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# Near-IR spectroscopy of planetary nebulae precursors Based on observations collected at the European Southern Observatory (La Silla, Chile)

## 1 Introduction

The short transition phase between the end of the asymptotic giant branch (AGB) and the formation of a new planetary nebula (PN) is still poorly understood. The main reason for this is probably twofold. First, only a small number of objects are known in this phase, as this is a short-lived evolutionary stage. Second, in many cases, stars evolve through this phase heavily obscured by the strong circumstellar envelopes formed during the previous AGB phase, thus making observations difficult.

However, this is an evolutionary stage when crucial changes occur that completely determine the subsequent evolution of the individual star as a PN. Eventually, this also results in changes in the overall chemical evolution of the Galaxy, since huge amounts of processed material are transferred to the interstellar medium as a consequence of the strong mass loss experienced at the very end of the AGB phase.

It is also during this short transition phase when the ionization of the gas ejected during the previous AGB phase takes place. However, it is now well established that in most cases only a small fraction of it gets eventually ionized in comparison with the total amount of mass expelled by the central star during the AGB phase (tenths of a solar mass of ionized gas compared to up to several solar masses ejected during the AGB phase in the case of the more massive progenitors) (Pottasch 1980, 1992; Kwok 1994). Most of this material remains neutral in the form of dust grains, molecules or atoms which can be detected easily at infrared or radio wavelengths even when the star has completely evolved and turned into a PN.

From the analysis of IRAS data, and especially with the advent of the higher quality ISO data, it has been possible to confirm the presence of large amounts of dust grains which emit thermally in the mid- and far-infrared in objects evolving from the AGB to the PN stage. Through the analysis of the features observed in the ISO spectra it is possible to determine the dominant gas and dust chemistry (O-rich or C-rich) in the stellar photosphere and in the circumstellar envelope (Waters et al. 1999; Sylvester et al. 1999; Hrivnak et al. 2000).

The detection of molecules in the envelopes around PNe has also been successful at submilimeter and radio wavelengths over the last two decades. Strong CO molecular emission has been detected in a large number of C-rich PNe (Huggins & Healy 1989; Huggins et al. 1996) and is also detectable around both C-rich and O-rich post-AGB stars (Likkel et al. 1991; Loup et al. 1993; Neri et al. 1998, and references therein). Other molecules, like HCN or CN are detected only in envelopes dominated by a C-rich chemistry (Lindqvist et al. 2000), while in the case of circumstellar envelopes dominated by an O-rich chemistry strong molecular maser emission from SiO, H2O and OH is usually detected when the star is in the AGB phase (Engels 1979; Engels & Lewis 1996; Nyman et al. 1998; te Lintel Hekkert 1991a; te Lintel Hekkert et al. 1991b). In many cases, the OH maser emission remains detectable beyond the AGB throughout the whole post-AGB evolution (te Lintel Hekkert & Chapman 1996) and sometimes even when the object has already become an ionized PN (the so-called OHPNe - Zijlstra et al. 1989; 1991). More complex molecules are difficult to detect, but in the circumstellar envelopes of a few objects like IRC+10216, AFGL 618 and AFGL 2688 more than 50 different molecular species have been identified in the last few years, and the number and complexity of the new molecules found is continuously increasing (Wallerstein & Knapp 1998; Bujarrabal et al. 1988; Cernicharo et al. 1999).

Since hydrogen is the main constituent of stellar atmospheres one would expect to find also a significant amount of neutral material locked up in the form of molecular hydrogen around stars evolving from the AGB phase to the PN stage (both O-rich and C-rich). Following the first detection of molecular hydrogen in the PN NGC 7027 (Treffers et al. 1976), more than 70 other PNe have been detected in the last few years by Webster et al. (1988), Zuckerman & Gatley (1988), Kastner et al. (1996), Latter et al. (1995), Hora et al. (1999) and Guerrero et al. (2000). As a general trend, it is found that molecular hydrogen emission is predominantly detected in type I bipolar PNe, which are expected to be the result of the evolution of the more massive AGB progenitors. It remains unclear, however, whether this is just an observational selection effect.

Very few attempts have been made so far to search for molecular hydrogen around post-AGB stars or proto-PNe, the precursors of PNe. Molecular hydrogen emission was first detected towards AFGL 618 by Beckwith et al. (1978) and AFGL 2688 by Gatley et al. (1988). More recently, Weintraub et al. (1998) looked at a small sample of five proto-PNe and detected molecular hydrogen emission in two of them (IRAS 17441-2411 and AFGL 6815S=IRAS 17150-3224), bringing to four the total number of bipolar proto-PNe with this type of emission. The discovery and study of new transition objects showing this emission at such an early stage is crucial for determining the mechanism of excitation of molecular hydrogen and the conditions needed to preserve this neutral material from destruction in more evolved PNe.

This paper extends this search to a larger sample of transition objects, including late-AGB stars, post-AGB stars with various spectral types, as well as the youngest PNe known, in order to look for possible correlations between the onset of molecular hydrogen emission and the evolutionary stage and/or the morphology of the sources observed.

In Sect. 2 we explain the criteria followed to select the sources in the sample. The spectroscopic observations made in the near infrared are described in Sect. 3, while the results obtained are presented in Sect. 4 and discussed in Sect. 5. The conclusions derived from these results are given in Sect. 6.

## 2 Selection of the sample

For the last ten years our group studied a large number of IRAS sources with dust temperatures similar to post-AGB stars and planetary nebulae ($``$100$``$200 K), mainly through near-infrared photometry (García-Lario et al. 1990; 1997a; Manchado et al. 1989a) and optical spectroscopy (García-Lario et al. 1991; 1994; 1997b; 2001; Riera et al. 1995). As a result of this multi-wavelength program we have discovered heavily obscured late AGB stars and early post-AGB stars still surrounded by thick circumstellar envelopes only detectable in the near infrared as well as post-AGB stars with optically bright central stars covering all possible spectral types from M to B in what it seems to be an evolutionary sequence towards the PN stage, together with a small number of new extremely young PNe (García-Lario et al. 1997a; 2002), among them, the youngest PN known so far: the Stingray Nebula (Bobrowsky et al. 1998).

From this list of newly discovered sources, we selected a subsample of 30, which are observable from the southern hemisphere. This subsample is also representative of the various evolutionary stages mentioned above, including very late AGB stars with no optical counterparts, post-AGB stars with all kind of spectral types and proto-PNe showing a variety of morphological structures (from round/elliptical to strongly bipolar).

In Table 1 we list the IRAS sources included in the study. In this Table we also indicate some of the observational characteristics which are relevant for the discussion presented in Sect. 5, like their apparent optical morphology, spectral type, or the presence/absence of H$`\alpha `$ emission in their optical spectra (all this information taken from García-Lario et al. 2002, and references therein).

## 3 Observations and data reduction

The observations were conducted in March 1993 and January 1994 with IRSPEC attached to the Nasmyth focus of the 3.5 m NTT telescope at La Silla, ESO. IRSPEC was a cryogenically cooled scanning grating IR spectrometer with a 58$`\times `$62 pixel array from SBRC as detector (Moorwood et al. 1986). It covered the 1$``$5 microns wavelength range with a spectral resolution between 1500 and 2000. The spatial scale was 2.2′′/pixel, the slit width was 4.5′′and the un-vignetted field was $``$100′′. The array had a quantum efficiency of 0.89 at 2.85 $`\mu `$m, and a well capacity of 1 10$`{}_{}{}^{6}e_{}^{}`$. This allowed exposures up to 60 seconds per frame in the 2$``$2.6 $`\mu `$m region. For integration times around 10 seconds, the combined dark and read noise was $``$150 e-. Owing to the poor wavelength coverage of the spectrograph in a single exposure, different exposures were needed centered at various wavelengths, each one covering a different spectral feature under analysis. The lines observed were the molecular ro-vibrational lines of molecular hydrogen $`v`$=1$``$0 S(1) 2.122 $`\mu `$m and $`v`$=2$``$1 S(1) 2.248 $`\mu `$m, the recombination lines of hydrogen Br$`\gamma `$ 2.166 $`\mu `$m, Pf$`\gamma `$ 3.741 $`\mu `$m and Br$`\alpha `$ 4.052 $`\mu `$m and the CO\[$`v`$=2$``$0\] 2.294 $`\mu `$m first overtone bandhead. Total on-source integration times were typically of 240 s with exposures ranging from 36 s to 1440 s in the most extreme cases.

The slit orientation was north-south (P.A. $`=`$ 0) in 1993 with the exception of IRAS 10178$``$5958 (P.A. $`=`$ 70), IRAS 16594$``$4656 (P.A. $`=`$ 70), IRAS 16342$``$3814 (P.A. $`=`$ $``$70) and IRAS 17423$``$1755 (P.A. $`=`$ $`+`$55), while in 1994 the slit orientation was always east-west (P.A. $`=`$ 90). The changes in the slit orientation during the 1993 run were in principle made in order to follow the bipolar axis of some well known extended objects, like the ones listed above. However, due to a mistake in the determination of the sign, IRAS 17423$``$1755 was observed almost perpendicular to the actual bipolar axis in 1993 while in IRAS 16342$``$3814 independently of the slit orientation, we cover the source completely. The only other known extended bipolar objects in our sample are IRAS 10197$``$5750 and IRAS 17150$``$3224. IRAS 10197$``$5750 was only observed in 1994, when the orientation of the slit was 90, while the bipolar axis of this source is located at P.A. $``$ 20. This means that the slit was positioned also very close to the direction perpendicular to its bipolar axis. In the case of IRAS 17150$``$3224, we observed the source both in 1993 and 1994 with orientations of 0 and 90 respectively, while the actual bipolar axis of the source is now known to be located at P.A. $``$ $``$45. Two other sources (IRAS 10178$``$5958 and IRAS 16594$``$4656) also were observed twice. The implications of these misadjustments in the analysis of the results obtained will be discussed later.

