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# Search for 𝐝^∗ Dibaryon by Double-radiative Capture on Pionic Deuterium

## 1 Introduction

At present the deuteron is the only established particle with a baryon number $`B=2`$. However a large number of theoretical predictions for additional dibaryons have been published in the literature. The predictions have exploited both quark–gluon and hadron viewpoints, and include objects such as exotic multi–quark states and molecular–like baryonic states. Obviously the experimental discovery of another dibaryon would provide new insight into hadron and quark–gluon dynamics at the GeV scale.

A recent claim for dibaryon production has been published by the Di2$`\gamma `$ collaboration at the JINR phasotron . The collaboration measured the proton–proton double bremsstrahlung reaction $`pppp\gamma \gamma `$ by directing 216 MeV protons onto a liquid hydrogen target and recording $`\gamma `$–ray coincidences in two CsI/NaI detector arrays. The authors observed an intriguing structure in the background–subtracted energy spectrum of the $`\gamma `$–ray coincidence data. It comprised a relatively narrow peak centered at about 24 MeV and a relatively broad peak centered at about 60 MeV. They attributed the structure to the $`d^{}`$ dibaryon with mass $`1956\pm 6`$ MeV and width $`8`$ MeV. They hypothesized that $`d^{}`$ dibaryons were first produced via the two-body process $`ppd^{}\gamma `$ and then decayed via the three-body process $`d^{}pp\gamma `$, thus contributing to $`pp`$ double bremsstrahlung.

The $`d^{}`$ dibaryon of Khrykin et al.  would have an electric charge $`Q=+2`$, an isospin component $`T_z=+1`$, and therefore an isospin of $`T1`$. The narrow width of the claimed $`d^{}`$ state implies that its quantum numbers either forbid or strongly suppress the $`NN`$ decay mode. Thus, if the $`d^{}`$ is isovector ($`T=1`$), it must have spin-parities $`J^\pi =1^+,3^+,5^+`$ etc. Moreover Khrykin et al. have argued that $`(J^\pi ,T)=(1^+,1)`$ is the most natural choice for the $`d^{}`$’s quantum numbers, being the lowest spin–isospin pp-decoupled state with zero orbital angular momentum.

Recently Gerasimov  suggested that double-radiative capture on pionic deuterium

$$\pi ^{}dnn\gamma \gamma $$
(1)
is an excellent candidate for further investigations of the dibaryon’s existence. In Eqn. 1 the $`d^{}(T_z=1)`$ dibaryon is first produced via radiative capture $`\pi ^{}dd^{}\gamma `$ and then disintegrates via radiative decay $`d^{}nn\gamma `$. Using a simple model Gerasimov estimated111Gerasimov assumed a N$`\mathrm{\Delta }`$ bound state for the $`d^{}`$ dibaryon and a Kroll-Ruderman graph $`\pi N\gamma \mathrm{\Delta }`$ for the production mechanism. that the branching ratio for the $`d^{}`$–mediated process might be as large as 0.5%. This yield would exceed by $`100`$ times the expected two–photon branching ratio for non–resonant double-radiative capture in pionic deuterium (see ).

A number of $`\gamma `$–ray experiments on pionic deuterium have already been conducted, so is it possible for the signatures of the $`d^{}`$ dibaryon to have been missed? Singles $`\gamma `$–ray data on pionic deuterium are available from the TRIUMF experiments of Highland et al.  and Stanislaus et al.  and the PSI experiment of Gabioud et al. . Unfortunately, because of the large branching ratio $`BR=0.26`$ for the single radiative capture reaction, which yields a $``$130 MeV $`\gamma `$–ray peak with a large low–energy tail, a small contribution from dibaryon production with a branching ratio $``$10-2 is not excluded (the exact sensitivity of the singles $`\gamma `$–ray experiments is a strong function of the mass and the width of the dibaryon). Coincidence $`\gamma `$–ray data on pionic deuterium are also available from the TRIUMF experiment of MacDonald et al. . However this experiment was designed for back–to–back photons originating from $`\pi ^o\gamma \gamma `$ decay following 2H$`(\pi ^{},\pi ^o)`$ charge exchange. Consequently their sensitivity to two-photon events from $`d^{}`$ dibaryon production in double-radiative capture was very low.

## 2 Experimental Setup

Herein we report a dedicated search for dibaryon production via double-radiative capture on pionic deuterium. The experiment was conducted on the M9A beamline at the TRIUMF cyclotron using the RMC pair spectrometer (see Fig. 1).

The beamline delivered a negative pion flux of $`5\times 10^5s^1`$ with a central momentum of 81.5 MeV/c and a momentum bite $`\mathrm{\Delta }p/p`$ of about 10%. The beam was unseparated,222the RF separator was unavailable for the data taking having a $`e/\pi `$ ratio of about 14/1 and a $`\mu /\pi `$ ratio of about 1/1. The incoming pions were counted in a 4-element plastic scintillator telescope and stopped in a 2.5 liter liquid deuterium target.

The outgoing photons were detected by electron-positron pair production in a 1 mm cylindrical lead converter and $`e^+`$, $`e^{}`$ tracking in a cylindrical drift chambers. A 1.2 kG axial magnetic field was used for momentum analysis and concentric plastic scintillator rings were used for fast triggering. The trigger scintillator package consisted of the A-ring (just inside the Pb converter radius), the C-ring (just inside the multiwire drift chamber radius), and the D-ring (just outside the drift chamber radius). For more information on the spectrometer see Wright et al. , note that in this experiment we moved the Pb converter from just inside the C-counter radius to just outside the A-counter radius.

The two–photon trigger was based upon the multiplicities and topologies of hits in the trigger scintillators and the drift chamber cells. The scintillator trigger required zero hits in the A-ring, two or more hits in the C-ring, three or more hits in the D-ring, and a C-D topology consistent with the conversion of two $`\gamma `$-rays. The drift chamber trigger imposed minimum values for number of the drift cell hits or the drift cell clusters in each drift chamber layer.

During a four week running period we accumulated $`\gamma `$-ray coincidence spectra from a total of about $`3.8\times 10^{11}`$ pion stops in the deuterium target. We also collected data from $`\pi ^{}`$ stops in liquid H2 for setup and calibration.

## 3 Data Reduction

The significant backgrounds involved (i) true coincidences from $`\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$ decay following $`(\pi ^{},\pi ^o)`$ charge exchange on 1H contamination, (ii) accidental coincidences from two $`\pi ^{}dnn\gamma `$ events following two pion stops in one beam pulse (hereafter denoted $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ events),333The pion beam had a micro–structure with a pulse width of 2–4 ns and a pulse separation of 43 ns. For an incident flux of $`5\times 10^5`$ s-1 the probability for more than one pion arriving in a single beam pulse was about 1.1%. and (iii) accidental coincidences between a delayed radiative $`\mu `$ decay $`\gamma `$-ray and a prompt radiative $`\pi `$ capture $`\gamma `$-ray (hereafter denoted $`\mu `$-$`\pi `$ events). The $`\pi ^o`$ decay background yielded photon-pairs with opening angles of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{12}0.76`$ and summed energies of $`E_{\mathrm{sum}}=E_{\gamma 1}+E_{\gamma 2}m_\pi `$. The accidental coincidence backgrounds yielded photon-pairs with opening angles of $`1.0\mathrm{cos}\theta _{12}+1.0`$ and summed energies of up to $`180`$ MeV for $`\mu `$-$`\pi `$ accidentals and $`260`$ MeV for $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ accidentals.

In analyzing the data a number of cuts were applied to select the two-photon events. A tracking cut imposed minimum values for the number of points in the tracks in the drift chamber and maximum values for the chi–squared of fits to the tracks. A photon cut required that the electron-positron pairs intersect at the lead converter and that the photon pairs originate from the deuterium target. The total number of photon pairs, i.e. events surviving the tracking cuts and photon cuts, was $`2.3\times 10^5`$. These photon pairs (shown in Fig. 2) are dominated by the real $`\gamma `$-$`\gamma `$ coincidences from $`\pi ^o`$ decays and accidental $`\gamma `$-$`\gamma `$ coincidences from $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ events and $`\mu `$-$`\pi `$ events. The accidental $`\gamma `$-$`\gamma `$ background is clearly seen in the summed energy spectrum as events with $`E>150`$ MeV. The $`\pi ^o`$ decay background is clearly seen in the opening angle spectrum as events with $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{12}<0.6`$. In order to remove these backgrounds, a beam counter amplitude cut was applied to reject the $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$ accidentals and a C-counter timing cut to reject the $`\mu `$-$`\pi `$ accidentals. Finally an opening angle cut was used to reject the background from $`\pi ^o`$ decay.

