion that FUV radiation escaping from spiral galaxies can be an important environmental factor for dwarf satellite galaxies only if the resultant ISM heating rate is larger than the heating rate from the metagalactic soft X-ray background. This issue can be addressed only through solving numerically the equations of thermal and ionization equilibrium with the inclusion of all the relevant physical processes (similarly to Wolfire et al. 1995), which is beyond the scope of this paper.

## 3 OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE

The previous section gives support to the idea that the electromagnetic radiation escaping from the host spiral galaxy can be an important evolutionary factor for dwarf galaxies. This mechanism can explain in general the principal differences (in SFHs and neutral gas content) between two classes of dwarfs — dSphs and dIrrs. In this section we will present observational evidences for the impact of the UV radiation from the Milky Way and M31 on their dwarf satellites, which gives further support to the above idea.

### 3.1 The puzzle of the “twin” galaxies NGC 147 and NGC 185

The two dwarf elliptical satellites of M31, NGC 147 and NGC 185, appear to be almost identical in many respects (Young & Lo, 1997a): they have comparable blue luminosities, Holmberg diameters, B–V colors, average surface brightness, light profile shapes, mean stellar dispersions, and projected distances from M31. Both galaxies show evidence for an intermediate-age stellar component (Young & Lo, 1997a).

Despite all these similarities, NGC 147 and NGC 185 are strikingly different in their recent SFHs, and in the present day neutral gas content. NGC 185 formed stars as recently as 20 Myr ago (Lee et al., 1993a), and contains substantial amounts of H i ($`1.1\times 10^5`$ M) and H2 ($`4.1\times 10^4`$ M) (Young, 2001). Conversely, NGC 147 has not formed stars for at least a Gyr (Han et al., 1997), and appears to be devoid of neutral ISM (Young & Lo, 1997a; Sage, Welch & Mitchell, 1998).

We argue that the differences between NGC 147 and NGC 185 can be explained by different fluxes of the LyC and FUV radiation escaping from M31 at the present locations of the dwarfs.

To quantify this effect, we need to know the accurate distances to the dwarfs and to M31. To avoid large systematic errors, we use the distance measurements obtained with the same technique — the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) method, which was shown to work very well for low-metallicity Population II stars (Lee, Freedman & Madore, 1993b). Two available TRGB distance measurements for NGC 185 (Lee et al. 1993b and Martínez-Delgado & Aparicio 1998) give virtually the same values of the true distance modulus: $`(mM)_0=23.95\pm 0.1`$. The situation with NGC 147 is different — Lee et al. (1993b) gave the value $`(mM)_0=24.13\pm 0.1`$, whereas Han et al. (1997) obtained $`(mM)_0=24.37\pm 0.06`$. We choose to use the latter value, because it was derived from the high quality WFCP2 data for $`117,000`$ stars in two different fields, both producing identical true distance modulus estimates. In contrast, the distance value of Lee et al. (1993b) was based on the photometry of only $`500`$ stars from the paper of Mould, Kristian & Da Costa (1983). Two relevant distance measurements for M31 agree very well: Durrell, Harris & Pritchet (2001) obtained a TRGB true distance modulus $`(mM)_0=24.47\pm 0.12`$ based on wide-field photometry of a field in the outer halo of M31, and Holland (1998) derived $`(mM)_0=24.47\pm 0.07`$ by fitting theoretical isochrones to the observed red giant branches of 14 globular clusters in M31. (It is interesting to note that an identical value was also obtained by Stanek & Garnavich (1998) from comparing the red clump stars with parallaxes known to better than 10% in the Hipparcos catalog with the red clump stars observed in three fields in M31 using the Hubble Space Telescope: $`(mM)_0=24.47\pm 0.08`$.) Finally, we adopt the following values of the true distance modulus for NGC 185, NGC 147, and M31: $`23.95\pm 0.1`$, $`24.37\pm 0.06`$, and $`24.47\pm 0.07`$, respectively.

We derive the following distances from M31: $`100_4^{+13}`$ kpc for NGC 147, and $`186_{33}^{+34}`$ kpc for NGC 185. If the FUV and ionizing radiation from M31 were isotropic, NGC 147 would receive $`2.8_{0.8}^{+0.9}`$ times larger flux than NGC 185. This difference is probably not large enough to explain the observed differences in the neutral gas content and recent SFH of the dwarfs.

It is expected though that the LyC and FUV fluxes from a giant spiral galaxy are strongly anisotropic, being at maximum along the polar axis (local galactic latitude $`b_{loc}=\pm 90\mathrm{°}`$), and dropping virtually to zero in the plane of the galaxy ($`b_{loc}=0\mathrm{°}`$). To estimate $`b_{loc}`$ values for NGC 147 and NGC 185, we adopt the inclination angle of the M31 disk $`i=77\stackrel{}{.}5`$ from Ma et al. (1997), and the position angle of the galactic line of nodes $`\mathrm{PA}=37\stackrel{}{.}7`$ from de Vaucouleurs (1958). The uncertainty in both angles is assumed to be $`1\mathrm{°}`$. We use the fact that the northwest side of M31 is the near side (e.g. Walterbos & Kennicutt, 1988), and arbitrarily choose the local northern pole to be on the opposite side of the M31 disk.