The standard beam$``$switching technique was used in order to subtract the sky background. The data reduction process includes bias and flat-field corrections, as well as wavelength calibration, sky subtraction, and absolute flux calibration using reference standard stars. For this we made use of the S/W package IRSPEC installed on MIDAS (version November 1998).

## 4 Results

In Table 2 we list the detections/non-detections made as a result of the observations described in Sect. 3.

All sources but one in the sample were observed in the wavelength region surrounding the H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\] line, resulting in positive detections in 10 cases. Out of them, 9 sources were also observed in the weaker H2\[$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] line, among which 5 showed some emission.

The Br$`\gamma `$ line was detected in 17 objects, either in emission (11) or in absorption (6). In a few cases, observations were also performed in other spectral lines like Pf$`\gamma `$, and Br$`\alpha `$, or around the CO\[$`v`$=2$``$0\] first overtone bandhead, in order to obtain complementary information.

The quantitative results are also shown in Table 2. Quoted values are the emission line fluxes derived by fitting gaussians to the observed line profiles or 2$`\sigma `$ upper limits to the expected emission line fluxes in the case of those sources with no emission detected over the underlying near infrared continuum. Both are shown in units of $`10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$. We have also estimated the equivalent widths of those features detected in absorption (in units of 10-4 $`\mu `$m). The values obtained are shown in Table 2 within brackets.

In a few cases, we did not detect any significant signal in the 2D spectra (nor even a continuum). These sources have been classified in Table 2 as not detected. In these latter cases we can generally infer the object’s position on the 2D frames based on information obtained at other spectral lines and estimate the associated rms of the pixels where the feature investigated had been detected. Then we use these rms to calculate the quoted values as 2$`\sigma `$ upper limits to the expected emission line fluxes in Table 2.

We estimate that for a typical 240 s total on-target exposure and when the underlying near infrared continuum is weak our 2$`\sigma `$ detection threshold is of the order of $``$ $`10^{15}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ for the H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\], Brγ, H2\[$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] and CO\[$`v`$=2$``$0\] lines and of $``$ $`10^{14}\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{cm}^2\mathrm{s}^1`$ in the Pf$`\gamma `$ and Br$`\alpha `$ regions. Note that the 2$`\sigma `$ upper limits in Table 2 are very different from source to source because the rms is dependent of the continuum.

Three objects (IRAS 10178$``$5958, IRAS 16594$``$4656 and IRAS 17150$``$3224), were observed in both runs (1993 and 1994) and for them we quote in Table 2 a mean value of the integrated line fluxes (the flux differences from epoch to epoch are less than 20%). However, the emission detected was always found to be consistent with a point-like nature of the observed source with the exception of IRAS 10178$``$5958 and IRAS 17119$``$5926, where the emission found is clearly extended (see Sect. 5.5).

Spectra for all objects (except for IRAS 05284$`+`$1945, whose near infrared counterpart was not detected at any wavelength) in Br$`\gamma `$, H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\], H2\[$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\], CO\[$`v`$=2$``$0\], Pf$`\gamma `$ and Br$`\alpha `$ are presented in Figures 1a to 1f. For those sources that were observed twice we show the best spectrum.

## 5 Discussion

### 5.1 Hydrogen recombination lines

In general, the strength of the near infrared hydrogen lines detected in the stars in our sample is consistent with the spectral types derived from optical data. All objects where a Br$`\gamma `$ absorption has been detected show H$`\alpha `$ absorption in the optical or very weak emission, while those with Br$`\gamma `$ strongly in emission in the near infrared are also strong H$`\alpha `$ emitters in the optical, as expected.

In the case of the late AGB stars included in our study (those classified as OH/IR stars in Table 1) the Br$`\gamma `$ line region is veiled by the strong dust continuum emission and we are not able to detect any signature of this hydrogen recombination line. These stars are pulsating with very long periods so heavily obscured by their circumstellar envelopes that they usually do not show any optical counterpart.

The same veiling effect might be the reason why IRAS 08005$``$2356 shows a featureless continuum around the Br$`\gamma `$ line as well as at other near infrared hydrogen recombination lines, while in the optical a relatively strong H$`\alpha `$ emission is detected. Another possibility is that the emission is just strong enough to fill in the photospheric absorption and, thus, both components compensate each other, leading to a flat continuum.

IRAS 09024$``$5019 seems to be also a remarkable case, since it shows a clear emission in the light of Br$`\gamma `$ and Br$`\alpha `$ while it does not have any (known) optical counterpart. This star could be a heavily obscured transition object in which the onset of the ionization is now taking place.

### 5.2 CO first overtone

The effective temperature of late AGB stars is expected to be very low ($``$2500 K). Consistent with this, a strong CO photospheric absorption was detected in IRAS 08425$``$5116 at 2.29 $`\mu `$m, the only late AGB star included in our sample for which we obtained a spectrum at this wavelength.

This feature corresponds to the CO first overtone bandhead, which is expected to be visible in stars with effective temperatures below 5000 K. However, IRAS 17150$``$3224, a post-AGB star with a cool central star (G2I), did not show any signature of this bandhead, probably because of the veiling produced by the strong thermal emission from the hot dust formed in the circumstellar envelope, which completely dominates the observed spectral energy distribution at this wavelength.

Noteworthy, in three of the post-AGB stars with the earlier spectral types in the sample we detected the CO first overtone bandhead in emission. This has also been observed in a few other transition objects before (Oudmaijer et al. 1995) and it has been interpreted as the result of active post-AGB mass loss, the CO lines being formed in the dense outflow.

### 5.3 H2 emission and evolutionary stage

In order to understand the mechanism of excitation of molecular hydrogen it is worth to try to find a possible correlation between the frequency of positive detections and the evolutionary stage (spectral type of the central star) of the sources observed.

Starting from the less evolved objects, we find that none of the late-AGB stars included in the sample show any indication of the presence of H2 emission at 2.122 $`\mu `$m. It is important to note however that, as for the hydrogen recombination lines above discussed, the spectral region around this molecular hydrogen line appears usually completely dominated by the thermal emission coming from the hot dust in the envelope, making the detection of any spectral feature difficult in this kind of objects.

More interesting is the fact that, with the only exception of IRAS 17150$``$3224, which will be discussed below, none of the post-AGB stars in the sample with spectral types later than A showed any detectable emission in this line. This includes 6 F-type, 2 G-type, 1 K-type and 1 M-type post-AGB stars. It should be noticed that in these optically bright post-AGB stars the veiling effect from the circumstellar dust is small and cannot justify the non-detections.

In contrast, all the stars identified as post-AGB candidates in our list with spectral types earlier than A were detected in molecular hydrogen at 2.122 $`\mu `$m. In this case, the only exception was IRAS 17423$``$1755, whose central star has tentatively been classified as A-type or B-type and it shows no evidence of H2 emission at 2.122 $`\mu `$m. If this emission comes mainly from the bipolar lobes, it may have not been covered by our slit because it was positioned by mistake perpendicular to the bipolar axis (see Sect. 3). Consistently, we did not detect any extended emission from this object in any other spectral line (nor even in Br$`\gamma `$ which is detected very strong in emission). In addition, this is also a quite peculiar, extended bipolar proto-PN which shows a very high velocity field and a strong near infrared excess (Riera et al. 1995; García-Lario et al. 1997a). Thus, the H2 emission may be veiled by the strong underlying continuum and/or the molecular hydrogen molecules may have been destroyed by the strong stellar winds.

Out of the 10 objects in which we detected molecular hydrogen emission, 9 are new detections (only IRAS 17150$``$3224 was previously reported by Weintraub et al. 1998). This brings the total number of transition stars in which molecular hydrogen emission has been detected from 4 to 13. Note that the H2 emission in IRAS 10178$``$5958 was previously presented by us (García-Lario et al. 1999b).

The results above are consistent with the non-detection of molecular hydrogen emission in the bipolar proto-PNe OH 231.8+4.2, IRAS 07131$``$0147 or IRAS 09371+1212 by Weintraub et al. (1998), all of which have late-type M central stars.

However, IRAS 17150$``$3224 is not the only post-AGB star with a spectral type later than A showing H2 emission in the short list of known H2 emitters. There is another discrepant case in the literature, the well-known PPN CRL 2688 (Sahai et al. 1998), whose central star is classified as F5Iae, although it is suspected to be a binary.

### 5.4 H2 emission and morphology

It has been suggested that molecular hydrogen emission is a signpost for bipolarity in evolved PNe (Kastner et al. 1996). In order to explore the validity of this statement also in the precursors of PNe we can search for a possible correlation between the detection rate of molecular hydrogen emission and the morphology of the sources included in our sample.

For this, we will restrict our analysis in the following to those sources for which morphological information exists. This means that we will not consider, of course, any of the heavily obscured objects in the list which do not show any optical counterpart (all the late-AGB stars plus IRAS 09024$``$5019), neither those objects classified as of unknown size/morphology in Table 1. Note that this class of objects may actually contain a mixture of round/elliptical and bipolar sources, as deduced from recent observations of similar objects made with HST (although they could look point-like sources in ground-based CCD images) (e.g. Ueta et al. 2000).

The remaining sources in the sample were classified as round/elliptical or bipolar depending on the morphological properties derived from ground-based or HST observations (see again Table 1).

If we concentrate our attention now on the ten sources showing H2 emission in our sample we can see that morphological information is available for six of them, out of which five are classified as bipolar in Table 1, while only one is considered to be round/elliptical.

However, among the bipolar objects in our sample (eight in total), there are three of them which were not detected in H2. This argues against the idea of a one to one correlation between H2 emission and bipolarity.