A total of 370 two-photon events were found to survive the beam counter amplitude cut, C-counter timing cut, and photon opening angle cut. 444Actually a small contribution of $`22\pm 5`$ $`\pi ^o`$ decay background events and $`24\pm 2`$ accidental coincidence background events is present in Fig. 3. The residual $`\pi ^o`$ decay background was estimated using the number of $`\pi ^o`$ events with $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{12}<0.45`$ and the residual accidental coincidence background was estimated using the number of $`\pi `$-$`\pi `$/$`\mu `$-$`\pi `$ events with $`E_{\mathrm{sum}}>150`$ MeV. Their photon opening angle and individual energy spectra are shown in Fig. 3. The opening-angle spectrum is a broad continuum and shows the opening angle cut of $`\mathrm{cos}\theta _{12}>0.2`$ we employed to remove the events from $`\pi ^o`$ decay. The individual energy spectrum is a broad continuum with a low–energy cut-off at about 25 MeV due to the acceptance of the spectrometer.

The 370 two-photon events in Fig. 3 are entirely consistent with non-resonant capture in pionic deuterium. Specifically, using the measured branching ratio for non-resonant double radiative capture on hydrogen of $`(3.05\pm 0.27\pm 0.31)\times 10^5`$ , and naively assuming the ratio of single radiative capture to double radiative capture to be identical on a hydrogen target and a deuterium target, we would expect about $`580\pm 110`$ events from non-resonant $`\pi ^{}d\gamma \gamma nn`$. In addition the measured angle and energy distributions are in good agreement with our Monte Carlo simulations of the non-resonant process using the theoretical model of Beder . The expected signature of dibaryon events, a monoenergetic peak from the production process $`\pi ^{}dd^{}\gamma `$ and a three-body continuum from the decay process $`d^{}nn\gamma `$, is not seen.

## 4 Dibaryon Sensitivity

To determine the detection efficiency for dibaryon events we used a Monte Carlo computer program. The program incorporated the detailed geometry of the RMC detector and detailed interactions of the various particles. Our program was based on the CERN GEANT3 package  and is described in more detail in Ref. .

The simulation was tested by measurements of the detector response with a liquid H2 target. Negative pion stops in hydrogen provide a well known source of photon pairs from (i) $`\pi ^{}p\pi ^on`$ charge exchange followed by $`\pi ^o\gamma \gamma `$ decay and (ii) accidental $`\gamma `$-$`\gamma `$ coincidences from multiple $`\pi `$ stops. We found the energy-angle distributions from experiment and simulation to be in good agreement. The absolute detection efficiencies from experiment and simulation differed by 4% (the run-to-run variation of the spectrometer acceptance was $`<\pm 6`$%). This difference was attributed to detector inefficiencies that were present in the measurement but were absent in the simulation. A multiplicative correction factor $`F=0.96\pm 0.06`$ was therefore incorporated to account for this.

As described earlier, the $`d^{}`$ signature is a monoenergetic $`\gamma `$-ray peak from dibaryon production, $`\pi ^{}dd^{}\gamma `$, and a three-body continuum from dibaryon decay, $`d^{}nn\gamma `$. The production $`\gamma `$-ray energy is approximately $`EM_{\pi ^{}d}M_d^{}`$ and increases from $`E35`$ MeV for $`M_d^{}=1980`$ MeV to $`E90`$ MeV for $`M_d^{}=1920`$ MeV. The decay $`\gamma `$-ray spectrum is peaked near the end-point energy, $`EM_d^{}2m_n`$, as typically the two neutrons carry only a small fraction of the available energy. However the detailed shape of the three-body spectrum is dependent on the $`nn`$-final state interaction and consequently on the $`d^{}`$ quantum numbers.

Representative simulations of dibaryon signatures for $`M_d^{}`$ = 1920 and 1956 MeV, assuming a 3-body phase space distribution for $`d^{}nn\gamma `$ decay, are shown in Fig. 4. Note that for $`M_d^{}`$ = 1920 MeV the production and decay $`\gamma `$-ray spectra are separated whereas for $`M_d^{}`$ = 1956 MeV the production and decay $`\gamma `$-ray spectra overlap. Because the exact line shape of the decay $`\gamma `$-ray is not known, we obtained our limits on $`d^{}`$ production by determining limits on the production $`\gamma `$-ray yield. Specifically we fit the sum of a polynomial function, parameterizing the non-resonant background, and a Gaussian peak, accounting for $`d^{}`$ production, to the $`\gamma `$-$`\gamma `$ coincidence energy spectrum in Fig. 3. The Gaussian peak centroid was stepped from $`E=35`$ to $`90`$ MeV and the Gaussian peak width was fixed at the instrumental resolution of the RMC detector (i.e. $`\sigma =`$4-5 MeV for $`E=`$40-80 MeV). This procedure yielded a limit on the number of dibaryon events as a function of dibaryon mass. We then converted the event limit on dibaryon production to a branching ratio limit on dibaryon production via

$$B.R.=\frac{N_d^{}}{N_\pi ^{}ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }FC}$$
(2)
where $`N_d^{}`$ is the limit on the dibaryon events, $`N_\pi ^{}`$ is the number of live-time corrected pion stops, and $`ϵ\mathrm{\Delta }\mathrm{\Omega }F`$ is the detector acceptance. The appropriate acceptance was obtained using the Monte Carlo for dibaryon production and assuming a three-body phase space distribution for $`d^{}nn\gamma `$ decay (cf. Fig. 5). As discussed earlier the factor $`F`$ accounts for detector inefficiencies which are present in the experiment but are absent in the simulation. The factor $`C=0.85\pm 0.01`$ accounts for the fraction of incident pions that stopped in deuterium (see Wright et al.  for details).

The resulting branching ratio upper limit on $`d^{}`$ production in $`\pi ^{}`$d capture was found to be $`BR<6.7\times 10^6`$ (90% C.L.) for $`d^{}`$’s in the mass range of $`1920`$ to $`1980`$ MeV and width of $`<10`$ MeV (see Fig. 5). In particular, we observed no evidence for a narrow dibaryon of mass $`M=1956`$ MeV as claimed by Khrykin et al. . However above and below this mass range, our experimental sensitivity rapidly deteriorates due to the energy cut-off in the spectrometer acceptance.

## 5 Summary

In summary we have found no evidence for narrow dibaryon production in $`\pi ^{}d`$ capture. Our upper limit on dibaryon production, $`BR<6.7\times 10^6`$ (90% C.L.), is several orders of magnitude below the yield estimate of Gerasimov . Our null result is consistent with the null result of Calén et al.  obtained from $`pp`$ bremsstrahlung measurements using the WASA detector at the CELSIUS storage ring.

We wish to thank the staff of the TRIUMF laboratory for their support of this work. In particular we acknowledge the help of Dr. Renée Poutissou on the data acquisition and Dr. Dennis Healey on the cryogenic targets. In addition we thank Prof. Sergo B. Gerasimov for helpful and stimulating discussions, Prof. David S. Armstrong for carefully reading the manuscript and the National Science Foundation (United States) and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (Canada) for financial support.


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# Discovery of New Milky Way Star Clusters Candidates in the 2MASS Point Source Catalog

## 1 Introduction

There are about 150 known Galactic globular clusters (GC hereafter; Harris har96 (1996)). The majority of them were discovered through optical searches, biased against highly obscured objects. Since the Galaxy is estimated to have 160$`\pm 20`$ GCs (Harris har91 (1991)), a certain number of GCs may still be hidden behind the Galactic disk.

The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) offers an opportunity to carry out a systematic and unbiased search for missing GCs because it covers in an uniform way the Galactic plane in near infrared wavelengths $`(J,H`$ and $`K_S`$ bands) where the extinction is almost ten times smaller in comparison with the optical part of the spectrum (Bessell & Brett bes88 (1988); used throughout this letter). Using the 2MASS data base Hurt et al. (hur00 (2000)) found two new GCs: 2MASS GC01 and 2MASS GC02 (see also Ivanov et al. iva00 (2000)). Later Dutra & Bica (dut00 (2000), dut01 (2001)) presented a sample of about 90 new infrared star clusters, stellar groups and candidates, mostly discovered from visual inspection of the 2MASS images. Recently, Reylé & Robin (rey02 (2002)) reported two new clusters discovered with DENIS. They applied a combined surface density–integrated flux–color criterion, that detected in addition 22 known clusters.

We report the first results of a systematic and objective search of new clusters in the currently released part of the 2MASS point–source catalog, covering 47% of the sky. We also give a short description of the technique, used to locate cluster candidates. The list of objects presented here is not aimed to be complete in any sense.

## 2 Search Algorithm

A simple and robust method, based on the apparent stellar surface density was chosen to search for obscured clusters. The first step was to divide the 2MASS point source catalog into spatial bins. We used square bins, to minimize the computational demands. Their size was a free parameter, allowing to search for structures of various scales on the sky. For each bin we stored the total number of stars, the $`K_S`$-band luminosity function, and the distribution of stars along $`JK_S`$ color. Effectively, the results from the first step are two-dimensional histograms on the sky.