Taking into account all the uncertainties, we derive $`b_{loc}=(3_3^{+4})`$ dgr. for NGC 185, and $`b_{loc}=(37_8^{+11})`$ dgr. for NGC 147. It appears that NGC 185 is located almost in the plane of the M31 disk, and is therefore shielded from the FUV and LyC electromagnetic radiation by the H i disk of M31. In contrast, from the location of NGC 147 the M31 spiral is seen half-open (see Fig. 10), resulting in significant fluxes of the ionizing and FUV radiation, which can ionize and heat the ISM of the dwarf, thus preventing star formation.

### 3.2 Disturbed ISM of NGC 205

The neutral ISM of the NGC 205 dwarf elliptical satellite of M31 consists of $`4.3\times 10^5`$ M of H i and $`1\times 10^5`$ M of H2 (Young, 2000). The morphology and kinematics of the neutral gas is very unusual: the central and northern parts of the ISM look relatively unperturbed with the radial velocity being close to that of the stellar body, whereas the southern part appears to be compressed in the SE direction and red-shifted by $`2030`$ km s-1 relative to the stars (Young & Lo, 1997a, their fig. 2 and 4).

We note that the line drawn along the compressed gas in the southern part of the galaxy is perpendicular to the direction toward the centre of M31, which is located to the southeast of NGC 205 at the position angle $`\mathrm{PA}=133\mathrm{°}`$ (Fig. 11). The dwarf galaxy is located very close to M31 in projection (8 kpc away at the distance of M31), and most probably is $`30100`$ kpc behind the spiral galaxy along the line of sight (Saha et al., 1992; Mateo, 1998; Bond & Alves, 2001). This places NGC 205 relatively close to the plane of the spiral galaxy, with the local galactic latitude $`b_{loc}20\mathrm{°}`$. The morphology and kinematics of the disturbed gas is then consistent with an ionization-shock (IS) front driven by the LyC radiation from M31 toward the centre of NGC 205 with a velocity of $`25`$ km s-1 (Fig. 12). The fact that the compressed part of the ISM shows the highest H i column density in NGC 205 and contains significant amounts of H2 kinematically coupled to the H i (Young, 2000) supports this picture of a relatively strong shock. From Fig. 11, we estimate that the shock front has already traveled $`300`$ pc inside the dwarf, indicating that the process started very recently: $`10`$ Myr ago (kinematic age).

Another important piece of evidence comes from the SFH of the dwarf galaxy. The central part of NGC 205 has experienced two recent star bursts — $`2080`$ and $`500`$ Myr ago, with a puzzling gap in between (Lee, 1996).

We propose the following scenario which explains both the ISM and the recent SFH peculiarities of NGC 205. We argue that the dwarf galaxy experienced the two most recent star bursts during its passages through the plane of M31. The star formation $`2080`$ Myr ago, the dwarf’s present location close to the plane of the spiral, and the short time scale $`10`$ Myr for the observed IS front all suggest that NGC 205 has recently crossed the plane of M31. Associating the second to last star burst $`500`$ Myr ago with the previous crossing of the plane gives an estimate of the orbital period of the dwarf: $`P1`$ Gyr. If we assume that the dwarf is on circular orbit around M31 with the orbital velocity $`V_c=220`$ km s-1, then the radius of the orbit is 36 kpc. At such a small distance, the LyC and FUV fluxes from M31 should be significant for most of the lifetime of NGC 205, with only short periods every 500 Myr with much lower levels of radiation during the passages through the plane of the host spiral galaxy.

### 3.3 Carina dSph versus Ursa Minor dSph

Carina and Ursa Minor dwarf spheroidals belong to the class of the lowest luminosity dSph galaxies. They have comparable luminosity ($`L_V[34]\times 10^5`$ L), core radius ($`r_c200`$ pc), central mass-to-light ratio ($`m/L_V3060`$), and distance from the Milky Way galaxy ($`R70100`$ kpc) (Mateo, 1998). It is very surprising then that they exhibit two opposite SFH extremes: Carina has formed stars for most of its lifetime in three discrete bursts 3, 7, and 15 Gyr ago (Hurley-Keller et al., 1998), whereas Ursa Minor was formed in a single star burst $`14`$ Gyr ago (Olszewski & Aaronson, 1985; Hernandez, Gilmore & Valls-Gabaud, 2000).

We note that Carina has the smallest absolute value of the galactic latitude $`b22\mathrm{°}`$ among all the Milky Way satellite galaxies (excluding the special case of the Sagittarius dSph). This is consistent with Carina having relatively small angle between its orbit and the plane of the Galaxy — probably as small as $`22\mathrm{°}`$. If this is the case, the dwarf has spent a significant part of its lifetime hiding from the ionizing and FUV radiation from the Milky Way near the plane of the Galaxy, keeping its ISM neutral and episodically forming stars.