In summary, our main conclusion is that although there seems to be an association between bipolarity and the presence of H2 emission the correlation is not so strong as previously reported by Kastner et al. (1996), who derived this conclusion from the observations of well evolved PNe.

### 5.5 The excitation mechanism of H2

Molecular hydrogen can be excited either in shocks or by UV photons (Burton 1992). In order to investigate which of these two possible mechanisms is responsible for the emission observed in the objects included in our sample it is useful to compare the relative strength of the H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\] and H2\[$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] lines. From the analysis of this diagnostic ratio it is possible to determine whether the excitation is produced by shocks (Burton, Hollenbach & Tielens 1992) or by fluorescence through the absorption of UV photons coming from the central star (Black & van Dishoeck 1987; Sternberg & Dalgarno 1989). For moderate UV radiation fields and gas densities lower than 105 cm-3, shock$``$excited emission is expected to be associated to flux ratios H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] $``$ 10 while in the case of emission induced by fluorescence a value of $``$ 2 (Aspin et al. 1993; Ramsay 1993; Burton et al. 1998) is predicted. In Table 3 we show the ratios derived for 9 out of the 10 post-AGB stars in the sample detected in molecular hydrogen for which data is available. The estimated uncertainty is $``$20%. For those objects in which the H2\[$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] line was not detected lower limits are given.

As we can see in Table 3 a wide range of values is obtained. If the above mentioned models are applied to the stars in our list we deduce that shock$``$excited H2 emission must be the dominant excitation mechanism in at least three of the objects in our sample with a clearly marked bipolar morphology: IRAS 10178$``$5958 , IRAS 16594$``$46456 (both of uncertain spectral type) and IRAS 17150$``$3224 (G-type central star) as well as in two other objects of unknown morphology: IRAS 14331$``$6435 and IRAS 17311$``$4924 (both with B-type central stars), while fluorescence excitation seems to be the prevalent excitation mechanism in the Stingray Nebula (IRAS 17119$``$5926), which is a very young PN showing an incipient bipolar morphology. For the remaining objects the lower limits found are ambiguous to support either fluorescence or shock excitation.

From the results obtained, there seems to be a prevalence of shocked-excitation in those objects showing the most extreme bipolar morphologies. However, the results are not conclusive since the statistics are very poor. There is also no evident connection between the excitation mechanism derived from the analysis of the H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] ratio and the spectral type of the central star in which molecular hydrogen has been detected. However, in this latter analysis we must be careful since it is well known that episodic mass loss during the post-AGB phase can induce significant spectral changes which may alter for some time the observable spectral type and, thus, taking the spectral type as an indicator of the evolutionary stage might be not the best choice (Bobrowsky et al. 1998; García-Lario et al. 2001).

In addition, an important caveat needs to be considered when interpreting the data in Table 3. This is the fact that the models above mentioned lose their validity at very high densities ($`n_e`$ $`>`$ 105 cm-3) and we know that some of the post-AGB stars and transition objects under study are surrounded by regions of these very high densities. In this case, collisional de-excitation of fluorescence excited levels (‘collisional fluorescence’) might become important, increasing the $`v`$=0 and 1 populations over the pure fluorescent values, leading to higher H2 \[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] ratios (Sternberg & Dalgarno 1989; Burton et al. 1990) which could mimic shock-excitation.

In order to address the problem from a different point of view it is also useful to study the detailed spatial distribution of the molecular hydrogen emission and compare this, whenever possible with the spatial distribution observed in the light of Br$`\gamma `$.

The H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ ratio has recently found to be correlated both with the evolutionary stage and the degree of bipolarity in a sample of well known bipolar PNe (Guerrero et al. 2000). Bipolar PNe with small size, poorly defined rings and bright central stars exhibit small H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ ratios ($``$ 0.1$``$0.5) while those with large, well defined rings and faint central stars showed larger H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ ratios ($`>`$5).

Guerrero et al. (2000) suggest that the excitation of the molecular hydrogen in each of these groups turns from fluorescence excitation at the early stages of PNe to shocked-excited emission as the bipolar PNe evolve. This is supported by the different spatial distribution of the observed molecular hydrogen emission.

H2-dominated bipolar PNe are found to show different morphological and physical properties. Their central regions have low surface brightness, in agreement with their low densities while Br$`\gamma `$-dominated bipolar PNe have a high surface brightness and larger densities.

If this effect is interpreted as an evolutionary sequence (Balick 1987) then the less evolved bipolar PNe with molecular hydrogen emission would start their evolution as Br$`\gamma `$ dominated becoming later H2-dominated.

Note, however, that this scenario does not apply to all PNe. Well evolved, low-mass density-bounded round/elliptical PNe are not expected to preserve hydrogen in the form of molecules since most (if not all) of the hydrogen in the circumstellar envelope becomes ionized as the ionization front passes through the gas. These PNe will end their lives as Br$`\gamma `$-dominated, unlike the group of PNe with more massive progenitors. Those with more massive progenitors are expected to develop ionization-bounded nebulae, where a substantial fraction of the mass ejected will never become ionized. This enables the detection of neutral material in the circumstellar gas even at a very late stage as PNe, provided the UV radiation field from the central star is hard enough to produce fluorescence excitation. In the subgroup of bipolar PNe, the shielding provided by the dense equatorial regions that collimate the outflow from the UV photons escaping from the central star would also favor the preservation of hydrogen in molecular state. This would explain the high detection rate of molecular hydrogen emission in bipolar type I PNe, which are suspected to be the result of the evolution of stars with large progenitor masses. In this latter case, molecular hydrogen can also be excited by shocks formed in the high velocity outflow.

Applying the above considerations to the analysis of the molecular hydrogen emission observed in precursors of PNe it would be natural to expect fluorescence to be activated when the radiation coming from the central post-AGB star becomes hard enough to produce a significant number of UV photons as the central star moves in the HR diagram towards hotter effective temperatures in its way to becoming a PN. On the other hand, the interaction of the fast post-AGB wind with the slow-moving material ejected during the previous AGB phase would favor the formation of shocks, especially in those objects showing a strong collimation induced by the presence of a thick equatorial disk or torus, in the process of developing a bipolar morphology.

In order to check whether this scenario is consistent with the data obtained on the stars in our sample we have derived the H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ ratios for the objects that exhibit H2 emission. The results obtained are presented in Table 3, where we can see that, as for the H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] ratio, a wide range of values is found (the quoted values, not corrected for extinction, again have an estimated uncertainty of $``$20%).

Only four sources (out of ten) are found to be Br$`\gamma `$-dominated. These are: IRAS 06556+1623, IRAS 07027$``$7934, IRAS 10197$``$5750 and IRAS 17119$``$5926. Detailed morphological information exists for the latter three sources. IRAS 07027$``$7934 is known to be a very young PN showing a round/elliptical shape. The bipolar morphology is only incipient in IRAS 17119$``$5926 which otherwise would look also quite round/elliptical. The only source in this short list with a marked bipolar morphology is IRAS 10197$``$5750 (Sahai et al. 1999), which is seen almost edge-on. This source has recently been imaged with HST (NICMOS) in the light of H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\] (Sahai et al. 2000) and the spatial distribution of the emission in this line is found to be very similar to the distribution of scattered light in the bright lobes, suggesting that fluorescence excitation is the main mechanism contributing to the overall observed emission. However, a clear enhancement of emission is observed at two localized point-symmetric regions distant from the central star which unfortunately have not been covered by our slit (the slit orientation was 90and its bipolar axis is orientated $``$ $`+`$20), which we interpret as shock-excited emission probably originated by the interaction of the high velocity post-AGB wind with the slow moving old AGB shell. Interestingly, the four Br$`\gamma `$-dominated sources show H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] ratios compatible with fluorescence excitation (see Table 3).

Two other sources in our list have also been imaged in the light of H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\] with HST (NICMOS). These are IRAS 10178$``$5958 (Sahai et al. 2000) and IRAS 17150$``$3224 (Su et al. 2000) belonging to the group of H2-dominated sources in our sample.

In both cases, the spatial distribution of the molecular hydrogen emission suggests a shock-excited origin. In IRAS 10178$``$5958, the molecular hydrogen emission comes mainly from the walls of the bipolar lobes (García-Lario et al. 1999b), while in IRAS 17150$``$3224 the bulk of the detected emission arises in an expanding molecular torus surrounding the central star (Weintraub et al. 1998) although several clumps of molecular hydrogen emission are also detected in the outer regions of the bipolar lobes according to Su et al. (2000). A similar spatial distribution was also found by Sahai et al. (1998) in the case of AFGL 2688, where the emission observed was also interpreted as due to shock-excitation.

Unfortunately, none of the four other H2-dominated sources in Table 3 have been imaged in molecular hydrogen with HST. Three of them (namely IRAS 14331$``$6435, IRAS 17311$``$4924 and IRAS 18062+2419) are sources not spatially resolved from ground-based observatories. Only IRAS 16594$``$4656 was found to be extended from the ground in optical CCD images and it was later imaged with HST in the optical showing an extended, complex multi-polar morphology (García-Lario et al. 1999a; Hrivnak et al. 1999). All of them show large H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] ratios which are consistent with shock excitation.

The emission seems to be extended only in the case of IRAS 10178$``$5958 and IRAS 17119$``$5926 but we did not find any spatial dependence of the measured H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] ratios along the nebulae. This confirms shock-excitation as the prevalent mechanism of excitation of the molecular hydrogen in IRAS 10178$``$5958 throughout its whole nebular extension. On the other hand, fluorescence-excitation seems to be the mechanism through which molecular hydrogen gets excited in the case of IRAS 17119$``$5926. For IRAS 17119$``$5926, 2D spectra of both H2 lines were taken with different (perpendicular) slit orientations in 1993 and 1994. Remarkably, the molecular hydrogen emission seems to be quite homogeneous independent of the slit orientation considered and extends well beyond the limits of the Br$`\gamma `$ emission. This suggests that most of the emitting molecular hydrogen is located outside the small ionized region of this very young PN, in the still neutral outer shell.