Next, we searched for peaks in the 2-D histogram of total number of stars in each bin. The background level and its standard deviation $`\sigma `$ were calculated from the average number of stars in the neighboring bins. Our experiments on fields with known star clusters indicated that the most effective cluster-finding strategy was to use a two-step criterion: (i) $`3\sigma `$ deviation above the background, and (ii) an excess of 50 or more stars in the bin above the background. It proved to work better than the $`3\sigma `$ excess limit alone, probably because the value of $`\sigma `$ is often ill-defined, especially in fields with small stellar density.

The results presented here were obtained with parameters optimized to search for clusters with large apparent sizes on the sky since those are most likely to be discovered soon - either serendipitously or after systematic searches, such as the findings of Hurt et al. (hur00 (2000)) and Dutra & Bica (dut00 (2000), dut01 (2001)). For comparison, the median value of the half-mass radius for 141 globular clusters with known structural parameters from Harris (har96 (1996)) is only 1.0 arcmin. The average is $`1.3\pm 0.8`$ arcmin, with a maximum of 4.18 arcmin for $`\omega `$ Cen. Although the search for open clusters are not the main objective of this program, we ensured that they were also likely to be selected with the chosen parameters. The average size of Galactic open clusters included in the catalog of Lynga (lyn95 (1995)) is $`3.5\pm 2.0`$ arcmin, similar to our bin size. Of course, the lower surface density of open clusters in comparison with globulars makes them more challenging targets.

Overall, we are probing a different range of the cluster parametric space than the previous works. For example, we are sensitive to clusters with larger angular diameters, compared with the work of Dutra & Bica (dut01 (2001)) who found more compact objects, with median size along the large axis of only 1.8 arcmin. The objects found by Reylé & Robin (rey02 (2002)) are also smaller than 2 arcmin. Smaller bin sizes than 5 arcmin will constrain the search to the regime of compact clusters which are usually only partially resolved by 2MASS due to the large pixel size (1 arcsec), and therefore are not present in the point source catalog. Visual inspections or flux criteria are better suited for discovering such objects.

Clusters, larger than 5 arcmin are likely to be missed, given our choice of the bin size. However, they represent a part of the parametric space that is not likely to yield new candidates because such clusters would probably be relatively nearby. Therefore, they would suffer lesser extinction, and would have been easily discovered in optical.

The method was implemented as a set of C-based codes in order to carry out the process automatically. We plan to explore wider range of parameters in the future, and to shift the bin centers by half bin size, improving the completeness of the sample.

## 3 Results and Discussion

### 3.1 Cluster Parameters

The search yielded 247 candidates that satisfied the $`3\sigma `$ and 50 stars excess criteria described in the previous section. Of those, 105 were known clusters, present in SIMBAD. Incidentally, 2MASS GC01 was rejected based on insignificant peak $`(2.5\sigma ),`$ while 2MASS GC02 was not present in the released point source catalog. We inspected visually the 2MASS images of the remaining candidates, and found two more objects. No obvious objects were present in 134 cases. The basic data for the new clusters is given in Table 1. A mosaic of true color images of nine clusters is shown in Figure 1, constructed from the 2MASS $`JHK_S`$ images. It is not surprising that all candidates are situated close to the Galactic plane. This region suffers from the highest extinction which makes it easy to hide unknown clusters. All candidates are at least partially resolved, and many of them show extended emission, that might indicate ionized gas or faint population, unreachable with the 2MASS data.

The cluster coordinates are impossible to estimate by fitting of radial profiles because of the relatively low number of members. This forced us to apply an alternative method for finding the centers. We adopted a trial center, and minimized the sum of the distances to the point sources within 1.5 arcmin. Whenever possible, obvious non-members were excluded based on the color-magnitude diagrams. Then we moved the trial center in a rectangular grid pattern across the face of the cluster. The coordinates, presented here are accurate within 30 arcsec, and agree within this uncertainty with visual estimates. In both cases we used 2MASS world coordinates, from the point source catalog, or from the image header, respectively. The diameters were determined after visual inspection of the K-band images. They should be considered lower limits because some fainter stars may well be bellow the detection limit of the 2MASS atlas. The total magnitudes are obtained with aperture measurements, with diameters 100-180 arcsec. To remove the contribution from the foreground stars we subtracted the flux measured through the same aperture near the clusters from the flux measured at the cluster position. The large variations of the extinction and the apparent stellar density lead to errors of about 0.5 mag.

We carried out a thorough search for known objects near the new clusters. The majority of them were found to be associated with Hii ionized regions indicating that they may be young clusters, perhaps similar to the recently discovered Arches cluster. The SIMBAD identifications are discussed in Sec. 3.2. The most promising candidate for an unknown globular cluster is CC01, based on its appearance. CC08 and CC10 possess morphologies typical of open clusters.

To verify further the nature of our candidates we constructed luminosity functions (LF hereafter) of the areas near the stellar surface density peaks, and compared them with LFs of circular regions with the same areas, well away from the objects. An example is shown in Figure 2. The excesses of stars at the alleged cluster positions are obvious despite of the low statistics of individual bins. The color-magnitude (CMD hereafter) and color-color diagrams provide an additional test of our candidates. Figure 3 shows the CMDs of CC01 and CC04. An excess of stars is evident in both cases. However, these diagrams are of little help for unobscured or lightly obscured clusters.

The estimate of the extinction toward the clusters is a problem on its own. It is impossible to determine whether we see the tip of the main sequence or the the tip of the red giant or red supergiant branch, given the relatively shallow depth of the 2MASS point source photometry. We adopted a simple foreground screen, although it is clear that some of the clusters suffer from differential reddening. Next, we made two extinction estimates, assuming that the reddest sequence is either at $`JK_S0`$ mag, typical for the blue stars, or at 0.9-1 mag, which is the usual color of the red supergiant and red giant branches. We neglected completely any metallicity effects because they are much smaller than the uncertainties in the $`E(JK_S)`$ which are of order of 0.5 mag, leading to errors of $`4`$ mag in $`A_V`$. The results are included in Table 1. Using the stellar colors to estimate the extinction toward clusters inside our Galaxy is more reliable than far-infrared techniques (i.e. Dutra & Bica dut00 (2000)), because the background dust emission can easily be confused for emission from foreground obscuring material.

### 3.2 Comments on Individual Objects

\- CC01 A rich cluster, well resolved by the 2MASS. It resembles morphologically a globular or a compact young cluster, similar to Arches. Further observations are needed to solve this ambiguity. The location of the candidate coincides with an emission nebula Min 2-58 (Minkowski min48 (1948)), clearly seen on both blue and red DSS images (while the stellar cluster is not). A radio-selected Hii region within 30 arcsec was reported by Lockman (loc89 (1989)).
\- CC02 Resolved by the 2MASS. Extended nebulocity is present on both blue and red DSS images. There is an indication for faint stellar population on the red image. An Hii region SH 2-269 B (Sharpless sha59 (1959)) lies within the borders of our candidate. Water maser emission was detected by Comoretto et al. (com90 (1990)) indicating that this is a young cluster embedded in a dense molecular core.
\- CC03 Partially resolved by the 2MASS. Compact (D$`1`$ arcmin) nebulocity is visible on the red DSS image, with no trace of the embedded stars. An Hii region BFS 56, associated with a molecular cloud was found at the same position by Blitz, Fich, & Stark (bli82 (1982)). A nearby IRAS source (06567-0350) was identified by Magnier et al. (mag99 (1999)) as possible young stellar object. Therefore, the found cluster is likely young.
\- CC04 Well resolved on the 2MASS images. Extended nebulocity is visible on the red DSS plate, with a few bright stars that might be associated with it. Blitz et al. (bli82 (1982)) reported an Hii region BFS 64 nearby.
\- CC05 Partially resolved by the 2MASS. A compact nebulocity (D$`1`$ arcmin) is visible on the red DSS image, with no associated stars. Fich & Terebey (fic96 (1996)) reported a cloud (221.9-2.0B) that might hide on-going star formation. Indeed, a young stellar object CPM 33 was discovered by Campbell, Persson, & Matthews (cam89 (1989)), which leads as to believe that this may be a young cluster.
\- CC06 Partially resolved by the 2MASS. A patchy nebula with a few stars near the center is visible on the red DSS image. However, their association is not obvious due to heavy foreground contamination. The nebula is included in the Hii region catalog of Brand, Blitz, & Wouterloot (bra86 (1986)) as BRAN 22C. CO emission, associated with this object was detected by Brand et al. (bra87 (1987)), suggesting the presence of a dense core.
\- CC07 Well resolved by the 2MASS. A patchy faint nebula with a few stars near the center is visible on the red DSS image. Some of the stars coincide with the brighter patches, indicating a physical association. The nebula is cataloged by Sharpless (sha59 (1959)) as Hii region SH 2-299 B.
\- CC08 Well resolved on the 2MASS images. It is visible on the red DSS image as a loose concentration of faint stars, indicating even lower extinction than the one estimated from the near-infrared color-magnitude diagram (Figure 3, left). The morphology suggests that this might be an open cluster.
\- CC09 Well resolved by the 2MASS. Visible on the red DSS, suggesting low extinction. We refrained from measuring the cluster brightness because of the faint apparent magnitude and the foreground contamination. Resembles an open cluster or a distant OB association.
\- CC10 Partially resolved by the 2MASS. Compact nebulocity (D$``$1 arcmin) visible on the red DSS image. It is associated with IRAS 08165$``$3538, and appears to be a compact young cluster that does not match our search criteria for richness. It was observed in the near infrared as an unresolved source by Liseau et al. (lis92 (1992)) and Lorenzetti et al. (lor93 (1993)). Their measurements are also listed in Table 1 (last row), and agree with ours, within the uncertainties.