The opposite example is that of Ursa Minor. Both the proper motion measurements (Schweitzer et al., 1997) and the relatively high location above the Galactic plane ($`b45\mathrm{°}`$) suggest that the dwarf is on a close to polar orbit around the Milky Way galaxy. Galaxies less massive than $`2\times 10^8`$ M should gradually lose their ISM when the gas is fully photoionized. We argue that the relatively small distance from the Galaxy and the almost polar orbit caused Ursa Minor to lose its ISM on a short time scale, leading to sharply declining SFR.

## 4 Discussion and conclusions

Theoretical description of the formation and evolution of dwarf irregular galaxies is a complex problem, which is far from being fully resolved. Nevertheless, recent semi-analytical models (Spaans & Norman, 1997; Ferrara & Tolstoy, 2000) appear to converge in that the isolated gas-rich dwarfs should have been forming stars with almost constant low efficiency for most of their lifetimes, with a possible exception of the early epoch ($`z1`$) with increased SFR. The emerging consensus is that soon after the initial star burst, the star formation becomes self-regulated through the feedback from massive stars (impact on the ISM of stellar winds, ionizing and FUV radiation, and supernovae). This is in accord with the findings of van Zee (2001), who showed that observed optical colors of a large sample of isolated dIrr galaxies are consistent with approximately constant SFR for at least 10 Gyr.

The situation with early-type dwarfs (dSph and dE) is even more complicated. There are at least three observational facts that any successful dwarf evolution theory should explain:

1. Impact of environment. All Local Group dwarfs with $`M_\mathrm{V}>15^\mathrm{m}`$ located within 250 kpc from Milky Way and M31 are early-type systems. The observed morphology-density relation for dwarf galaxies (Binggeli, Tarenghi & Sandage, 1990) appears to extend this trend beyond the Local Group.
2. Absence of neutral gas. With a few exceptions, the Local Group early-type dwarfs appear to be devoid of H i and H2 — despite showing in many cases the evidence for recent star formation. For example, Fornax has a very low H i mass upper limit of $`5,000`$ M (Mateo, 1998), but formed stars as recently as 200 Myr ago (Saviane, Held & Bertelli, 2000).
3. Episodic SFH. Some Local Group dSph/dE galaxies have puzzling gaps of $`15`$ Gyr in their SFHs. These time intervals are much longer than the $`10^710^8`$ yr timescales of internal mechanisms which could effect the star formation, — with a possible exception of the SNe Ia heating mechanism (Burkert & Ruiz-Lapuente, 1997).

In this paper we showed that all the above observational facts can be explained by the impact of the ultraviolet radiation from the host spiral galaxy on the ISM of dwarf satellites. We gave evidence in support of the following key ingredients of our model:

1. FUV and LyC fluxes from giant spiral galaxies are sufficiently large to alter the state of the ISM in nearby dwarf galaxies such that star formation becomes unlikely. The LyC radiation can ionize the ISM through the process of photoevaporation, making it very hard to detect.
2. The UV radiation from spiral galaxies like the Milky Way and M31 dominates over the metagalactic background radiation within a large sphere of radius $`200`$ kpc.
3. The ultraviolet radiation field of a spiral galaxy is strongly anisotropic, with the flux dropping almost to zero in the narrow zone near the plane of the galaxy.

In our scenario, low mass galaxies orbiting around large spirals spend most of their lifetimes exposed to the ultraviolet radiation from their host galaxies, which keeps their ISM in warm ($`10^4`$ K) and ionized state. Twice per orbital period, each satellite crosses a narrow “shadow” zone near the plane of host galaxy, where the ultraviolet flux is dramatically reduced by the absorption in the H i disk of the spiral. During such “eclipses”, the ISM of the dwarf galaxy can recombine, cool down, and collapse toward the centre of the dwarf on timescales of $`100`$ Myr. We expect the cold dense gas at the centre of the dwarf to become self-gravitating, and under favorable conditions to start forming stars. For a short time, such early-type dwarfs can turn into a dIrr galaxy, with the two-phase ISM structure, and the low efficiency star formation self-regulated through the feedback mechanisms. Approaching the edge of the shadow zone, the dwarf galaxy experiences an increase in the external FUV flux, which can warm up the ISM and quench the star formation. Finally, the increased LyC flux can photoionize the warm ISM through the process of photoevaporation.

An important issue we have to address is whether observations of high-velocity clouds (HVCs) are consistent with our scenario. HVCs are H i clouds which are well separated in radial velocity from the Galactic H i disk (Wakker & van Woerden, 1991). With a few exceptions, distances to HVCs are either unknown or strongly model-dependent (like Magellanic Stream). The range of plausible distances is from a few kpcs to hundreds of kpcs. Many HVCs were detected in Hα emission line (Putman et al., 2003). Typical Hα emission measures range from $`30`$ to $`600`$ mR, which would correspond to the distances of 14–67 kpc in our simplified description of the Galactic ionizing radiation field. Two Sculptor H i clouds (Carignan et al., 1998), that are most probably physically associated with the Sculptor dSph (Bouchard et al., 2003), would have a low peak Hα flux of 22 mR in our Galactic LyC model, which is consistent with a $`<26`$ mR nondetection of Putman et al. (2003). Among different hypotheses on the origin of HVCs, our radiation harassment model is consistent with those that place these clouds in the Galactic halo at distances $`>15`$ kpc from the Galactic centre. The possible scenarios include accretion of warm-hot intergalactic medium, stripped gas from disrupted Galactic satellites, and gas-rich DM-dominated subhalos. Recent detection of HVCs around M31 galaxy (Thilker et al., 2004) appears to be consistent with the above scenarios.