In summary, when we integrated all the flux received in each line, we obtain high H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] and H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ ratios that are consistent with the prevalence of shock excitation, while low ratios indicate fluorescence as the dominant mechanism for the observed H2 emission. This is supported by the different spatial distribution seen in those objects with existing H2 NICMOS images.

With our small sample and the rest of available data we find different types of sources that exhibit H2 emission during the post-AGB phase. We propose that this scenario could be summarized as follows:

\- In some cases, especially strongly bipolar sources with known early spectral types, there must be a contribution from the two excitation mechanisms in the observed emission (e.g. IRAS 10197$``$5750). It is very difficult to distinguish the contribution of both excitation mechanisms but it seems clear that the shocked H2 emission is more intense than the fluorescence-excited emission, leading to higher H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] and H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ ratios.

\- The H2 emission that comes from bipolar sources with later than A spectral types (e.g. AFGL 2688 and IRAS 17150$``$3224) is shock-excited because the central post-AGB star is not hot enough to produce fluorescence emission, which, so it has been demonstrated, is correlated with the evolutionary stage (spectral type) of the central post-AGB star. So the presence of shock-excited emission early in the post-AGB phase must be indicative of the evolutionary morphological stage of the nebulosity that surrounds the central post-AGB star. However, it remains unclear if the early development of marked bipolar morphologies during the post-AGB phase could be dependent on the mass of the central progenitor star. For higher masses, the morphological evolution could be faster and the formation of bipolar morphologies is easier; so, therefore, is the detection of shock-excited H2 emission.

\- On the other hand, the fact that H2 emission is detected towards well evolved bipolar PNe could be indicative that the destruction of neutral material around the non-bipolar ones (e.g. IRAS 07027$``$7934 or even IRAS 17119$``$3224) can roughly coincide with the photoionization of the circumstellar shell. This could indicate that the fluorescence-excited H2 emission detected in non-bipolar sources is observed only during a short period of time in the post-AGB phase. However, in those bipolar objects where the wind is strongly collimated by the presence of an optically thick equatorial disc or torus, the molecular material can be shielded from the ionizing photons coming from the central star.

This entire hypothesis deserves further study to understand better the physical and chemical processes involved during the short transition phase from the AGB phase to the PN stage. At present, the number of known transition objects and the obtaining of high quality data are growing continuously. A detailed spatially resolved spectroscopic analysis of the H2 emission line spectrum in a large sample of planetary nebulae precursors is needed to address these issues fully.

## 6 Conclusions

With the data here presented we have extended the number of post-AGB stars and/or proto-PNe where molecular hydrogen emission has been detected from four to thirteen.

Our results confirm the previous finding by Weintraub et al. (1998) made on a smaller sample of sources that the onset of emission from molecular hydrogen takes place in the post-AGB phase. In many cases this occurs well after the generation of the bipolar structure takes place and before the nebular envelope gets ionized.

In the past it has been suggested that molecular hydrogen emission is a signpost for bipolarity in PNe (Kastner et al. 1996). We find that the detection of molecular hydrogen strongly depends on the excitation mechanism.

The detection of fluorescence-excited molecular hydrogen emission in precursors of PNe is strongly correlated with the evolutionary stage of the central star (spectral type), independent of the morphology of the source considered. The fluorescence excitation of molecular hydrogen emission is produced as a consequence of the absorption of the increasing number of UV photons escaping from the relatively hot, rapidly evolving central post-AGB star by the hydrogen molecules present in the circumstellar shell. As a general trend, we find that fluorescent H2 emission becomes active when the central post-AGB star reaches a certain temperature that corresponds to an A-spectral type.

On the other hand, shock-excited emission is only detected in objects with a marked bipolar morphology, sometimes at a very early stage during the post-AGB phase, when the star is still very cool and, sometimes, localized in the waist and/or in the specific regions of the bipolar lobes (either at the walls, like in IRAS 10178$``$5958, or at the tips, like in IRAS 10197$``$5750), where a physical interaction exists between fast- and slow-moving material.

Bipolarity also helps preserving the molecular hydrogen from destruction, favoring its detection in well evolved bipolar PNe. Actually, with very few exceptions, the brightest H2 emission, shock-excited, is detected toward the waist of bipolar PNe (Kastner et al. 1996). The high correlation found between bipolarity and molecular hydrogen emission seems to be just the consequence of the bias induced by this fact.

The diagnostic ratios H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)/$`v`$=2$``$1 S(1)\] and H2\[$`v`$=1$``$0 S(1)\]/Br$`\gamma `$ are shown to be very good indicators of the prevalent mechanism of excitation in proto-PNe. Unfortunately, the information on the relative spatial distribution of the different molecular hydrogen lines with respect to the hydrogen recombination lines is still sparse. Without this information we cannot determine the precise localization of shock-excited and fluorescence-excited regions on individual sources. As we have shown through this paper this is a strong limitation if we want to understand the physical processes which are taking place in this still poorly known transition phase which precedes the formation of PNe. This is especially important to interpret the emission observed in complex objects like IRAS 10197$``$5750, where both fluorescence- and shock-excited regions may coexist. High spatial resolution images (e.g. as in the past with NICMOS on board HST) in the three emission lines above mentioned for a statistically significant number of transition objects and young PNe will provide this crucial information. This would be an ideal way to test the scenario here proposed.

###### Acknowledgements.

PGL and AM acknowledges support from grant PB97$``$1435$``$C02$``$02 from the Spanish Dirección General de Enseñanza Superior (DGES).


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# 1 Introduction

## 1 Introduction

Recently a hypothesis was suggested that global Lorentz invariance is only an approximate symmetry of nature and may be broken for elementary particles participating in various physical interactions in case of high enough energy of the particle (Amelino-Camelia et al 1998, Coleman and Glashow 1999, Stecker and Glashow 2001). As the process of this type we consider a mechanism of generation of Lorentz-noninvariant space-time metrics components caused by quantum fluctuations (Ellis et al 1998). The microscopic quantum fluctuations, which may occur on scale sizes of order the Planck length $`l_{pl}10^{33}\text{cm}`$, have affected fundamentally the large-scale space-time structure at the early stages of the universe creation (Hawking et al) and have caused, in particular, the universe birth from vacuum and the stage of quantum inflation (Vertogradova and Grishkan 2000). But now the same fluctuations also exists and may have an influence on the rays of light propagating through the space-time. Indeed as it is shown by Ellis et al (1998, 2000a) the fluctuations, constituting the so-called space-time foam, transform macroscopic properties of space-time metrics and generate non-diagonal components of the metrics $`g_{0\alpha }`$, so that

$$g_{00}=1,g_{\alpha \beta }=\delta _{\alpha \beta },g_{0\alpha }=\frac{u_\alpha }{c}$$

Here Greek letters have values $`\alpha ,\beta =1,2,3`$, $`c`$ is the velocity of light constant. As a result, the whole space-time is rotated at a velocity proportional to $`u_\alpha /c1`$. A vector of rotation velocity $`u_\alpha `$ breaks global Lorentz invariance (Coleman and Glashow 1999) and thus transforms dispersion properties of light waves propagating through the space-time

$$c(E)=c\left(1\frac{u}{c}\right)$$
(1)
where $`E=\mathrm{}\omega `$ is the photon energy of frequency $`\omega `$, $`u`$ is the absolute value of the vector $`u_\alpha `$. The quantum-gravity theory, particularly the space-time foam theory (Ellis et al 2000a), predicts the ratio of velocities appearing in (1) is proportional to the ratio of the photon energy $`E`$ to effective quantum-gravity energy scale $`M_{QG}`$

$$\frac{u}{c}\frac{E}{M_{QG}}$$
(2)
Consequently the delay in the arrival times of photons of different energies and hence velocities propogating in the space-time foam from distant source of radiation is estimated as

$$\mathrm{\Delta }t=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }L(\mathrm{\Delta }u)}{c}\frac{L}{c}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }u}{c}\frac{L}{c}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma }{M_{QG}}$$
(3)
where $`L`$ is a source distance, $`\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma `$ is the difference of energies of detected photons.

As the radiation from distant sources propagates through the space-time foam there must be the delay in the arrival times of photons depending on the photon energy. If we succeed in measuring this delay we will be able to test quantum-gravity ideas. Moreover it is the constant $`M_{QG}`$ that characterize the energy scale of the effects of quantum gravity. Therefore it will be possible to estimate the quantum-gravity energy scale $`M_{QG}`$ in the following way

$$M_{QG}=\frac{L}{c}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma }{\mathrm{\Delta }t}$$
(4)
It is worth noting that the ratio $`E/M_{QG}`$ is negligible. The time delay effect may be observable only for cosmological distances. It is also clear that the higher the energy of radiation the better. Therefore $`\gamma `$ – ray bursts sources of extragalactic origin are considered as high-energy radiation sources of interest. The time delay in the arrival times of photons of different energies from $`\gamma `$ – ray burst sources was studied by Ellis et al (2000b) based on BATSE and OSSE observations (Paciesas et al 1999, OSSE Collaboration 1999). The calculation of the source distance in formulas (3), (4) may be realized for certain model of the universe. In this way theoretical calculation of the time delay is universe-model dependent. The approach described above implies that the photons of different energies are radiated by the source of $`\gamma `$ – ray burst at the same time and the photons time delay is the effect of quantum gravity and is not caused by processes inside the source of radiation.