## 4 Summary

A systematic search throughout the 2MASS point source catalog yielded ten new stellar clusters. One may be a new globular, two have morphologies consistent with open clusters, and the rest are likely compact young clusters. Further analysis and deeper imaging with higher angular resolution is needed to verify their true nature.

###### Acknowledgements.

This publication makes use of data products from the Two Micron All Sky Survey, which is a joint project of the University of Massachusetts and the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center/California Institute of Technology, funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Science Foundation. This research has made use of the SIMBAD database, operated at CDS, Strasbourg, France.


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# SDSS Survey for Resolved Milky Way Satellite Galaxies II: High-Velocity Clouds in the Early Data Release

## 1. Introduction

For decades, astronomers have struggled to determine the properties of the high-velocity clouds (HVCs), a population of objects identified by 21 cm HI emission with velocities inconsistent with Galactic rotation. Recent improvements in available radio survey data (e.g. the HI Parkes All-Sky Survey and the Leiden Dwingeloo Survey; Barnes et al. 2001 and Hartmann & Burton 1997 respectively) and UV instrumentation (e.g. STIS and FUSE), have substantially increased our understanding of these numerous ($``$ 2000 in the South alone, Putman et al. 2002) clouds. However, the origin of the vast majority of the HVC population has remained controversial. Several explanations for their presence have been suggested, including: a Galactic fountain; tidal or ram pressure stripping from dwarf galaxies; and low mass dark matter halos predicted by currently favored cosmologies but not observed in optical surveys (Blitz et al. 1999, Braun & Burton 2000, among others). A combination of these, and other, scenarios is likely necessary to explain the wide range of observed HVC properties (see Wakker & van Woerden 1997 for overview of suggested origins and discussion).

One of the principle limitations in distinguishing between these scenarios is the unknown distances to the clouds (e.g. Gibson et al. 2001). The most reliable distance estimates to date have resulted from absorption line studies toward background stars at known distances placing concrete upper and lower limits on the distances to a handful of nearby HVCs (Wakker 2001). Unfortunately, this method cannot be applied to clouds at extragalactic (i.e. $`>`$ 100 kpc) distances due to a lack of background stars.

Alternatively, if the HVCs host a detectable stellar population, their distances could be measured directly using the location of the tip of the Red Giant Branch or RR Lyrae stars. Identifying stellar populations associated with HVCs would therefore provide the measurements of both stellar content and distance necessary for constraining their possible origins. In particular, stellar associations would provide strong support for the theory that some HVCs may be extremely low mass galaxies and, as such, may likely host stars (see §4.2 for discussion).

Several groups are currently conducting deep, pointed surveys toward compact HVCs (CHVCs) in an attempt to identify resolved stars associated with the clouds (Grebel, Braun & Burton 2000, Gibson et al. 2001). Although these observations are excellent probes for stars close to the position of the cloud, there are notable drawbacks to this method. Observations of Local Group dwarf spheroidals (dSphs) suggest that HI associations with dSphs are not necessarily coincident with the galaxies’ positions ( Carignan et al 1998, St-Germain et al. 1999, Blitz & Robishaw 2000) . Furthermore, although only CHVCs have been targeted in existing searches, Putman & Moore (2001) have shown that the CHVC distribution is not consistent with the predicted distribution of dark matter halos around the Milky Way and that other subsets of the HVC family possess properties more similar to those predicted for the halos.

The only existing large-area search for stellar counterparts used digitized POSS plates to examine one square degree areas around 264 clouds (Simon & Blitz 2002). Although their survey is sensitive to stellar associations throughout the Local Group, all 264 clouds were classified as non-detections. However, the survey used a nonuniform data set with a poorly characterized surface brightness limit that is no fainter than the known Local Group dwarf galaxies.

Substantial improvements in survey sensitivity and uniformity can be made using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). SDSS is a unique tool with which to search for stellar counterparts to HVCs, providing the means both to survey sufficiently large areas to detect displaced stars and to efficiently sample a large number of clouds. We are currently using SDSS data to conduct a survey for resolved low surface brightness satellites out to the Milky Way’s virial radius (Willman et al. 2002, hereafter Paper I). Our survey also provides a way to statistically investigate the possibility of stellar associations with the high-velocity clouds on very large scales. Our detection limits (calculated in Paper I) provide a template with which to interpret the results, whether positive or null, in a quantitative framework.

In this paper, we present an analysis of 325 square degrees of the SDSS Early Data Release (EDR; Stoughton et al. 2002) imaging database. This zero-declination strip contains 13 zero-declination HVCs, as cataloged by Putman et al. (2002). We briefly summarize our survey technique in §2.2, discuss the analysis of the SDSS Early Data Release in §2.3, use the analysis results and survey detection limits to constrain the stellar nature of the HVCs in §3, and discuss our findings in §4.

## 2. Our Survey for Galaxies Within $`R_{virial}`$

### 2.1. The SDSS Early Data Release

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (York et al. 2000) will eventually image nearly one-quarter of the sky. To date, roughly 460 deg2 of imaging data have been released to the general community in the Early Data Release (Stoughton et al. 2002). These imaging data are taken in drift-scan mode with a camera consisting of 30 2048x2048 CCDs (see Gunn et al. 1998) on a dedicated 2.5 m telescope at Apache Point Observatory. The sky is observed nearly simultaneously through 5 broad-band filters ($`u,g,r,i`$ and $`z`$, Fukugita et al. 1996) and the data are $`95\%`$ complete for stellar sources to limiting magnitudes of roughly 22.0, 22.2, 22.2, 21.3 and 20.5 respectively (Stoughton et al. 2002). As the SDSS photometric system is not yet finalized, the EDR magnitudes used in this paper will be denoted as $`u^{}`$,$`g^{}`$,$`r^{}`$,$`i^{}`$, and $`z^{}`$. The current system will differ absolutely from the final system by only a few percent in every band except for $`u`$, where it will differ by no more than $`10\%`$ (Stoughton et al. 2002). A combination of accurate astrometry (see Pier et al. 2002 for details on the astrometric calibration), color and morphological information produces robust star-galaxy separation to a limiting magnitude of r = 21.5 (Ivezić et al. 2000). See Hogg et al. (2001) for details on the photometric calibration of the data and Smith et al. (2002) for a description of the photometric system. Because we are looking for extragalactic objects, all magnitudes presented in this paper have been corrected for reddening due to Galactic extinction with the maps of Schlegel, Finkbeiner & Davis (1998).

### 2.2. Survey Technique

Our survey takes advantage of SDSS’s major strengths (large sky coverage, uniformity, depth, and accurate photometry in five bands) to uniformly probe for very low surface brightness (LSB) dwarf galaxies, based only on resolved stars. Paper I describes both our survey technique and detection limit calculations in detail, but we briefly summarize our method here.

SDSS’s faint photometric limits and robust star-galaxy separation are such that about a magnitude of a stellar population’s red giant branch can be resolved out to a distance of 350 kpc, roughly equivalent to the Milky Way’s virial radius. This allows us to identify candidate dwarf galaxies as spatial overdensities of resolved stars. We apply a red color cut to stellar sources brighter than r = 21.5. The color cut, in g \- r and r \- i, is designed to select stars whose colors are consistent with red giant branch colors. Although our cut does not uniquely distinguish red giant branch stars from foreground red main sequence stars, it does reduce the stellar foreground by $`75\%`$, increasing the contrast of extragalactic sources. We then consider bins in r magnitude, further reducing the foreground. Stars which pass the magnitude and color criteria are binned into a spatial density array, which is then smoothed with a circularly symmetric exponential filter with a scale length of either h=3 or 7. Candidates are automatically identified as 5.5 and 5$`\sigma `$ statistical overdensities (for the 3 and 7 filter, respectively), in the smoothed sky map. Each field of sky is analyzed multiple times, once for each $`r^{}`$ magnitude bin.