One of predictions of our model which can be tested observationally is that at least some early-type dwarf satellites of the Milky Way and M31 should possess extended ionized ISM, with the temperature $`T10^4`$ K, and low number density. The total mass of the gas can be comparable to the mass of the stars. The sound speed in the photoionized gas ($`10`$ km s-1) is close to the stellar velocity dispersion in dSphs, hence both gas and stars are expected to have a comparable extent (see also Fig. 8). The most promising candidates are the dwarfs with complex and relatively recent star formation, located $`100`$ kpc away from the host galaxy: NGC 147, Fornax, and Carina.

There are two possible ways to detect such tenuous ionized gas: either in absorption, by obtaining FUV spectra of QSOs and AGNs located behind the dwarf, or through its emission (e.g., in Hα line).

The absorption method was used by Bowen et al. (1997), who put an upper limit on the column density of the ionized gas around Leo I. They probed with HST three sight lines toward QSOs passing $`34\mathrm{}`$ from the centre of the dwarf, and did not detect any absorption in C iv, Si ii, or Si iv spectral lines at the velocity of Leo I. The photoionized gas in this dwarf (if present) is not expected to extend far beyond its stellar tidal radius, which is equal to $`12\stackrel{}{.}6`$ (Mateo, 1998), so the results of Bowen et al. (1997) cannot be used to test our model. Bowen et al. also showed, that with the present day technology only the brightest quasars, with $`m_\mathrm{V}16^\mathrm{m}`$, can be used to search for the presence of the tenuous ionized gas in dSphs. To the best of our knowledge, there are no known QSO/AGN, brighter than $`m_\mathrm{V}17^\mathrm{m}`$, located in projection within the stellar extent of the Local Group early-type dwarfs (Tinney, Da Costa & Zinnecker, 1997; Tinney, 1999; Schneider et al., 2002).

We believe that the ionized ISM detection in Hα emission line is a more feasible approach. The expected Hα surface brightness is $`<100`$ mR, so the required sensitivity of the observations should be at least 10 mR. The angular resolution should be at least $`10\mathrm{}`$ for the Milky Way satellites, and $`1\mathrm{}`$ for the M31 companions. The Galactic foreground radiation is expected to dominate over the radiation coming from the dwarfs (with the typical integral flux values of $`1`$ R for the high Galactic latitude dwarfs, and reaching $`20`$ R for Carina), so the observations should be carried out within a narrow, $`2040`$ km s-1, interval of the radial velocities centred at the optical velocity of the dwarf. Three available wide-field Hα surveys do not meet the above requirements: two complementing surveys, VTSS111http://www.phys.vt.edu/$``$halpha (Virginia Tech Spectral-Line Survey, covers northern hemisphere, Dennison, Simonetti & Topasna 1998), and SHASSA222http://amundsen.swarthmore.edu/SHASSA (Southern H-Alpha Sky Survey Atlas, Gaustad et al. 2001) lack sensitivity (500 mR) and velocity information, whereas WHAM333http://www.astro.wisc.edu/wham (covers northern hemisphere, Reynolds et al. 1998) having reasonably good sensitivity (50 mR) and spectral resolution ($`10`$ km s-1), does not qualify because of the insufficient angular resolution ($`1\mathrm{°}`$) and too narrow velocity coverage: $`V_{\mathrm{LSR}}=100\mathrm{}100`$ km s-1. Targeted Hα emission observations can do a much better job: observations with the sensitivity $`10`$ mR, angular and velocity resolutions $`5\mathrm{}`$ and $`10`$ km s-1, are almost routine nowadays (Weiner et al., 2002; Weymann et al., 2001). With new differential techniques, even lower emission levels of $`12`$ mR might be reached (Bland-Hawthorn & Maloney, 2001).

It is interesting to note, that at least one of the dwarf galaxies in question, NGC 205, has a tentative extended Hα emission detection in VTSS444The Virginia Tech Spectral-Line Survey (VTSS) is supported by the National Science Foundation. (field And07). The central part of the dwarf has a surface brightness of $`5`$ R, and the fainter emission with the brightness of $`12`$ R appears to fill out all the stellar extent of the galaxy. These large values of the Hα flux, if confirmed, might require alternative explanations as to the source of ionization. Future targeted Hα emission observations of NGC 205 are required to resolve the issue.

## Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Frank Bertoldi, Andrea Ferrara, and Sergey Silich for insightful discussions and numerous helpful suggestions. We also thank Lisa Young for providing the H i data for NGC 205. C. C. acknowledges support from NSERC (Canada) and FCAR (Québec).