## 2 Time delay-redshift diagram – theoretical calculation

We obtain here the time delay value of radiation in the expanding universe in terms of the cosmic vacuum model (Chernin 2001). The exact first integral of Einstein’s equation for this model is

$$\frac{1}{2}\dot{a}^2=\frac{1}{2}A_V^2a^2+(A_D+A_B)a^1+\frac{1}{2}A_R^2a^2\frac{1}{2}k$$
(5)
where $`a(t)`$ is the scale factor of the universe, $`k=0,\pm 1`$ is the space curvature sign (it corresponds to flat, closed and open universe). The derivative in equation (5) means $`\dot{a}=da/d(ct)`$, where $`t`$ is physical time. The values of the Friedmann’s integrals are obtained experimentally: $`A_Va_010^{28}\text{cm}`$ is the cosmic vacuum constant, $`A_D10^1A_V`$ is the dark matter constant, $`A_B10^2A_V`$ is the constant of baryon’s subsystem, $`A_R10^2A_V`$ is the constant of radiation of all types, $`a_0`$ is the current value of the scale factor of the universe (which is calculated for flat model of Friedmann type $`a_0t_0c`$) and the current age of the universe is $`t_02.8\times 10^{17}\text{s}10\text{Gyr}`$. The model of Friedmann type means here matter-dominated epoch of the universe evolution.

Within the framework of model under discussion the value of the space curvature sign $`k`$ is usually ignored because the sign have not significant influence on the fate of the cosmic expansion and hence on the dynamics of observable cosmological objects. We will show however that the influence is very important for the precise effect of time delay. Therefore the $`k`$ value will not be neglected below. We consider here the values $`k=0`$ (flat model of cosmic vacuum) and $`k=1`$ (open model of cosmic vacuum). As regards the closed model $`k=1`$, theoretical interpretation of time delay effect for this model is difficult for many reasons.

We consider baryon-vacuum epoch of the universe evolution. The scale factor during the epoch of interest is $`aA_R^2/A_D`$ ($`z1000`$), so the constant of radiation $`A_R`$ in equation (5) is appropriate to be neglected. Therefore we can find the time $`t`$ for given value of the scale factor $`a`$ in the form

$$\frac{tt_0}{t_0}=_{a_0}^a\frac{d(a/a_0)}{\left[\left(a/a_0\right)^2+\left(a_1/a_0\right)\left(a/a_0\right)^1k\right]^{1/2}}$$
(6)
where $`a_1=2(A_D+A_B)`$. Besides the analytical solution in terms of primitive functions is obtained for $`k=0`$

$$\frac{tt_0}{t_0}=\frac{2}{3}\mathrm{ln}\left\{\frac{\left(a/a_0\right)^{3/2}+\left[\left(a/a_0\right)^3+\left(a_1/a_0\right)\right]^{1/2}}{1+\left[1+\left(a_1/a_0\right)\right]^{1/2}}\right\}$$
(7)
The scale factor dependence in (6), (7) can be parametrized by the redshift $`z`$ according to standard formula $`a/a_0=1/(1+z)`$. As a result the integral in equation (6), for example, takes the form

$$\frac{tt_0}{t_0}=_1^{z+1}\frac{d\xi }{\xi \left[1k\xi ^2+\left(a_1/a_0\right)\xi ^3\right]^{1/2}}$$
(8)
Taking into account expressions (1)–(3) and (8) we obtain the time delay of radiation from distant source $`\mathrm{\Delta }t`$ in the form

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{t_0}=_1^{z+1}\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }u}{c}\frac{d\xi }{\xi \left[1k\xi ^2+\left(a_1/a_0\right)\xi ^3\right]^{1/2}}$$

or

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{t_0}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma }{M_{QG}}\mathrm{\Phi }(z,k)$$
(9)
$$\text{where}\mathrm{\Phi }(z,k)=_1^{z+1}\frac{d\xi }{\left[1k\xi ^2+\left(a_1/a_0\right)\xi ^3\right]^{1/2}}$$

Here we have taken into consideration the fact that the photon energy varies during the process of the Universe evolution depending on the redshift as $`E=E_\gamma (1+z)`$.

Up to a constant the asymptotic form of time delay formula (9) for high-redshift objects $`z\mathrm{}`$ is in agreement with appropriate expression obtained by Ellis et al (2000b).

$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{t_0}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma }{M_{QG}}z,z0.7(z0)$$
(10)
$$\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }t}{t_0}=\frac{\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma }{M_{QG}}\left(\frac{a_0}{a_1}\right)^{1/2}2\stackrel{~}{z},z0.7(z\mathrm{})$$
(11)
where $`\stackrel{~}{z}=1(1+z)^{1/2}`$ and $`a_0/a_15`$. The formula (10) corresponds to the universe expansion according to the law of Hubble and formula (11) – to the universe expansion of flat Friedmann type.

We’d like to note that the model of cosmic vacuum gives the expression (11) for the time delay only at the limit of high redshift $`z\mathrm{}`$. Because of this the time delay-redshift dependence is different for the cosmic vacuum model and for the flat Friedmann model discussed by Ellis et al (2000b). This fact is quite important for experimental data analysis.

## 3 The time delay experimental data and the possibility of determination of the fate of the cosmic expansion

The Picture 1 illustrates theoretical dependences of parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }t/\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma `$ as a function of redshift $`z`$. The dependences were computed from formula (9) for different cosmological models: Curve 1 corresponds to the flat model of Friedmann type, Curve 2 corresponds to the flat model of cosmic vacuum and Curve 3 corresponds to the open model of cosmic vacuum. The effective quantum-gravity energy scale is set to be equal to the Planck energy scale $`10^{19}\text{GeV}`$. From this Picture it is possible to determine the fate of the cosmic expansion when the measurement accuracy of parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }t/\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma `$ is better than $`10^5\text{s}/\text{MeV}`$.

Thus for the cosmological model selection (or for estimation of the quantum-gravity energy scale) measurements of $`\gamma `$ – ray bursts redshifts and the comparative time delay of photons of different energies are required. The paper of Ellis et al. (2000b) contains experimental data from BATSE catalog (Paciesas et al. 1999) and OSSE data (OSSE Collaboration 1999) for five $`\gamma `$ – ray bursts whose redshifts are known: 1) $`\mathrm{GRB970508}`$, $`z=0.835`$, 2) $`\mathrm{GRB971214}`$, $`z=3.14`$, 3) $`\mathrm{GRB980329}`$, $`z=5.0`$ 4) $`\mathrm{GRB980703}`$, $`z=0.966`$, 5) $`\mathrm{GRB990123}`$, $`z=1.60`$. The energy ranges of photons from this $`\gamma `$ – ray burst sources observed by BATSE are: Channel 1 between $`20`$ and $`50\text{keV}`$ and Channel 3 between $`100`$ and $`300\text{keV}`$. The difference of arrival times for Channel 1 and Channel 3 photons is of our interest. Moreover two $`\gamma `$ – ray bursts – $`\mathrm{GRB980329}`$ and $`\mathrm{GRB990123}`$ – were also detected by OSSE detector (OSSE Collaboration 1999) in a single channel with energy range $`15\text{MeV}`$. The experimental time delay in this case is the difference of arrival times of photons for OSSE data and Channel 3 of BATSE. Both BATSE and OSSE experimental values of parameter $`\mathrm{\Delta }t/\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma `$ as a function of redshift $`z`$ obtained according to the paper of Ellis et al. (2000b) are given at the Picture 2. We compare Picture 1 with Picture 2 and conclude that at present moment measurement accuracy does not allow to determine the fate of the universe expantion.

## 4 Conclusions and prospects

We believe that analysis of more statistically significant number of $`\gamma `$ – ray bursts in the future with measured redshifts and delays in the arrival times of photons of different energies will allow us to realize theory-experiment comparison more effectively. When this reliable data appear it will be possiable to test quantum-gravity effects, select cosmological models of different topology of embedded three-dimensional space ($`k=0,1,1`$) and obtain more precise values of the approximatly known Friedmann’s integrals, particularly the integral $`A_V`$. For the time being we can only use the available experimental data (Ellis et al. 2000b) and estimate the quantum-gravity energy scale as

$$M_{QG}10^{15}\text{GeV}$$

In the case of $`M_{QG}M_{pl}10^{19}\text{GeV}`$ we conclude that for the investigation of effects of delays in the arrival times of photons from cosmological $`\gamma `$ – ray burst sources measurement accuracy of ratio $`\mathrm{\Delta }t/\mathrm{\Delta }E_\gamma `$ should be better than $`10^5\text{s}/\text{MeV}`$.

The research was supported by grant RFBR 00-02-16095.

## References

* Amelino-Camelia G., Ellis J., Mavromatos N.E., Nanopoulos D.V., Sarkar S.) // Nature, 1998, v. 393, p. 763.
* Chernin A.D. // Uspehi phis. nauk, 2001, v. 171, N11, p. 1153.
* Coleman S., Glashow S.L. // Phys. Rev. D, 1999, v. 59, p. 116008.
* Ellis J., Kant P., Mavromatos N.E., Nanopoulos D.V., Winstanley E. // Mod. Phys. Lett., 1998, v. A13, p. 303.
* a Ellis J., Mavromatos N.E., Nanopoulos D.V. // CERN-2000-136; preprint gr-qc/0005100.
* b Ellis J., Farakos K., Mavromatos N.E., Mitsou V.A., Nanopoulos D.V. // Astrophys. J., 2000, v. 535, p. 139.
* Hawking S., Page D.N., Pope C.N. // Nucl. Phys. B, 1980, v. 170 \[FSH\], p. 283.
* OSSE Collaboration // Gamma Ray bursts time profiles, 1999; http://www.astro.nwu.edu/astro/OSSE/bursts/.
* Paciesas W.S. et al // Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 1999, v. 122, p. 465.
* Stecker F.W. and Glashow S.L. // Astropart. Phys., 2001, v. 16, p. 97.
* Vertogradova E.G., Grishkan Yu.S. // Astronomy Reports, 2000, v. 77, N3, p. 1.


text:
# On the Signature of Short Distance Scale in the Cosmic Microwave Background

## I Introduction

One of the highlights of inflationary cosmology  is the idea that astrophysical observables may be the results of physics at the microscopic scale. Since the pioneering work of , it has been known that quantum field fluctuations in the early universe are stretched by the enormous expansion of inflation to scales of astrophysical size, providing a first principle mechanism for density perturbations. In an inflationary universe, the temperature anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and even the formation of galaxies are the results of quantum fluctuations writ large.