In Paper I, we calculated our detection limits for purely old stellar populations with a range of angular scale lengths ($`1^{}13^{}`$) and distances (23 - 350 kpc). Figure 5 in Paper I displays our survey’s detailed detection limits for the stellar foreground at $`\mathrm{}96^{},b60^{}`$. The surface brightness limits are a function of galaxy size and distance, and range between $`\mu _{V,0}26.7`$ and $`30.1`$ mag arcsec-1. (For comparison, Sextans is the lowest surface brightness Milky Way satellite, with $`\mu _{0,V}=26.2`$ (Mateo 1998).) Our detection efficiency rapidly drops off for small angular size ($`<2^{}`$) systems, and is insensitive to systems more distant than $``$ 350 kpc. The limits are not sensitive to seeing, because our technique uses only resolved stars brighter than the limit for robust star-galaxy separation.

### 2.3. Application of the Survey to the EDR

We have analyzed $``$ 325 square degrees of data in the SDSS EDR around zero declination between $`350^{}<\alpha _{2000}<50^{}`$ and $`147^{}<\alpha _{2000}<236^{}`$. This region of sky contains 10 HVCs, 2 :HVCs (a cloud that could not unambiguously be identified as a CHVC), and 1 CHVC as cataloged by Putman et al. (2002). We have chosen the Putman et al. catalog as a reference for the present analysis because it is the most uniform and high resolution HVC catalog currently available. Braun and Burton (1999) have also cataloged 1 CHVC in the zero-declination region covered by the EDR. The Braun and Burton CHVC is not coincident with the Putman CHVC, but rather is coincident with a Putman “:HVC” included in this analysis.

Our analysis produced 20 detections that we are currently investigating. It is difficult to say conclusively that these stellar detections are not associated with any particular HVC, because the gas and stars in low mass Local Group galaxies are not necessarily spatially coincident. However, we can show that the spatial displacements between the stellar detections and the HVCs are no different than we would expect for completely uncorrelated populations. To test this, in Figure 1 we show a comparison of the distances between the detections and their nearest HVC centers with the distances between randomly generated positions and their nearest HVC centers. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov test of these data shows that, statistically, none of the candidate detections are apt to be associated with any of the HVCs in the region. This suggests that any stellar population associated with the HVCs must have a surface brightness fainter than the limits of our survey.

## 3. Constraints on the Possible Stellar Content of the HVCs

We now couple our null detections with the survey’s detection limits to place quantitative limits on the stellar content of the HVCs, assuming they are located within our virial radius. As the detection limits vary with galaxy angular size and distance, we have selected two fiducial distances (50 and 300 kpc) and sizes (exponential scale lengths of 3’ and 7) for which to calculate the minimum HI mass-to-light ratios of the clouds. We did not simply use the semi-major axes of the HVCs’ 21 cm emission for the fiducial sizes because the radial extents of neutral hydrogen and stars within dwarf galaxies are often quite different (Young & Lo 1997, Salpeter & Hoffman 1996).

Table 1 displays both the HI and the constrained stellar properties of the 13 zero-declination HVCs covered in our analysis. Columns 1-5 of Table 1 contain the name, $`\alpha _{2000}`$ (in degrees), $`\delta _{2000}`$ (in degrees), peak $`N_{HI}`$ (in units of $`10^{20}cm^2`$) and semi-major axis (in degrees) for each cloud as published in Putman et al. (2002). Column 6 contains the assumed distance used to calculate: the semi-major axis in kpc (column 7); $`M_{HI}`$ (in units of $`10^5M_{}`$; column 8); and the optical detection limits for 3 and 7 sized systems (quantified as V-band central surface brightnesses of the old stellar population; columns 9 an 11). $`M_{HI}`$ was calculated using $`M(HI)=.236\times D_{kpc}^2S`$ (where S is the integrated line flux in Jy km sec-1 from Putman et al. (2002)). We have recalculated the detection limits from Paper I for a range of stellar foreground levels corresponding to the range of Galactic positions for the zero-declination HVCs.

To get a sense of how the amount of HI contained in these HVCs compares to that contained in known gas-rich dwarf galaxies, Figure 2 displays the HI masses of the zero-dec HVCs (for assumed distances of 50 and 300 kpc), the estimated HI masses of 9 gas-rich Local Group dSphs (Tucana – Oosterloo et al. 1996; Phoenix – St-Germain et al 1999; DDO 210, Leo I, LGS 3, Pegasus, Sextans, Sculptor – Blitz & Robishaw 2000; Antlia – Barnes & de Blok 2001), and the HI masses of the PSS-II LSB dwarf irregular (dIrr) sample of Schombert, McGaugh and Eder (2001). We would like to note that the published HI detections of a few of the Local Group dSphs are not definitive associations, so the plotted HI masses are upper limits. The 9 dSph HI detections in Figure 2 are either those that are conclusive associations or those that do not have conclusive evidence that shows otherwise.

From Figure 2, we see that the dIrr galaxies have much higher HI masses than the HVCs, and thus are not close analogs for a Local Group population of HVCs. In contrast, the HVCs could contain HI masses that correspond to the approximate HI masses of the gas-rich Local Group dSphs.

We calculate lower limits on the neutral hydrogen mass-to-light ratio ($`M_{HI}`$/$`L_V`$) of the HVCs (columns 10 and 12) using the limiting surface brightnesses from columns 9 and 11. Specifically, we calculate a lower limit on the $`M_{HI}/L_V`$ for all of these clouds with $`(.236\times S)/(10^6\times 100^{(M_V/51+M_{V,}/5)})`$, where we derive $`M_V`$ by integrating over an exponential galaxy profile normalized to the limiting central surface brightness. MHI and luminosity both scale as $`D^2`$, so the limiting $`M_{HI}`$/$`L_V`$ ratio is independent of cloud distance, aside from the dependence of $`\mu _{0,limit}`$ on distance.

Figure 3 displays a comparison between our lower limits to MHI/$`L_V`$ for zero-dec HVCs, the estimated MHI/$`L_V`$ of Local Group dSphs and the MHI/$`L_V`$ of the PSS-II dIrrs. The available PSS-II data is in the I-band, but we convert to the corresponding V-band measurement for an old stellar population by using $`<VI>0.75`$ for elliptical galaxies from Pildis et al. (1997).

The MHI/$`L_V`$ lower limits for the HVCs range from about 0.2 to 250. The calculated minimum $`M_{HI}/L_V`$ for many of the HVCs are similar to those of known gas-rich dwarf galaxies, despite our faint detection limits (i.e. they may not be particularly faint in the optical compared to their very low HI masses). Even so, Figure 3 shows that $`40\%`$ of the HVCs with assumed distances of 300 kpc have $`M_{HI}/L_V`$ greater than that of all known Local Group dSphs, and that 3/5 of that 40$`\%`$ also have $`M_{HI}/L_V`$ greater than the entire PSS-II dwarf sample. If shown to be within dark matter halos, these HVCs would be among the most gas rich self-gravitating galaxies observed to date.

## 4. Implications of Non-Detections

The import of a non-detection clearly depends on whether or not a cloud is closer than 350 kpc. If an HVC is more distant than 350 kpc, then we can place absolutely no constraints on its stellar content. It is possible that a fraction of the HVCs in our sample are indeed at large distances. Although upper distance limits from absorption line studies and observed head-tail morphologies would imply inner halo locations, we do not know of any such published analyses applied to any cloud in this sample (see Wakker 2001 for compendium of absorption line estimates; Brüns et al. 2000; Quilis & Moore 2001 ).

However, if one believes the many indirect estimates of HVC distances that place a large fraction of the clouds closer than several hundred kiloparsecs (Bland-Hawthorn & Maloney 1999, Weiner et al. 2001, Blitz et al. 1999, Quilis & Moore 2001), it is logical to expect at least some of these clouds to be within our virial radius.

As further evidence that at least some of the 13 clouds are nearby, surveys for HI clouds outside of the Local Group have failed to identify starless clouds with M $`>7\times 10^6M_{}`$ (Zwaan 2001, Zwaan & Briggs 2000). This observation suggests that the HVCs must either be sufficiently close that their HI masses fall below the Zwaan limit, or should host a stellar population detectable by existing Local Group surveys. If located beyond our virial radius, four of the 13 HVCs have masses that rival the Zwaan limit but do not appear to have a detectable stellar population. Therefore, it is quite likely at least all four of those clouds fall within our survey volume.