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# Mesoscopic fluctuations of the Density of States and Conductivity in the middle of the band of Disordered Lattices

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## Abstract

The mesoscopic fluctuations of the Density of electronic States (DoS) and of the conductivity of two- and three- dimensional lattices with randomly distributed substitutional impurities are studied. Correlations of the levels lying above (or below) the Fermi surface, in addition to the correlations of the levels lying on opposite sides of the Fermi surface, take place at half filling due to nesting. The Bragg reflections mediate to increase static fluctuations of the conductivity in the middle of the band which change the distribution function of the conductivity at half- filling.

\]

Recent studies of electronic level statistics in disordered systems have shown  that existence of repulsions between the levels in metallic phase results in a realization of the Wigner- Dyson statistics, . Energy levels in a sufficiently dopped $`d>2`$ dimensional electron gas become uncorrelated in an insulator phase and the level distribution obeys to Poisson statistics, . However, overlapping of one–particle states with different energies leads to level correlations which change their distribution.

Our recent studies of weak localization effects in two–dimensional (2D) square lattice and in three- dimensional (3D) cubic lattice with substitutional impurities have revealed that Bragg reflections (BR) due to commensurability of the electronic wavelength, $`\lambda `$, and a lattice spacing, $`a`$, strongly change the localization picture, . The DoS vanishes on the Fermi surface for non–interacting electrons in a $`2D`$ lattice and it acquires a small dip on the Fermi surface of $`3D`$ simple cubic lattice with approaching half–filling, . Nevertheless, electron–electron (e-e) interactions give a positive quantum correction to the DoS,, which compensates the Altshuler–Aronov’s negative logarithmic corrections to the DoS of $`2D`$ systems,. Therefore it is interesting to clarify how static fluctuations of physical parameters of $`2D`$ disordered lattice with nested Fermi surface are changed by BR as the half–filling is approached.

In this paper we consider the effect of BR on the level statistics and on conductivity fluctuations of $`2D`$ and $`3D`$ disordered lattices with a half- filled band. A particular characteristics of level spectra is the two–level correlation function,

$$R(ϵ,ϵ^{})=\frac{1}{\rho _{od}^2}\{\rho (ϵ)\rho (ϵ^{})\rho (ϵ)\rho (ϵ^{})\},$$
(1)
where $`\mathrm{}`$ means averaging over impurity realizations. $`\rho _{od}`$ is the DoS of the $`d`$–dimensional ($`d=2,3`$) lattice calculated in the Born approximation: $`\rho _{o2}=\frac{2}{(\pi a)^2t}\mathrm{ln}(ϵ_Fmin\{\tau _o,\frac{1}{|ϵ|}\})`$, and $`\rho _{o3}=const\frac{2}{\pi ^2t^{3/2}a^3}\sqrt{|ϵ|t}`$, ( at $`|ϵ|t`$) with $`t`$ and $`\tau _o`$ being the tunneling integral for nearest–neighbor sites and the relaxation time for elastic impurity scattering, respectively.

By using the formula for the DoS, $`\rho (ϵ)=\frac{1}{2\pi i}\frac{d𝐫}{v}\{G_A(𝐫,𝐫^{};ϵ)G_R(𝐫,𝐫^{};ϵ)\}`$, which relates $`\rho (ϵ)`$ to the retarded $`(G_R)`$ and advanced $`(G_A)`$ Green’s functions, $`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})`$ can be expressed as,

$`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})=\left({\displaystyle \frac{s}{2\pi v\rho _{od}}}\right)^2{\displaystyle 𝑑𝐫𝑑𝐫^{}}`$ (2)
$`\{G_A(𝐫,𝐫;ϵ)G_A(𝐫^{},𝐫^{};ϵ^{})+G_R(𝐫,𝐫;ϵ)G_R(𝐫^{},𝐫^{};ϵ^{})`$ (3)
$`G_R(𝐫,𝐫;ϵ)G_A(𝐫^{},𝐫^{};ϵ^{})G_A(𝐫,𝐫;ϵ)G_R(𝐫^{},𝐫^{};ϵ^{})`$ (4)
$`4ReG_R(𝐫,𝐫;ϵ)ReG_R(𝐫^{},𝐫^{};ϵ^{})\},`$ (5)
where $`v`$ is the ’volume’ and $`s`$ is the factor of spin degeneracy. Far from half–filling the correlators $`RA`$ and $`AR`$ in Eq.(5) give only contributions to the two–level correlation function,. However, existence of the electron–hole symmetry for nested Fermi surfaces gives rise to considerable contributions of the $`RR`$ and $`AA`$ correlators to $`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})`$ in Eq.(5). The Fermi surface of a $`d`$-dimensional lattice with the energy spectrum of $`ϵ(𝐩)=t_{i=1}^d[1\mathrm{cos}(p_ia)]`$ becomes nested at half- filling, when $`ϵ_F=dt`$, which permits an electron–hole symmetry, $`ϵ(𝐩+𝐐)ϵ_F=[ϵ(𝐩)ϵ_F]`$, with respect to the nesting vectors $`𝐐=\{\pm \pi /a,\pi /a\}`$ for $`2D`$ and $`𝐐=\{\pm \pi /a,\pm \pi /a,\pi /a\}`$ for $`3D`$ lattices. New singular impurity blocks take place at half–filling with particle–hole symmetry, which are referred to as the $`\pi `$-Diffuson ($`D_\pi `$) and the $`\pi `$-Cooperon ($`C_\pi `$). The $`\pi `$–Diffuson ($`\pi `$–Cooperon) has a diffusion pole at large $`𝐐`$ momenta differences (total momenta) and small total energies of the electron and the hole (of two electrons), .