Most inflationary models have far more expansion than the 60 e-foldings required to solve the cosmological problems of standard cosmology. Consequently, astrophysical scales in the present universe may correspond to Planckian or sub-Planckian scales at the onset of inflation. Therefore, there is a hope that inflation may provide a kind of Planck scale microscope, magnifying short distance physics to observably large scale, allowing us to probe trans-Planckian or stringy physics from precision cosmological measurements .

More recently, this exciting prospect was revisited in Ref., where it was claimed that a general argument assuming only low energy locality implies that the effects of short distance physics on the CMB are of the order of $`(H/M)^{2n}`$ where $`n1`$ is an integer, $`H`$ is the Hubble scale during inflation, and $`M`$ is the mass scale of short distance physics. This result seems to imply that stringy effects are far too small to be observed. However, it was pointed out in  that the argument of  assumes the universe is in the local vacuum state at horizon crossing, and hence the result of  is not in conflict with the seemingly different estimates of .

The purpose of this paper is to point out yet another way that the scale of short distance physics can affect the spectrum of CMB anisotropies. The effects of short distance physics (e.g., stringy $`\alpha ^{}`$ corrections) on the low energy effective action of a scalar field generically include both higher derivative terms as well as higher order terms in the first derivative. Therefore, the effects of short distance physics on the CMB anisotropies is a double expansion in both $`(H/M)^2`$ and $`\dot{\varphi }^2/M^4`$ where $`\varphi `$ is the classical background of the scalar field***The quantum fluctuation $`\delta \varphi `$ obeys a linear equation, and so the action contains at most terms quadratic in $`\delta \varphi `$. Therefore, the remaining factors in these higher order terms are evaluated on the classical background.. Contrary to the assertions of , the imprint of the short distance scale on the CMB generically involve corrections that are not simply powers of $`(H/M)^2`$. We find that the effects of short distance physics can be substantial even though $`H<<M`$, and can in fact depend on the mass scale of short distance physics non-analytically even though the action is local.

The effects of higher derivative terms on the CMB anisotropies have been studied in . Here we focus on the effects of the higher order terms in the first derivative. Let us consider the most general local action for a scalar field coupled to Einstein gravity, which involves at most first derivatives of the scalar field:

$$S=\frac{1}{16\pi G}d^4x\sqrt{g}R+d^4x\sqrt{g}p(X,\varphi )$$
(1)
where $`g`$ is the determinant of the metric, $`R`$ is the Ricci scalar and

$$X=\frac{1}{2}g^{\mu \nu }_\mu \varphi _\nu \varphi .$$
(2)
The cosmological perturbations of this class of models have been studied in . In this paper, we apply their results to some special cases to illustrate that the short distance effects on the Cosmic Microwave Background may not be captured simply by an expansion in $`(H/M)^2`$, and can depend on the short distance energy scale $`M`$ in a non-analytic way even though the action which defines the model involves only local interactions.

The Lagrangian of the scalar field is denoted by $`p(X,\varphi )`$ since it plays the role of pressure , whereas the energy density is given by

$$\epsilon =2Xp_{,X}p$$
(3)
where $`p_{,X}`$ denotes the derivative of the Lagrangian with respect to $`X`$.

We consider the function $`p(X,\varphi )`$ of the following form:

$$p(X,\varphi )=F(X)V(\varphi )$$
(4)
and hence,

$$\epsilon =2XF_{,X}F+V.$$
(5)
The function $`F(X)`$ includes the usual kinetic term $`X`$ as well as higher order contributions. Therefore,

$$F(X)=X+\alpha Xf\left(\frac{X}{M^4}\right)$$
(6)
where $`\alpha `$ is a dimensionless number, $`f`$ is a function of $`X/M^4`$, and $`M`$ is the mass scale associated with the short distance physics. If $`\alpha =0`$, we have the usual kinetic term. If $`\alpha 0`$, the kinetic term is not minimal and the higher order kinetic terms depend on $`M`$.

The rationale behind Eq. (4), augmented by Eq. (6), is that it is a plausible prescription for encoding the physics of a small distance scale, $`M`$, in a way that depends rather simply on fields and first derivatives of the fields, and can preserve causality if appropriate conditions on $`F(X)`$ are satisfied. Dimensional analysis alone would allow other choices, such as

$$p(X,\varphi )=XG_K\left(\frac{X}{\varphi ^2M^2}\right)V(\varphi )G_V\left(\frac{X}{\varphi ^2M^2}\right);$$
(7)
in some inflationary scenarios, a theory based on Eq. (7) could result in corrections to conventional inflation that can be expressed as a power series in $`H^2/M^2`$ for small $`H/M`$, as envisioned in . For example, in the chaotic inflationary scenario developed in § III 1, the dimensionless combination $`X/\varphi ^2M^2H^2/8M^2L^2`$ during slow roll, where $`L`$ is the number of e-folds remaining to the end of inflation. However, we shall see that the simpler prescription based on Eqs. (4) and (6) can lead to more complicated behavior.

## II General Results for Slow-roll inflation

### A Background Equations

We consider the background to be an expanding Friedmann universe:

$$ds^2=dt^2a^2(t)\delta _{ij}dx^idx^j.$$
(8)
The equations of motion for the background variables $`a(t)`$ and $`\varphi (t)`$ are:

$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G}{3}}\epsilon ,`$ (9)
$`\dot{\epsilon }`$ $`=`$ $`3H\left(\epsilon +p\right).`$ (10)
In the slow-roll approximation,

$`|2XF_{,X}F|`$ $`<<`$ $`V`$ (11)
$`|\left(2XF_{,X}F\right)_{,X}\ddot{\varphi }|`$ $`<<`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{\varphi }},`$ (12)
the background equations become

$`H^2`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{8\pi G}{3}}V`$ (13)
$`3H\dot{\varphi }F_{,X}`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{V}{\varphi }}.`$ (14)
### B Fluctuation Spectra

The power spectrum for the scalar fluctuations is given by

$$P_k^S=\frac{16}{9}\frac{G^2\epsilon ^2}{c_s\left(\epsilon +p\right)}|_{c_sk=aH}$$
(15)
where the quantities on the right-handed side are evaluated at sound horizon crossing, i.e., $`aH=c_sk`$. Here, $`c_s`$ is the “speed of sound” for the scalar perturbations:

$$c_s^2=\frac{\epsilon +p}{2X\epsilon _{,X}}=\frac{F_{,X}}{F_{,X}+2XF_{,XX}}.$$
(16)
Causality requires that $`c_s1`$ which implies that $`2XF_{,XX}/F_,X0`$.

In the slow-roll approximation

$$P_k^S\frac{16}{9}\frac{G^2V^2}{c_s\dot{\varphi }^2F_{,X}}|_{c_sk=aH}=\frac{16}{9}\left(\frac{3}{8\pi }\right)^2\frac{H^4}{(c_sF_{,X})\dot{\varphi }^2}|_{c_sk=aH},$$
(17)
where the quantities are evaluated at “sound horizon” crossing, but, on the other hand, the spectrum of tensor fluctuations is given by the usual expression.

$$P_k^T=\frac{128}{3}G^2\epsilon |_{k=aH}\frac{128}{3}G^2V|_{k=aH}=\frac{16}{\pi }GH^2|_{k=aH},$$
(18)
where the quantities are evaluated at the usual particle horizon crossing, $`k=aH`$. This is not exactly the same time as the sound horizon crossing for the scalar perturbations but as we shall see, in the specific model that we consider, $`c_s1`$, so the two horizon crossing times differ by relatively small amounts.

Note that the short distance effects are contained in the function $`F(X)`$ (and its derivatives) evaluated at horizon crossing. Therefore the short distance effects on the perturbation spectra should depend on $`\dot{\varphi }^2/M^4`$.

## III Examples

#### 1 Chaotic Inflation Model

Let us consider the potential in chaotic inflation :

$$V(\varphi )=\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2.$$
(19)
The background equations are especially simple:

$`H`$ $``$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{4\pi G}{3}}}m\varphi `$ (20)
$`F_{,X}\dot{\varphi }`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{m}{\sqrt{12\pi G}}}.`$ (21)
Hence, $`\dot{\varphi }`$ and $`F_{,X}`$ are independent of time. We can express $`\varphi `$ and $`H`$ as functions of the number of e-foldings remaining to the end of inflation, i.e., $`L=\mathrm{ln}(a_{end}/a)`$:

$`\varphi ^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{L}{2\pi GF_{,X}}}`$ (22)
$`H^2`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2m^2L}{3F_{,X}}}.`$ (23)
Therefore, the scalar and tensor perturbations are

$`P_k^S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4Gm^2L_S^2}{3\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\left(F_{,X}+2XF_{,XX}\right)^{1/2}}{F_{,X}^{3/2}}}\right]`$ (24)
$`P_k^T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{32}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Gm^2L_T}{F_{,X}}}.`$ (25)
The usual results are recovered if we take $`F(X)=X`$. Since $`L_sL_T\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}c_s^1`$, and $`c_s^2[1+2(n1)]^1`$ if $`F(X)`$ is a polynomial of index $`n`$, the fractional difference $`(L_SL_T)/L_T1`$ for large $`L_T`$, so we neglect $`L_SL_T`$ below. From the equation of motion:

$$F_{,X}\sqrt{2X}=\frac{m}{\sqrt{12\pi G}}$$
(26)
We see that the solution of $`X`$ is, in general, not analytic in $`M`$.