### 4.1. Stars as a Distance Determination Tool for HVCs

Clouds in our analysis closer than 350 kpc either have: i) no associated stars; ii) a stellar population fainter than our detection limits and a mass-to-light ratio, MHI/LV, higher than that given in Table 1; or iii) a stellar population with a very small angular scale length ($`<1^{}`$) but brighter than our given detection limits. For clouds that do contain stars, as in cases ii) and iii), most other survey methods would also not be able to efficiently uncover such faint or small populations. Pointed searches can probe deeper and to greater distances than large-scale surveys of resolved stars, but they are much less efficient and may have difficulty associating very small scale length systems with an HVC. Large-scale surveys based of resolved stars could reach fainter limits only with prohibitively deeper exposures, with a priori assumptions about the undetected stellar populations (Odenkirchen et al. 2001), or with surveys for very specific stellar types (e.g. Horizontal Branch and RR Lyrae; Yanny et al. 2000, Ivezić et al. 2000) that are only effective in the inner halo. Therefore, although our sample size is small, our detection limits are faint enough to conclude that stellar populations are unlikely to be an efficient or effective distance determination technique to HVCs within our virial radius. A large-scale survey for overdensities of diffuse light using more recent and uniform data (such as SDSS) than available for past surveys (Simon & Blitz 2002; Armandroff, Jacoby & Davies 1998; Dalcanton et al. 1997) holds promise for efficiently improving existing limits on the possible stellar content of HVCs located beyond our virial radius.

### 4.2. HVCs as “Missing” Galaxies

There is a substantial body of circumstantial evidence to support the theory that a subset of high-velocity clouds inhabit some of the numerous low mass dark matter halos predicted by the current paradigm of structure formation, yet notably missing from our observations of the Local Group of galaxies (Blitz et al. 1999, Braun & Burton 2000, among others). For example, Blitz and Robishaw (2002) show that the masses and HI morphologies of many HVCs are consistent with the HI associated with Local Group dSphs. Furthermore, low mass analogues to known extremely gas-rich LSB galaxies (McMahon et al. 1990; O’Neil, Bothun & Schombert 2000; Schombert, McGaugh & Eder 2001) may easily have gone undetected in past surveys for Local Group galaxies.

We can use existing evidence to evaluate the likelihood of a gas-rich dark matter halo occurring within our survey’s volume, and discuss the prospects for such halos to host stars. This will allow us to show that our non-detection of stars places few limits on missing galaxy explanations for the HVCs.

#### 4.2.1 Predictions From $`N`$-body Simulations

$`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM simulations predict $``$ 300 sub-halos within the virial radius of the Milky Way with masses greater than or equal to the least massive known Milky Way companions ($`v_c10`$ km sec-1, where $`v_c(GM/r)^{1/2}`$; Moore et al. 1999). The expected number of halos increases steeply with decreasing mass, so $``$ 200 more sub-halos are expected with 5 km sec$`{}_{}{}^{1}<v_c<10`$ km sec-1 (Moore et al. 1999), and perhaps yet more at smaller masses. Assuming a uniform distribution within the 325 square degree survey area, this translates to roughly 2-3 halos similar to those of known dwarf satellites, and a comparable number of lower mass halos. Thus, it is reasonable to expect a small number of low mass dark matter sub-halos within our survey volume in a $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology.

These low mass, dark matter halos may or may not contain a detectable amount of neutral hydrogen. Numerous physical arguments can be invoked to suggest that v$`{}_{c}{}^{}<30`$ km sec-1 halos (particularly those that contain stars) are unlikely to host neutral gas (Quinn, Katz & Efstathiou 1996; Bullock, Kravtsov, & Weinberg 2000; Ferrara & Tolstoy 2000). However, empirical evidence suggests that low mass halos can host both stars and gas. 3 of the Milky Way’s 9 dSphs (Leo I, Sculptor, and Sextans) potentially have HI associations (Blitz and Robishaw 2000). All 3 of these dSphs are less massive than $`v_c15`$ km sec-1 and closer than $``$ 250 kpc. The Sculptor detection is somewhat ambiguous because it is part of a larger cloud complex that may be mixed in with the Magellanic Stream (Putman 2000), and the Sextans detection is only a few sigma and has yet to be confirmed by other radio observations. These existing observations imply that $`1030\%`$ of Milky Way sub-halos are gas-rich. Of course, the true gas-rich fraction is complicated by several observational effects, including: halos that are gas-rich due to inefficient star formation may not have been detected in Local Group surveys, and the lowest mass halos will more easily be stripped of their gas by feedback and tidal forces. Despite these uncertainties, it is reasonable to expect no more than 2-3 of the 4-6 sub-halos expected in our survey volume to be detectable as HVCs, if any (assuming Poisson statistics). Thus, although it is possible that a dark matter bound cloud exists in our survey, the volume sampled is not yet large enough to make this a statistical certainty.

#### 4.2.2 Possible Stellar Content of Sub-Halos

As discussed in §4, any HI rich dark matter halo within our survey volume is either starless, contains a stellar population many times fainter than all known Milky Way satellites, or contains a very small scale length stellar population. According to Benson et al. (2002), an M$`{}_{V}{}^{}=7`$ ($`5\times `$ fainter than the faintest known Milky Way dSph) galaxy is expected to have a half-mass angular radius of 1.5’ at a distance of 300 kpc. Therefore, the prospect of a small angular scale length system much brighter than our detection limits seems unlikely. With our small sample, it is neither productive nor possible to further consider which of those three options would be the most likely for any of these 13 clouds, were they shown to inhabit a dark matter halo. Studies which directly probe for dark matter associated with the clouds, such as that suggested by Lewis et al. (2000), may ultimately be the best test of theories that place HVCs within dark matter halos, although our current sample is too small to say one way or the other.

It is quite possible that one/some of the predicted 2-6 gas-poor dark matter halos in the surveyed region do contain stars. We are currently investigating whether any of our 20 detections actually represent a new low luminosity dwarf galaxy.

## 5. Conclusion

We have used our non-detections of stars associated with 13 HVCs to place new constraints on their stellar content. We have shown that many of the 13 clouds have HI masses and (minimum) HI mass-to-light ratios similar to those of known dSphs, if the clouds are closer than 350 kpc. Also, 3 of the HVCs have minimum MHI/L that would place them among the most gas-rich galaxies, if shown to reside in a dark matter halo. Given our results, and those of Simon and Blitz (2002), stellar populations appear unlikely to be a promising distance determination technique for a large number of HVCs. However, the continued pursuit of stellar associations with HVCs is a worthwhile endeavor, as strong circumstantial evidence suggests that some fraction, however small, of the HVCs are likely to host a detectable low surface brightness (LSB) galaxy.

As there are only 1-3 known gas-rich Milky Way dSph satellites, the discovery of any nearby gas-rich stellar association would substantially increase the sample and provide insights into extremely low-mass galaxy evolution. We are currently pursuing the prospect that some of our 20 detections may actually be a new LSB HI poor Milky Way satellite.

As our present survey volume is too small to unquestionably contain any of the “missing” low mass, dark matter halos predicted by $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM cosmology, we cannot place limits on missing galaxy explanations for the HVCs. However, the analysis performed in this work will be applied to survey quality SDSS data as it becomes available, and then correlated with the current and future HVC catalogs of Putman et al. (HIPASS) and de Heij et al. (2002) (Leiden/Dwingeloo HI Survey). The completed Sloan Survey will cover $`125\times `$ more area than we have presented in this paper, guaranteeing that “missing” dark matter halos would be well represented in our survey volume (provided $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$CDM is correct). Our future analysis of the SDSS will enable us to apply the arguments presented here to hundreds of clouds, a sample large enough for us to do a concrete statistical assessment of their nature.

We would like to thank James Schombert for helping us access his dIrr catalogs, Mary Putman for pointing us toward her HVC catalog, and Christian Brüns for sending us a list of the HVCs he observed to have head-tail morphologies. Funding for the distribution and creation of the SDSS Archive has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Participating Institutions, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Japanese Monbukagakusho, and the Max Planck Society. The SDSS Web site is http://www.sdss.org/. The SDSS is managed by the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) for the Participating Institutions. The Participating Institutions are The University of Chicago, Fermilab, the Institute for Advanced Study, the Japan Participation Group, The Johns Hopkins University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA), the Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA), New Mexico State University, Princeton University, the United States Naval Observatory, and the University of Washington.