As it is known, an interference between the self- intersecting trajectories leads to the weak localization of an electronic wave function, (see,). The electron passing the loop (e.g. in Fig.1a), which is formed on the trajectory due to multiple scattering on impurities with small tilted angles, in clock- and counterclockwise, reduces its transmission probability. However, for a nested Fermi surface each act of impurity scattering is accompanied by BR with large ($`\pi `$) scattering angle (see Fig.1b), which strongly changes the weak localization picture of free electron gas. Worthwile to notice that the electron- hole symmetry effects in the $`2D`$ case strongly differ from that in the one-dimensional ($`1D`$) case, where BR act as a destructive factor of localization and result in big effects (like the Dyson singularity in the $`1D`$ DoS, ) only in the absence of forward scattering (see,e.g.) reversing backward scattering to forward one.

The expression for the two particle impurity block $`C_\pi (𝐪,ϵ+ϵ^{})`$ in the particle–particle channel due to Umklapp scatterings with the particles’ energies $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$ is given as, :

$`C_\pi (𝐪,ϵ+ϵ^{})`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \rho _{od}\tau _o}}\{\theta (ϵϵ^{})+`$ (7)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta (ϵϵ^{})}{(1i\tau _o|ϵ+ϵ^{}|+\gamma \tau _o)^2+\frac{2}{d}(ql)^21}}\},`$
where the phenomenological parameter $`\gamma `$ is introduced to signify an inelastic processes rate. The $`\pi `$-Diffuson $`D_\pi (𝐪,ϵ+ϵ^{})`$ is also expressed by Eq.(7) with exception that $`𝐪`$ will now be the momenta difference of a particle and a hole with accuracy of the nesting vector $`𝐐`$. Notice that the ’normal’ Cooperon and Diffuson blocks depend on the difference of the energies $`ϵ`$ and $`ϵ^{}`$ instead of sum in Eq.(7).

New diagrams (see, Fig.2) appear at half–filling due to BR which give contributions to $`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})`$ in addition to that coming from normal scattering in a diffusive system. The study of the diffusive regime assumes that the linear length $`L`$ of the system is larger than the elastic mean free path $`l`$ and smaller than the localization length, the latter of which is exponentially large. By considering the energy scales as the Thouless energy, $`E_c=\mathrm{}D/L^2`$ with the diffusion coefficient $`D=\frac{v_F^2\tau _o}{d}`$ of $`d`$ dimensional system,and the average level spacing, $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\frac{1}{\rho _{od}L^d}`$, it is possible to see that $`\frac{E_c}{\mathrm{\Delta }}=\mathrm{}\rho _{od}DL^{d2}=\frac{\sigma }{(e^2/\mathrm{})}L^{d2}=g`$ is a dimensionless conductance. Since $`g>1`$ for the metallic case, the diffusive system can be characterized by the condition $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_c\mathrm{}/\tau _o`$. By summing up contributions of the diagrams in Fig.2 the correlator $`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})`$ is expressed as,

$`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})={\displaystyle \frac{(s\mathrm{\Delta }\tau _o)^2}{\beta \pi ^2}}Re{\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\theta (ϵϵ^{})}{\tau _o^2(i|ϵϵ^{}|+Dq^2+\gamma )^2}}`$ (8)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\theta (ϵϵ^{})}{[(1i\tau _o|ϵ+ϵ^{}|+\gamma \tau _o)^2+\frac{2}{d}(ql)^21]^2}}\},`$ (9)
where $`q^2=_{\alpha =1}^dq_\alpha ^2`$ and $`q_\alpha =(2\pi /aN_\alpha )n_\alpha `$ with $`(N_\alpha /2)<n_\alpha (N_\alpha /2)`$, and $`\beta `$ is the Dyson index classifying the orthogonal, unitary and symplectic ensembles with $`\beta =`$ 1, 2, and 4, respectively, . Far from half–filling where BR are suppressed, only the first term in the bracket of Eq.(9) contributes to $`R`$,.