For example, consider

$$F(X)=X+\frac{\alpha }{M^4}X^2,$$
(27)
where $`M`$ is the mass scale characteristic of short distance physics, and we introduce a parameter $`\alpha `$ which we may absorb into the definition of $`M`$, but we carry along anyway to keep track of nonlinear terms in $`F(X)`$. (If such terms are present, we take $`\alpha =1`$ below; $`\alpha =0`$ means these terms are absent altogether.) With this $`F(X)`$, we find

$`P_k^S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{4Gm^2L^2}{3\pi }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{\left(1+6\alpha X/M^4\right)^{1/2}}{(1+2\alpha X/M^4)^{3/2}}}\right]`$ (28)
$`P_k^T`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{32}{3\pi }}{\displaystyle \frac{Gm^2L}{(1+2\alpha X/M^4)}}`$ (29)
where $`X`$ is given by the solution of the cubic equation

$$\left(1+2\frac{\alpha }{M^4}X\right)\sqrt{2X}=\frac{m}{\sqrt{12\pi G}}.$$
(30)
If $`\alpha X/M^41`$, then $`X`$ is independent of $`M`$ to lowest order, and so, to the same order, the power spectra are also independent of $`M`$. There are higher order corrections amounting to an expansion in $`X/M^4`$; in this sense, the power spectra depend on $`M`$ analytically at small $`X/M^4`$. However, if $`\alpha X/M^41`$, then $`Xm^{2/3}M^{8/3}/(12\pi G)^{1/3}`$, and therefore $`P_k^{S,T}Gm^2M^4/XG^{4/3}m^{4/3}M^{4/3}=(M/M_{Pl})^{8/3}(m/M)^{4/3}`$, where $`M_{Pl}=G^{1/2}`$ is the Planck mass. Thus, the fluctuation amplitude depends on a fractional power of the mass scale associated with the short distance physics. Below we shall see that if we want $`mM`$ (or perhaps $`mM`$ but not $`mM`$), then we will be forced to the large $`X/M^4`$ limit. In this case, it will be possible to have small $`H/M`$, but we shall also see that $`mMM_{Pl}`$.

The spectral index for the tensor fluctutations is given by :

$$n_T=\frac{3\left(\epsilon +p\right)}{\epsilon }\frac{6XF_{,X}}{V}=\frac{1}{L}$$
(31)
Apart from the small change in $`L`$, the spectral index is not very different from the usual case. Furthermore, since $`c_s`$ is of order $`1`$, the “consistency condition” is only altered mildly:

$$\frac{P_k^T}{P_k^S}=8c_sn_T;$$
(32)
for the quadratic $`F(X)`$ adopted above, $`c_s1/\sqrt{3}`$.

So far, we have merely assumed that it is possible for the short distance physics to alter the kinetic energy of the scalar field enough to change both the expansion rate during inflation, and the fluctuations that result. We have seen that the main effect would be that the dependence of the fluctuation amplitude on mass scales of the theory is changed, and the relative amplitudes of the scalar and tensor fluctuations are altered by factors which, as long as $`c_s`$ is not too small, are of order unity in general. In the specific model we have considered, the relative amplitude of the scalar and tensor fluctuations changes by a factor of at most $`\sqrt{3}1.73`$ relative to its value for $`\alpha =0`$, a subtle effect that may be discernible observationally, particularly once polarization measurements become available for CMB fluctuations. This change is model dependent, though, and alternative $`F(X)`$ could yield different results, since $`c_s`$ could be smaller for large $`X`$. For example, $`c_sM^4/2X`$ for large $`X/M^4`$ if $`F(X)=M^4(e^{X/M^4}1)`$. In this case, the ”consistency condition” is violated significantly and may give rise to an observable effect.

An important question we have not asked is whether the large $`X`$ limit can be attained in any realistic inflation model. There are three different issues to be addressed here:

* Is the large $`X/M^4`$ limit consistent within the context of slow roll inflation?
* Under what circumstances do we expect large $`X/M^4`$ to arise? Are there any constraints on the mass scales of the theory implicit in the large $`X/M^4`$ limit?
* Is the large $`X/M^4`$ limit consistent with the idea of “integrating out” massive modes in that the length scales probed by inflation are larger than $`M^1`$ even though $`X/M^4`$ is large?

To examine these issues, let us consider the chaotic inflation model more quantitatively.

First, let us check that the slow roll condition is not violated in the limit of large $`X/M^4`$. With the help of Eqs. (21) and (23) we see that $`|\dot{\varphi }|/H\varphi (2L)^1`$, so that the scalar field evolves slowly compared with the expansion rate of the Universe for all $`L1`$, just as in conventional chaotic inflation. (Notice that this particular condition does not depend on $`X/M^4`$ at all.) From Eq. (12) we also see that the energy density of the Universe is dominated by $`V(\varphi )`$ until

$$2XF_{,X}F(X)V=\frac{m^2L}{4\pi GF_{,X}};$$
(33)
where $`V`$ has been evaluated using the slow roll solution. This implies an end to the slow roll phase when

$$L_{end}\frac{1}{3}\left(1\frac{F(X)}{2XF_{,X}}\right)$$
(34)
which implies $`L_{end}1`$ whether or not $`X/M^4`$ is large. Finally, in this particular cosmological model, $`\ddot{\varphi }=0`$ during the slow roll phase, so we do not have to consider additional constraints from the smallness of $`\ddot{\varphi }`$ as long as the other conditions underlying the slow roll approximation are satisfied. Consequently, we see that the conditions for slow roll to be valid are hardly affected by the magnitude of $`X/M^4`$.

To assess the conditions under which large $`X/M^4`$ are likely to arise, we need to find the mass scales implied in this regime. We shall see that large $`X/M^4`$ is required if $`mM`$, but not otherwise.

To make quantitative estimates, we use the fact that the amplitude of scalar perturbations is fixed by observations of the CMB to be $`P_k^S10^{10}`$ on length scales for which $`L60`$. If we define $`u^2=2X/M^4`$, then we find

$$\frac{m}{M_{Pl}}=\frac{(3\pi P_k^S)^{1/2}}{2L}\left[\frac{(1+u^2)^{3/4}}{(1+3u^2)^{1/4}}\right]2.6\times 10^7\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)\left[\frac{(1+u^2)^{3/4}}{(1+3u^2)^{1/4}}\right];$$
(35)
for large values of $`u`$ this becomes

$$\frac{m}{M_{Pl}}1.9\times 10^7\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/2}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)u.$$
(36)
Thus, we see that $`mu`$ at large $`u`$.

The value of the other mass scale associated with new physics can be found by combining Eq. (35) with Eq. (26); the result is

$$\frac{M}{M_{Pl}}=\frac{(P_k^S)^{1/4}}{2\sqrt{L}u^{1/2}[(1+u^2)(1+3u^2)]^{1/8}}\frac{2.0\times 10^4\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/4}\left(60/L\right)^{1/2}}{u^{1/2}[(1+u^2)(1+3u^2)]^{1/8}};$$
(37)
for large values of $`u`$,

$$\frac{M}{M_{Pl}}1.8\times 10^4\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/4}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)^{1/2}u^1.$$
(38)
Thus, we see that $`Mu^1`$ at large $`u`$.

The ratio of the two mass scales is

$$\frac{m}{M}=\frac{\sqrt{3\pi }(P_k^S)^{1/4}}{\sqrt{L}}\left[\frac{(1+u^2)^{7/8}u^{1/2}}{(1+3u^2)^{1/8}}\right]1.3\times 10^3\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/4}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)^{1/2}\left[\frac{(1+u^2)^{7/8}u^{1/2}}{(1+3u^2)^{1/8}}\right].$$
(39)
Thus we see that if the mass scales are comparable, we must have large values of $`u`$. In the large $`u`$ limit, we would have

$$\frac{m}{M}1.1\times 10^3\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/4}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)^{1/2}u^2,$$
(40)
and we can solve this to find

$$u30\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/8}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)^{1/4}\left(\frac{m}{M}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(41)
We can rewrite the two masses in terms of $`m/M`$, assuming large values of $`u`$:

$$\frac{m}{M_{Pl}}5.9\times 10^6(10^{10}P_k^S)^{3/8}\left(\frac{60}{L}\right)^{3/4}\left(\frac{m}{M}\right)^{1/2},$$
(42)
and $`M=m/(m/M)`$. When $`m`$ and $`M`$ are comparable, the large $`u=\sqrt{2X/M^4}`$ limit must apply, and the relevant mass scale is well below $`M_{Pl}`$ i.e about $`7\times 10^{13}`$ GeV.

If we insist that $`MM_{Pl}`$, no inconsistencies arise, but we must then require that $`u1`$, and therefore that $`mM`$. In this case, we find that $`m/M_{Pl}2.56\times 10^7\left(10^{10}P_k^S\right)^{1/2}(60/L)`$, or a mass scale $`m3\times 10^{12}`$ GeV, about a factor of 20 smaller than is found if $`mM`$. A theory with $`MM_{Pl}m`$ is consistent, and yields the conventional chaotic inflation picture, modulo correction terms that may be expressed as an expansion in $`X/M^4m^2M_{Pl}^2/24\pi M^4H^2M_{Pl}^2/16\pi M^4L`$, which is $`H^2/M^2`$ for $`MM_{Pl}`$, as was suggested in . However, not only is this behavior not required, but it is also strongly violated if $`mM`$. Moreover, even if $`X/M^41`$ and $`mM`$, the expansion parameter $`X/M^4`$ generally involves two dimensionless ratios, $`H/M`$ and $`M/M_{Pl}`$, not just $`H/M`$, and also depends on the number of e-folds remaining in inflation, $`L`$.