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# Kagomé spin ice

## I Introduction

Geometric frustration refers to the inability of a magnetic system to minimize its individual exchange interactions, as a simple consequence of the exchange geometry. For many years it was thought to be limited to antiferromagnets, with much research focusing on the kagomé and pyrochlore antiferromagnets, until a phase termed ‘spin ice’ was discovered by Harris and coworkers. In their system, which is based on the pyrochlore lattice, the large number of degenerate ground states that characterize frustrated magnetism is a consequence of particular Ising anisotropies and ferromagnetic nearest-neighbor exchange. Mapping the spin directions onto the disordered hydrogen bonds of Pauling’s cubic ice model, their system was shown to remain disordered even at T=0. However, if other terms are present, such as dipolar interactions a transition to long-range order has been found due to collective zero-energy flips of loops of spins. Despite the unique properties of pyrochlore spin ice, nothing is known about 2-dimensional (2-d) spin ice models or more generally about the properties of frustrated 2-d ferromagnetic systems. In contrast, the ice models were widely investigated in two dimensions, especially on a square lattice a version of which was solved exactly by Lieb.  Extensions and generalizations of the model and to other lattices soon followed.

In this article we examine the single layer kagomé ferromagnet with in-plane Ising anisotropies and identify a new spin ice system— kagomé spin ice. Using analytic and classical Monte Carlo calculations we demonstrate the massive groundstate degeneracy of this ice-like phase, which greatly exceeds that of the pyrochlore spin ice. Furthermore, we show how its degeneracy is raised by additional parameters in the Hamiltonian, namely second neighbor interactions or an applied magnetic field, and that these lead to the stabilization of a number of exotic magnetic phases.

## II The ice rules

These local conditions define whether a spin configuration lies within the ground state manifold. For the pyrochlore system, where the Ising axes point towards the centre of the basic tetrahedral motif, the ice rules are that 2 spins enter and 2 spins leave each tetrahedron. In the case of the 2-d kagomé lattice, where the Ising axes now point towards the centre of the triangular motif, the ice rules are that either 2 spins enter and one leaves each triangle, or the converse. Inspection quickly reveals that there are 6 possible ground state configurations associated with each triangular motif. These are demonstrated in Fig. 1a). Extension of the motifs in 2 dimensions shows that kagomé spin ice possesses an extensive degeneracy, the residual entropy of which is calculated in Section III.

## III Residual entropy à la Pauling

The residual entropy of cubic ice, and thus so of pyrochlore spin ice, has been evaluated by Pauling as $`S_p=\frac{Nk}{2}ln3/2`$. While this value is very close to the exact one evaluated numerically, we note that in fact Pauling’s estimation is that of a Bethe lattice of tetrahedra: starting from an arbitrarily chosen ‘central’ tetrahedron, 6 of the $`2^4=16`$ possible spin states correspond to spin ice configurations. As the 4 neighboring tetrahedra each have 1 spin fixed due to sharing with the central tetrahedron, they each have only 3 possible ice states, from a complete manifold of $`2^3=8`$ states. The same argument can then be used for all tetrahedra as one moves out through the Bethe lattice. Thus, among the 2$`^N`$possible states (N being the total number of sites), only a fraction $`\left(\frac{3}{8}\right)^{N_T}`$ (NT being the number of tetrahedra, i.e. NT = N/2) satisfy the ice rule on all tetrahedra, which leads to an entropy: $`S_p=kln(2^N\times \left(\frac{3}{8}\right)^{N_T})=\frac{Nk}{2}ln3/2`$. In the pyrochlore lattice, closed loops have to be taken into account: for one tetrahedron with 2 spins fixed by the neighboring tetrahedra, the number of acceptable ice states is either 1 or 2 (depending on the configuration of the 2 fixed spins), among 4 possible configurations for the 2 remaining spins; this leads again to an average reduction factor of $`\frac{3}{8}`$ , while if 3 spins are fixed this factor is larger: $`\frac{1}{2}`$. Thus for a lattice of tetrahedra, the number of ice states should be slightly larger than the Pauling value $`S_p`$, as has been found numerically $`S_n=1.01S_p`$.. As previously demonstrated for more general ice models , Pauling’s estimate is a lower bound on the exact value of the entropy.

The estimation of the residual entropy for a Bethe lattice of triangles (Fig. 1b) can be made following the same principles: for each triangle with 1 fixed spin, the number of ice states is equal to 3, while the number of possible states is $`2^2=4`$. Thus, if NT is now the number of triangles, the total number of ice states is $`2^N\times \left(\frac{3}{4}\right)^{N_T}`$, (with $`N_T=\frac{2N}{3}`$), leading to an entropy $`S_b=\frac{Nk}{3}ln9/2`$. If we again consider the effect of the closed loops present in the kagomé lattice (Fig. 1c), we find that if 2 spins are fixed for a given triangle, the number of acceptable states for the third spin is either 1 or 2, among 2 possible states. Assuming that the states with 2 spins fixed are equiprobable, an average factor $`\frac{3}{4}`$ is again obtained. Although this procedure ignores any correlations beyond the first neighbors, this simplified argument suggests that closed loops should not be expected to change that much the entropy in the kagomé lattice and the exact value should be very close to $`S_b`$. Our numerical estimations show clearly that this is the case. In fact this spin ice kagomé system can be mapped exactly on the Ising kagomé antiferromagnet, in a similar way as the pyrochlore system. Consequently, the value that we found for the entropy is the same that was found for disordered ground state of the AF Ising kagomé system.

## IV Monte Carlo calculations

Our classical simulations were made on a single kagomé plane of $`50\times 50`$ unit cells, each containing 3 spins of modulus $`S=1`$, i.e. 7 500 spins in total. The nearest- and second neighbor exchange integrals, $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$, were used to couple the spins according to the pathways shown in Fig. 1d. A Kirkpatrik cooling scheme was used with each step in temperature involving a reduction from $`T_1`$ to $`T_2`$ according to the equation $`T_2=0.9T_1`$. At each temperature 5 000 cycles site-1 were used for equilibration and 5 000 cycles site-1 for the calculation of the thermodynamic properties. The starting temperature for all the simulations was $`T=10|J_1|S^2`$. The spin maps presented are representative of the average over the Monte Carlo cycles performed at each temperature that are within the specified range.

The Hamiltonian can be defined as:

$$H=\underset{i,j<i}{}J_{ij}\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j+H_A\left(g\mu _B\right)\stackrel{}{H}\underset{i}{}\stackrel{}{S}_i$$
(1)
where the anisotropy term $`H_A`$ reads $`\underset{i}{}\kappa _i\left(\stackrel{}{S}_i\widehat{x}_i\right)^2`$. $`\kappa _i<0`$ is the single-ion anisotropy constant that forces the local spin $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ to align along the local axis $`\widehat{x}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{H}`$ is the applied field. In order to create Ising spins with the different local orientations shown in Fig. 1, the transverse spin fluctuations were completely frozen out, which corresponds to setting $`\kappa _i=\mathrm{}`$.

## V Thermodynamic properties and spin correlations of kagomé spin ice

The specific heat of kagomé spin ice shows a broad maximum at $`T/J_1S^2=1`$. Above this temperature, in the range $`1<T/J_1S^2<2`$, the slow approach of the magnetic entropy to its saturation level reveals the presence of significant short-ranged order correlations. The residual entropy of the spin ice state is clearly discernible in the magnetic entropy (Fig. 2) as the shortfall in the high temperature limit with respect to the $`ln2`$ expected for Ising spins as $`T\mathrm{}`$. If the limiting value of the integrated entropy is taken as $`0.1948(35)`$, we find that the residual entropy of the spin ice phase is $`S_{mag}(T=0)=S_{mag}(T=\mathrm{})_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{C}{T}𝑑T=ln20.1948=0.4982(35)`$, a value that is in good agreement with the residual entropy of $`S_b=\frac{1}{3}ln9/2=0.5014`$ calculated for the Bethe lattice.

As a contrast, the entropy of the antiferromagnetic system ($`J_1<0`$) with the same Ising anisotropies as the spin ice phase is also shown in Fig. 2. While a maximum in the specific heat is also seen at $`T_C=|J_1S^2|`$ (Fig. 2a), the magnetic entropy differs sharply from the kagomé spin ice in that it involves a recovery of the complete $`S=ln2`$ value expected for the formation of long-range order. The long-range order that results is the so-called q=0 spin structure familiar in kagomé antiferromagnets and is drawn in Fig. 3.

Equal time correlations $`<\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j>`$ between distant spins $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{S}_j`$, averaged over the Monte Carlo cycles at equilibrium, were computed at different temperatures. Fig. 4 show the thermal variations obtained for first and second spin neighbors. An increase in absolute values is observed as the temperature is decreased, down to $`T0.5|J_1|S^2`$ at which the correlations saturate.