In the ergodic regime, $`|ϵ\pm ϵ^{}|E_c`$, only the $`𝐪=0`$ term needs to be retained in the summation over $`𝐪`$ in Eq.(9). So,

$$R(ϵ,ϵ^{})=\frac{(s\mathrm{\Delta })^2}{\beta \pi ^2}Re\left\{\frac{\theta (ϵϵ^{})}{(ϵϵ^{}+i\gamma )^2}\frac{\theta (ϵϵ^{})}{4(ϵ+ϵ^{}+i\gamma )^2}\right\},$$
(10)
which shows that two levels on the opposite sides of the Fermi surface with energy difference $`|ϵϵ^{}|>\gamma `$ repel each other and they attract at energy difference of $`|ϵϵ^{}|<\gamma `$. On the other hand, two levels with energies $`|ϵ+ϵ^{}|>\gamma `$ on the same side of the Fermi surface attract each other and they repel for the energies $`|ϵ+ϵ^{}|<\gamma `$. Furthermore, attraction of two levels on the Fermi surface ($`ϵ=ϵ^{}=0`$) weakens with approaching half–filling and the correlator $`R(0,0)`$ reachs its $`3/4`$ value at half–filling. Notice that far from half–filling the levels lying only on the opposite sides of the Fermi surface interact with each other. Additional interaction of the levels on the same side of the Fermi surface appears due to BR at half–filling.

The correlator of two levels centered at $`ϵ_o`$ and $`ϵ_o^{}`$ and averaged in an energy interval of $`EW`$, where $`W=2dt`$ is the band width, can be obtained by integrating $`R(ϵ,ϵ^{})`$ given by Eq.(9) over the energy interval $`E`$:

$`\delta \rho _{ϵ_o}(E)\delta \rho _{ϵ_o^{}}(E)={\displaystyle _{ϵ_oE/2}^{ϵ_o+E/2}}𝑑ϵ{\displaystyle _{ϵ_o^{}E/2}^{ϵ_o^{}+E/2}}𝑑ϵ^{}R(ϵ,ϵ^{})`$ (11)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{\beta \pi ^2\rho _{od}^2}}Re\{\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2[(ϵ_oϵ_o^{})^2(E+i\gamma )^2]}{[ϵ_o^2(E/2+i\gamma )^2][ϵ_{o}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(E/2+i\gamma )^2]}}`$ (12)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma ^2[(ϵ_o+ϵ_o^{})^2(E+i\gamma )^2]}{[ϵ_o^2(E/2+i\gamma )^2][ϵ_{o}^{}{}_{}{}^{2}(E/2+i\gamma )^2]}}\};`$ (13)
$`|ϵ_o|,|ϵ_o^{}|E/2`$ (14)
$`={\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{\beta \pi ^2\rho _{od}^2}}Re\mathrm{ln}\left[1{\displaystyle \frac{E^2}{(|ϵ_o|+|ϵ_o^{}|+i\gamma )^2}}\right]`$ (15)
$`\times \{\theta (ϵ_oϵ_o^{}){\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\theta (ϵ_oϵ_o^{})\};|ϵ_o|,|ϵ_o^{}|E/2.`$ (16)
Far from half–filling the second contribution in the brackets of Eqs.(13) and (16) vanishes. This case corresponds to the continuum model,. However, the fact that interactions of levels lying on opposite sides of the Fermi surface do give contribution to $`\delta \rho _{ϵ_o}(E)\delta \rho _{ϵ_o^{}}(E)`$ has not been taken into account in . As it is seen from Eqs.(13)-(16) the two–level correlation function strongly depends on center of energy strip $`E`$ even a correlation is considered in the same energy interval when $`ϵ_o=ϵ_o^{}`$. A logarithmical energy dependence of the variance $`[\delta \rho _{ϵ_o}(E)]^2`$ takes place for a strip centered around the Fermi level:

$`[\delta \rho _{ϵ_o=0}(E)]^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2s^2(1f)}{\beta \pi ^2\rho _{od}^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{E}{\gamma }};E/2<\gamma <E,`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2s^2(1f)}{\beta \pi ^2\rho _{od}^2}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{E}{4\gamma }};\gamma <E/2,`$ (18)
where $`f`$ is the parameter characterizing the BR: $`f=1/4`$ at half–filling and $`f=0`$ far from commensurate points. According to Eq.(18) the Dyson repulsion of levels for energies $`E/2<\gamma <E`$ turns to attraction of levels for large energy distances $`E>2\gamma `$.

For the diffusive limit, when $`EE_c`$, summing over $`𝐪`$ in Eq. (9) can be replaced by integration. As a result we get the following expressions for the DoS variance $`[\delta \rho _{ϵ_o=0}(E)]^2`$ :

$`[\delta \rho _{ϵ_o=0}(E)]^2_{dif}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(\sqrt{2}1)(1f)s^2}{6\pi ^3\beta \rho _{o3}^2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{E_c}}\right)^{3/2};d=3`$ (19)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{(1f)s^2}{4\pi ^3\beta \rho _{o2}^2}}(E\tau _o)\left({\displaystyle \frac{E}{E_c}}\right);d=2.`$ (20)
In the $`d=2`$ case linear contributions in $`E`$ to $`[\delta \rho _{ϵ_o=0}(E)]^2`$ in Eq.(20) are completely cancelled and the fluctuations are not as strong as in $`3D`$ systems. This seems to be connected with the localized character of levels in $`2D`$ systems.