Finally, let us consider the third consistency issue, namely, whether the length and time scales involved during inflation are all long compared with $`M^1`$, the fundamental scale of the theory. A truly complete treatment of this question is beyond the intended scope of this paper, but a necessary condition must be that $`H/M`$ be small. This condition must be satisfied in order to justify using an effective theory, such as Eq. (1), for computing the small scale fluctuations that arise from quantum effects during slow roll. If the inequality $`H/M<1`$ is satisfied, the use of an effective theory for computing the evolution of the smooth background is justified automatically, since, in slow roll, $`|\dot{\varphi }/H\varphi |1`$, so that $`|\dot{\varphi }/M\varphi |H/M`$. In the limit of large $`X/M^4`$, we find that

$$\frac{H}{M}0.21(10^{10}P_k^S)^{1/8}\left(\frac{L}{60}\right)^{1/4}\left(\frac{m}{M}\right)^{1/2}.$$
(43)
If $`mM`$, then the inequality $`H<M`$ ought to be satisfied, but not very strongly. (We note that, by contrast, the limit $`H/M_{Pl}1`$ is satisfied easily irrespective of the value of $`X/M^4`$.) One may ask if we can trust an effective theory such as Eq.(1) when $`X/M^4`$ is large, since the higher order corrections to $`F(X)`$ may be important. However, our purpose here is to establish that there can be substantial effects even when the length and time scales involved during inflation are large compared with $`M^1`$. Thus, we expect that a treatment of early Universe cosmology based on an effective theory such as Eq. (1) ought to be justified, but a more careful treatment than we have attempted here is needed to establish this point rigorously.

#### 2 Other Potentials

Although we do not consider other inflation potentials in detail here, we should examine whether the behavior we have found is specific to inflation in the chaotic inflation potential $`V(\varphi )=\frac{1}{2}m^2\varphi ^2`$. To investigate this, let us ask whether conventional inflation would lead to large values of $`X/M^4`$ for other potentials, taking account of constraints on the scalar fluctuation amplitude. Let us consider instead potentials that are very flat functions of $`\varphi `$, so that $`V=V_0[1+f(\varphi /\varphi _0)]V_0`$ throughout slow roll inflation. Then, from the validity of the slow roll approximation, we know that $`\dot{\varphi }^2/M^4V_0/M^4`$; if $`V_0M^4`$, then the small $`X/M^4`$ limit is guaranteed. In this case, we do expect the corrections to conventional inflation to be small, but they still need not be expressible simply in terms of $`H/M`$. For example, if $`V(\varphi )=V_0(1e^{\varphi /\varphi _0})`$, we find that

$$\frac{X}{M^4}=\frac{H^2M_{Pl}^4}{128\pi ^2\varphi _0^2M^4(1+L/8\pi G\varphi _0^2)^2},$$
(44)
and if $`V=V_0[1(\sigma +1)^1(\varphi /\varphi _0)^{\sigma +1}]`$, we find that

$$\frac{X}{M^4}=\frac{H^2M_{Pl}^4}{128\pi ^2\varphi _0^2M^4\left[1+(\sigma 1)L/8\pi G\varphi _0^2\right]^{\frac{2\sigma }{\sigma 1}}},$$
(45)
both of which are proportional to $`H^2`$, but differ from $`H^2/M^2`$ in general. Irrespective of the precise form of $`V(\varphi )`$, Eq. (17) implies that in conventional (i.e. small $`X/M^4`$) slow roll cosmology

$$\frac{X}{M^4}=\frac{H^4}{8\pi ^2M^4P_k^S}.$$
(46)
Thus, in models where $`V=V_0[1+f(\varphi /\varphi _0)]`$, the slow roll approximation and the assumption of small $`X/M^4`$ are only valid simultaneously provided

$$\frac{V_0}{M^2}\frac{3M_{Pl}^2(P_k^S)^{1/2}}{2\sqrt{2}}1.1\times 10^5M_{Pl}^2(10^{10}P_k^S)^{1/2}.$$
(47)
For $`V_0=ϵM^4`$, with $`ϵ1`$, this condition implies $`M0.003ϵ^{1/2}M_{Pl}`$, or a characteristic mass scale $`M4\times 10^{16}ϵ^{1/2}`$ GeV. In other words, although small $`X/M^4`$ is more or less guaranteed by the slow roll assumption provided $`V_0M^4`$, the observational constraint imposed by the magnitude of $`P_k^S`$ restricts the values of $`M`$ for which the approximations in conventional slow roll cosmology are all consistent.

The situation is a bit trickier for models in which $`V(\varphi )`$ is a powerlaw in $`\varphi `$, $`V(\varphi )=m^{4n}\varphi ^n/n`$, but with $`n2`$. (We also must consider $`n=4`$ separately.) In this case, conventional inflation yields

$$\dot{\varphi }=\sqrt{\frac{nm^{4n}}{24\pi G}}\varphi ^{n/21}=M_{Pl}^{n/2}m^{2n/2}\left(\frac{\varphi }{M_{Pl}}\right)^{n/21}\sqrt{\frac{n}{24\pi }},$$
(48)
and scalar fluctuations of amplitude

$$P_k^S=\frac{128\pi }{3n^3}\left(\frac{\varphi }{M_{Pl}}\right)^{n+2}\left(\frac{M_{Pl}}{m}\right)^{n4};$$
(49)
the slow roll approximation requires

$$\left|\frac{\dot{\varphi }}{H\varphi }\right|=\frac{nM_{Pl}^2}{8\pi \varphi ^2}1,$$
(50)
so that $`\varphi /M_{Pl}`$ must be $`1`$ in general. In fact, the slow roll solution for $`\varphi `$ is

$$\frac{\varphi }{M_{Pl}}=\sqrt{\frac{nL}{4\pi }}.$$
(51)
From Eq. (49) we see that

$$\frac{\varphi }{M_{Pl}}=\left(\frac{3n^3P_k^S}{128\pi }\right)^{\frac{1}{n+2}}\left(\frac{m}{M_{Pl}}\right)^{\frac{n4}{n+2}};$$
(52)
since $`P_k^S10^{10}`$, the first factor is small, so the second must be large. Thus, for $`n>4`$, slow roll requires large $`m/M_{Pl}`$ and for $`n<4`$, it requires small $`m/M_{Pl}`$. If we regard the value of $`P_k^S`$ to be fixed observationally, then we can solve Eq. (49) to find

$$\frac{M_{Pl}}{m}=\left(\frac{3n^3P_k^S}{128\pi }\right)^{\frac{1}{n4}}\left(\frac{\varphi }{M_{Pl}}\right)^{\frac{n+2}{n4}}=\left(\frac{3n^3P_k^S}{128\pi }\right)^{\frac{1}{n4}}\left(\frac{4\pi }{nL}\right)^{\frac{n+2}{2(n4)}},$$
(53)
using Eq. (51); combining with Eq. (48) implies

$$\frac{X}{M^4}=\frac{n}{48\pi }\left(\frac{m}{M}\right)^4\left(\frac{3n^3P_k^S}{128\pi }\right)^{\frac{n}{n4}}\left(\frac{nL}{4\pi }\right)^{\frac{4(n1)}{n4}}.$$
(54)
Eq. (54) shows that unless $`m/M1`$, $`X/M^41`$ in conventional cosmology for all $`n<4`$, and that unless $`m/M1`$, $`X/M^41`$ for all $`n>4`$. For $`n=4`$, we take the potential to be $`V(\varphi )=\lambda \varphi ^4/4`$. In this case, Eq. (51) continues to hold true, and we find

$`\dot{\varphi }`$ $`=`$ $`\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{6\pi }}}M_{Pl}\varphi =\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda L}{6\pi ^2}}}M_{Pl}^2`$ (55)
$`P_k^S`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{2\lambda L^3}{3\pi ^2}}.`$ (56)
Eqs. (56) may be combined to find

$$\frac{X}{M^4}=\frac{P_k^S}{8L^2}\left(\frac{M_{Pl}}{M}\right)^43.5\times 10^{15}(10^{10}P_k^S)\left(\frac{M_{Pl}}{M}\right)^4$$
(57)
in this case, $`X/M^4>1`$ if $`M_{Pl}/M>10^4`$ or so, and vice-versa.

Thus we see, overall, that for potentials that are very flat, we do not expect significant signatures of large mass scales in models with $`F(X)X`$, but for simple polynomial potentials $`\varphi ^n`$, such effects may be present, but are only likely for $`n<4`$. The principal effect would be to change the dependence of the scalar and tensor fluctuation amplitudes on the parameters of the theory. This in turn would alter estimates of the energy scales associated with inflation based on $`P_k^S`$ and $`P_k^T`$, just as we found in § III 1 for chaotic inflation. Moreover, the ratio $`P_k^T/P_k^S`$ is affected, but in a way that depends critically on the form of $`F(X)`$, via $`c_s`$ (see Eqs. (16) and (32)). Therefore, potentially, some information about the scale of short distance physics $`M`$ may be encoded in the CMB fluctuations. Even though the determination of $`M`$ from observations would be rather model-dependent, it may be possible, at least in principle, to probe short distance physics from cosmological measurements.

###### Acknowledgements.

We thank the ITP, Santa Barbara for hospitality while this work was initiated. The work of G.S. was supported in part by the DOE grants DE-FG02-95ER40893, DE-EY-76-02-3071, and the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s fund. I.W. acknowledges support from NASA. We are grateful to Henry Tye for useful comments on an early draft of this paper.