The correlations at zero temperature in the spin ice phase are evaluated analytically for the Bethe lattice of triangles for all neighbors as $`<\stackrel{}{S}_i\stackrel{}{S}_j>_b=\left(\frac{1}{3}\right)^m\mathrm{cos}\theta _{ij}`$, where $`m`$ is the number of bonds that form the path joining the spins $`\stackrel{}{S}_i`$ and $`\stackrel{}{S}_j`$, and $`\theta _{ij}`$ is the angle difference $`\theta _j\theta _i`$ between the orientations of the local anisotropy axes $`\widehat{x}_i`$ and $`\widehat{x}_j`$ for these spins. Numerical values for different neighbors $`\stackrel{}{S_\beta }`$, $`\stackrel{}{S_\gamma }`$, … of a given spin $`\stackrel{}{S_\alpha }`$ as specified in Fig. 5 are reported in Table I, and compared to the correlations for corresponding neighbors in the kagomé lattice, that were computed at the lowest temperature ($`T0.0004J_1S^2`$) of the Monte Carlo simulations. Agreement is remarkable, except for the $`\stackrel{}{S_\alpha }\stackrel{}{S_\delta }`$ spin pairs. This is to be expected as in the kagomé lattice these neighbors belong to the same hexagon and are thus connected by two paths with exactly the same number of bonds, which leads to correlations that are larger by a factor of $`2`$. In a similar way the other distant spins in the kagomé lattice, such as the second neighbors, are also not connected by only one path, however as these other paths have a larger number of bonds and the concomitant corrections decay as a power law in the number of bonds, they give rise to only minor adjustments.

## VI Antiferromagnetic second neighbor interactions

These were examined with the values of $`J_2/J_1`$ = -0.4, -0.2 and -0.1. In all cases 3 features are seen in the specific heat (Fig. 6). The first at $`TJ_1S^2`$ involves the formation of short-ranged spin ice-type correlations. Below this temperature, at $`T1.5|J_2|S^2`$, the additional antiferromagnetic exchange stabilizes a partially ordered structure that is made up of a triangular motif of clockwise and counter-clockwise hexagons of spins (Fig. 7a). The mean magnitude of the moments on the sublattice that separate these hexagons is zero. The reason for some of the sites failing to order is made clear from examination of the lowest maximum at $`T|J_2|S^2`$: this involves the formation of an ordered magnetic structure which has a unit cell that is $`3\times `$ larger along each of the axes than the paramagnetic cell (Fig. 7b). The complexity of this structure is evidenced from the 2 types of hexagon: the clockwise hexagons (and the time-reversed counter-clockwise) are separated by those that have 3 pairs of parallel spins. As the latter involve adjacent spins with antiferromagnetic 120 orientations this ground state configuration is frustrated. Re-examination of the intermediate phase ($`|J_2|S^2<T<1.5|J_2|S^2`$) shows that the fluctuations have selectively annulled the mean moment on sites that would otherwise frustrate the lattice.

As $`J_2/J_1`$ is increased, the intermediate phase becomes stable over a wider temperature range; when $`J_2/J_1=0.4`$ this phase occurs at temperatures from 0.4$`J_1S^2`$ to 0.6$`J_1S^2`$.

## VII Ferromagnetic second neighbor interactions

As the lattice of second neighbors is also a kagomé lattice, ferromagnetic $`J_2`$ still result in a highly frustrated spin system and if the moments related by $`J_1`$ and $`J_2`$ are of uniform magnitude 1/3 of the moments lie on sites of zero mean-field (Fig. 8). It is not surprising, therefore, that extensive fluctuations are still present at the lowest temperatures for all the values of $`J_2>0`$ studied ($`J_2/J_1=`$ 0.4, 0.2, and 0.1), in sharp contrast with the ground state when $`J_2<0`$. If these second neighbor interactions present a minor contribution to the Hamiltonian, e.g. $`J_2/J_1=0.1`$, short-ranged ice-like correlations still form and these give rise to a broad feature in the specific heat at $`TJ_1S^2`$ (Fig. 9). However, in contrast with the $`J_2<0`$ phases, only one maximum is seen at lower temperature, $`TJ_2S^2`$. Remarkably, this is not associated with a phase transition and no long-range order is seen down to the lowest temperature: only a tendency is observed that involves the condensation of a partially ordered phase with the propagation vector k=(0 0) and a non-zero ferromagnetic component (Fig. 8). These correlations are strongest when $`J_2`$ is weakest. As $`J_2`$ increases, this tendency dwindles out and the two maxima in the specific heat merge. What remains are strongly fluctuating phases with correlations that are less and less reminiscent of the partially ordered phase.

## VIII Effects of magnetic field

The effects of an externally applied magnetic field on the spin ice phase were studied with fields of up to 0.269 $`J_1S`$ applied along the characteristic directions of the kagomé lattice, i.e. $`𝐚`$ and $`𝐚^{}`$ (Fig. 10). These calculations were made at a temperature of 0.025 $`J_1S^2`$ after the system had beencooled in zero applied field.

With the field parallel to the $`𝐚`$ direction a continuous increase in an ordered component is observed. Notably, it involves only 2/3 of the sites (Fig. 10a). This demonstrates another point of similarity between the 2-d kagomé spin ice system and that of the closely related 3-d pyrochlore lattice: the spin components induced by a field along some of the crystallographic directions are incapable of choosing a unique ground state and significant degeneracy is retained. A common result is the formation of only partially-ordered spin configurations.

With the field parallel to the $`𝐚^{}`$ direction a continuous increase of order with the k=(0 0) structure (Fig. 10b) is again found. Trivially we find that the ordering is preferential for the sites with their local anisotropy parallel to the field direction. The ordered component of all the sites saturates in a field of 0.054 $`J_1S`$.

Inspection of the high-field ordered structures suggests that even an infinitesimal field applied along either of the characteristic directions would induce an ordered component. It is therefore a surprise that the initial dependence of the reduced magnetization on the field is not sharper. Our simulations show that this weaker dependence is a result of thermal fluctuations, rather than being a consequence of the finite lattice size. This is demonstrated by the collapse of the reduced magnetization as a function of the Zeeman energy divided by the thermal energy, onto the same curve at all temperatures studied (see Fig. 11 and Fig. 12).

## IX Discussion

The thermodynamic properties of kagomé spin ice, and those of phases in the presence of second neighbor interactions and applied fields, manifest clearly the richness of frustrated physics once thought to be the domain only of antiferromagnets. In particular, the importance of spin fluctuations is central and their presence leads to the stabilization of a variety of magnetic structures with both disordered and ordered sublattices. While such partially ordered phases have already found to be stable in frustrated lattices when the local moments are close to an instability or in systems with contrived further-neighbor exchange, here they are stable with well defined magnetic moments and are a simple consequence of the strong frustration associated with uniaxial anisotropy. In real systems additional terms such as quantum fluctuations and dipolar interactions will be present in the Hamiltonian. While further work is required to determine how these will alter the spin ice phase and the partially ordered phases presented here, these effects have already been shown to be strongly influential on their low-temperature physics. A review of how Ising models are influenced by the introduction of quantum dynamics that arise from the inclusion of an $`XY`$ exchange component is presented in Ref. . An interesting limit for their inclusion is the $`XY`$ antiferromagnetic on a pyrochlore lattice model presented by Champion et al., in which spin-wave analysis indicated that zero-point quantum fluctuations stabilize the formation of an ordered moment from the a highly degenerate continuous manifold.

The observation that the ordered Néel state proposed for the vanadium jarosite $`(\mathrm{H}_3\mathrm{O})\mathrm{V}_3(\mathrm{SO}_4)_2(\mathrm{OH})_6`$ is a highly symmetric member of the spin-ice manifold suggests that spin ice-like correlations will be present above, but close to, its ordering temperature. The system is clearly not a true realization of kagomé spin ice as the presence of a transition to Néel order requires that either additional terms in the exchange Hamiltonian that we have not considered here have raised the degeneracy of the ice-like manifold, or that the single-ion anisotropies it possesses are of a magnitude that quantum fluctuations are important. Unfortunately, the single-ion terms in the jarosite are difficult to estimate because the relative contributions of axial $`(DS_z^2)`$ and rhombic $`(E(S_x^2S_y^2))`$ terms determined from magnetic susceptibility data taken from $`\mathrm{KGa}_{2.96}\mathrm{V}_{0.04}(\mathrm{SO}_4)_2(\mathrm{OH})_6`$ are ambiguous, as other pairs $`(D,E)`$ parameters may fit them equally well. It is still, however, reasonable that the short-range correlations present above the ordering temperature will be characteristic of the most important terms in the Hamiltonian, and thus of the spin ice phase.

In conclusion, we have presented a new model of localized highly frustrated ferromagnetism: kagomé spin ice. If residual entropy is used as a measure of frustration, our analytical and numerical calculations demonstrate that kagomé spin ice is more highly frustrated than the 3-d counterpart, pyrochlore spin ice. It is therefore the most highly geometrically frustrated “ferromagnetic” ground state yet studied. Furthermore, second neighbor interactions within the kagomé plane are shown to have the salient effect of stabilizing structures that feature both ordered and disordered sublattices.