Far from half–filling when the Fermi surface is approximately spheric the variance of fluctuations in static conductivity is designated by the diagrams given, e.g. in Fig. 4 of Ref.. These diagrams have been calculated also in  for continuum and isotropic systems. Other contributions to the conductivity variance exist in the lattice model under consideration at the commensurate points due to BR which come from the diagrams given in Fig.3. The total contributions to the conductance fluctuations due to Normal and Umklapp scatterings on impurities are:

$$\delta G_{\alpha \beta }\delta G_{\gamma \mu }=G_D^2\{\delta _{\alpha \gamma }\delta _{\beta \mu }+\delta _{\alpha \mu }\delta _{\beta \gamma }\}+G_\rho ^2\delta _{\alpha \beta }\delta _{\gamma \mu }.$$
(21)
Here we followed the notations in , where the contributions from the diffusion coefficient and the DoS fluctuations to the conductance variance $`\delta G_{\alpha \beta }\delta G_{\gamma \mu }`$ were denoted by the temperature dependent coefficients $`G_D^2`$ and $`G_\rho ^2`$, respectively. The expressions for $`G_D^2`$ and $`G_\rho ^2`$ can be presented as:

$`G_D^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{s^2}{\beta }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{e^2}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{E_c}{\pi }}\right)^2{\displaystyle }{\displaystyle \frac{dϵ}{2T}}f\left({\displaystyle \frac{ϵ}{2T}}\right){\displaystyle \underset{𝐪}{}}\{{\displaystyle \frac{1}{|Dq^2iϵ|^2}}+`$ (22)
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\tau _o^2}{|(1iϵ\tau _o)^2+\frac{2}{d}(ql)^21|^2}}\}`$ (23)
and

$$G_\rho ^2=\frac{s^2}{\beta }\left(\frac{e^2}{\mathrm{}}\frac{E_c}{\pi }\right)^2\frac{dϵ}{2T}f\left(\frac{ϵ}{2T}\right)Re\underset{𝐪}{}\frac{1}{(Dq^2iϵ)^2},$$
(24)
where $`f(x)=\frac{x\mathrm{coth}x1}{\mathrm{sinh}^2x}`$. The second term in the brackets in Eq.(23) comes from the diagrams given in Fig.3 due to $`\pi `$–scatterings. However BR give no contribution to $`G_\rho ^2`$. According to Thouless picture ,only one–electron states lying in an interval of $`E_c`$ centered on the Fermi level give contributions to the conductivity. Contributions to $`G_\rho ^2`$ from the levels correlated on the same side of the Fermi level seem to cancel each other.

At small temperatures $`TE_c`$ the coefficients $`G_D^2`$ and $`G_\rho ^2`$ do not depend on temperature:

$$G_\rho ^2=(s^2/\beta )(e^2/\pi ^3\mathrm{})^2b_d\text{and}G_D^2=(1+f)G_\rho ^2$$
(25)
where $`b_d`$ is a constant, which depends on the system dimension. In the case when $`TE_c`$ the values of $`G_D^2`$ and $`G_\rho ^2`$ strongly differ from each other and depend on temperature:

$$G_\rho ^2=(s^2/\beta )(e^2/2\pi \mathrm{})^2a_d(E_c/T)^{(4d)/2},$$
(26)
and,

$`G_D^2`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}(1+f)G_\rho ;d=3`$ (27)
$`=`$ $`(1+f)(s^2/\beta )(e^2/2\pi \mathrm{})^2{\displaystyle \frac{E_c}{T}}\mathrm{ln}{\displaystyle \frac{T}{max\{E_c,\gamma \}}};d=2,`$ (28)
where $`a_d`$ is some coefficient, . As can be seen from Eqs.(26) and (28) the main contribution to the conductance variance comes from the fluctuations of the diffusion coefficient, which are intensified at half–filling.

Multiplication of the variance by the additional prefactor $`(1+f)`$ means that Umklapp scatterings of electron on impurities change the distribution function of $`G`$. In the language of the random matrix theory, an insulating phase of a disordered system can be prescribed by an ensemble of $`N\times N`$ diagonal matrices with random elements. Existence of off- diagonal terms in $`N\times N`$ matrices due to overlapping states of different energy in diffusive systems transform the distribution function from Poisson function to Wigner- Dyson one. Umklapp scatterings on impurities give additional contributions to the off- diagonal matrix elements. Therefore, the change in the distribution function due to Umklapp scattering is reasonable. Two-level correlations are sensitive to whether the levels attract or repel each other and to the relative position of these levels, either on the same side or on the opposite sides of the Fermi surface. However, the conductance fluctuations seem not to be sensitive to the character of level interactions and the level positions; both attraction and repulsion give similar contributions to $`\delta G_{\alpha \beta }\delta G_{\gamma \mu }`$. This fact seems to be the reason why Eqs.(18)- (20) for $`[\delta \rho _{ϵ_o}(E)]^2`$ and Eqs.(25),(26),(28) contain the factor $`f`$ coming from BR in different way.

Recently fabricated $`C_{60}`$–based novel field–effect devices allow one to control the band filling by changing the gate potential. Half–filling is reached for 3 electrons doping per $`C_{60}`$ molecule, . The possibility of doping the fullerites by substitutional impurities, while preserving the periodicity of the Bravais lattice, will allow the observation of the commensurability effects on the mesoscopic fluctuations at half–filling in these devices.